Consciousness

Description

This book presents a comprehensive theory of consciousness. The initial chapter distinguishes six main forms of consciousness and sketches an account of each one. Later chapters focus on phenomenal consciousness, consciousness of, and introspective consciousness. In discussing phenomenal consciousness, Hill develops the representational theory of mind in new directions, arguing that all awareness involves representations, even awareness of qualitative states like pain. He then uses this view to undercut dualistic accounts of qualitative states. Other topics include visual awareness, visual appearances, emotional qualia, and meta-cognitive processing. This important work will interest a wide readership of students and scholars in philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

Christopher S. Hill is Professor in Philosophy at Brown University. His past publications include Sensations (Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Thought and World (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

'This rich and sophisticated book offers the best representational theory of consciousness to date. It illuminates difficult philosophical concepts (e.g. qualia) and builds new bridges between philosophy and important empirical work. The book is essential reading for everyone interested in mind and consciousness.' Anil Gupta, University of Pittsburgh 'Consciousness is well-written, has lots of arguments in it, covers the right areas, has a distinctive position and perspective, and provides a plausible and comprehensive theory of conscious experience. It surveys a wide range of empirical results, but without losing the philosophical focus. I learned a great deal from reading it.' Joseph Levine, University of Massachusetts '... the entire account Hill provides of conscious experience ... is impressive and it certainly presents a satisfying and, in many ways, illuminating story of how conscious experience fits into the natural world.' Mind 'Christopher Hill's Consciousness is a valuable contribution to the philosophical literature on consciousness. There are many admirable features of this book. On the whole, I definitely recommend [it] to anybody seriously interested in what a unified Representationalist account of awareness which is sensitive to empirical findings in vision science and neuroscience may look like. This is a very rare opportunity, so it cannot be ignored by anybody worried about a promising strategy for naturalizing the mind.' Erhan Demircioglu, Erkenntnis