A01=Charles Siewert
Ambiguity
Appearance and Reality
Argument from analogy
Asymmetry
Author_Charles Siewert
Axiom
Begging the question
Case study
Category=QDH
Category=QDTM
Causality
Circular reasoning
Concept
Conscience
Consciousness
Contingency (philosophy)
Counterexample
Critique
Delusion
Depth perception
Direct and indirect realism
Discernment
Disposition
Dream
Eliminative materialism
Emergence
Empiricism
Epiphenomenalism
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eq_isMigrated=2
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Existence
Explanation
Explanatory power
Externalism
Falsity
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
Hallucination
Hedonism
Holism
Hypothesis
Identity (philosophy)
Imagination
Individuation
Inductive reasoning
Inference
Inquiry
Intelligibility (philosophy)
Intentionality
Journal of Consciousness Studies
Knowledge argument
Lightness (philosophy)
Materialism
Mental event
Mental image
Mental operations
Mental representation
Metaphor
Metaphysical necessity
Narrative
Objectivity (philosophy)
Ontology
Optical illusion
Panpsychism
Paradox
Perception
Personhood
Phenomenology of Perception
Phenomenon
Philosopher
Philosophical skepticism
Philosophy of mind
Platitude
Polemic
Precedent
Precognition
Prediction
Premise
Privileged access
Problem of other minds
Propositional attitude
Qualia
Reality
Reason
Self-consciousness
Self-knowledge (psychology)
Sentimentality
Sophistication
Subjectivism
Subjectivity
Suggestion
Suggestive question
Symptom
The Nature of Mind
Theory
Theory of Forms
Theory of mind
Thought
Train of thought
Truism
Verificationism
Verisimilitude
Product details
- ISBN 9780691027241
- Weight: 680g
- Dimensions: 197 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 16 Aug 1998
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Charles Siewert presents a distinctive approach to consciousness that emphasizes our first-person knowledge of experience and argues that we should grant consciousness, understood in this way, a central place in our conception of mind and intentionality. Written in an engaging manner that makes its recently controversial topic accessible to the thoughtful general reader, this book challenges theories that equate consciousness with a functional role or with the mere availability of sensory information to cognitive capacities. Siewert argues that the notion of phenomenal consciousness, slighted in some recent theories, can be made evident by noting our reliance on first-person knowledge and by considering, from the subject's point of view, the difference between having and lacking certain kinds of experience. This contrast is clarified by careful attention to cases, both actual and hypothetical, indicated by research on brain-damaged patients' ability to discriminate visually without conscious visual experience--what has become known as "blindsight." In addition, Siewert convincingly defends such approaches against objections that they make an illegitimate appeal to "introspection."
Experiences that are conscious in Siewert's sense differ from each other in ways that only what is conscious can--in phenomenal character--and having this character gives them intentionality. In Siewert's view, consciousness is involved not only in the intentionality of sense experience and imagery, but in that of nonimagistic ways of thinking as well. Consciousness is pervasively bound up with intelligent perception and conceptual thought: it is not mere sensation or "raw feel." Having thus understood consciousness, we can better recognize how, for many of us, it possesses such deep intrinsic value that life without it would be little or no better than death.
Charles Siewert is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami.
