Overview

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought (HOT) that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications.

Full Product Details

Author:   David Rosenthal (Graduate Center, City University of New York)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Clarendon Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 2.90cm , Length: 24.20cm
Weight:   0.749kg
ISBN:  

9780198236979

ISBN 10:   0198236972
Pages:   392
Publication Date:   17 November 2005
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction I. Explaining Consciousness 1: Two Concepts of Consciousness 2: Thinking that One Thinks 3: Intentionality 4: Introspection and Self-Interpretation II. Qualitative Consciousness and Homomorphism Theory 5: The Independence of Consciousness and Sensory Quality 6: Sensory Quality and the Relocation Story 7: Sensory Qualities, Consciousness, and Perception III. Consciousness, Expression, and Interpretation 8: First-Person Operationalism and Mental Taxonomy 9: Moore's Paradox and Consciousness 10: Why Are Verbally Expressed Thoughts Conscious? 11: Consciousness and its Expression 12: Content, Intepretation, and Consciousness IV. Self-Consciousness 13: Unity of Consciousness and the Self Select Bilbiography Index

Reviews

David Rosenthal's Consciousness and Mind presents us with the most plausible higher-order representationalist account in the market. The book is engaging and very clearly written. * Dimitris Platchias, University of Glasgow *

David Rosenthal's Consciousness and Mind presents us with the most plausible higher-order representationalist account in the market. The book is engaging and very clearly written. Dimitris Platchias, University of Glasgow

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