Product Description

With fifty–five peer reviewed chapters written by the leading authors in the field, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness is the most extensive and comprehensive survey of the study of consciousness available today.

• Provides a variety of philosophical and scientific perspectives that create a breadth of understanding of the topic
  
• Topics include the origins and extent of consciousness, different consciousness experiences, such as meditation and drug–induced states, and the neuroscience of consciousness

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88117 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 768 pages

Review
“This outstanding collection of new essays, many by major figures, covers virtually every important topic in current research on consciousness, often in illuminating depth. Nobody interested in current thinking about consciousness will want to be without this volume.”
David M. Rosenthal, City University of New York, Graduate Center

“The list of contributors reads like a roll–call of the best modern studies of consciousness: they have contributed some of the best philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of consciousness. The chapters of this companion show that consciousness has moved on from being a set of interesting problems towards being a topic of systematic, interdisciplinary scientific investigation.”
Patrick Haggard, University College London

“An absolutely indispensable resource for anyone interested in the study of consciousness. The major philosophical positions and controversies and all the latest scientific research are surveyed in 55 accessible, yet in–depth, essays.”
Robert Kane, University of Texas at Austin

"This is an outstanding book that anyone interested in consciousness really needs to read and absorb."
The Psychologist

"A valuable record of some of the best contempory thinking on consciousness."
The Journal of Consciousness Studies

From the Back Cover
The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness is the most thorough and comprehensive survey of contemporary scientific research and philosophical thought on consciousness currently available. Its 55 newly commissioned, peer–reviewed chapters combine state–of–the–art surveys with cutting–edge research. Taken as a whole, these essays by leading lights in the philosophy and science of consciousness create an engaging dialogue and unparalleled source of information regarding this most fascinating and mysterious subject.

About the Author
Max Velmans has a Personal Chair in Psychology at the University of London and is currently Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths College. He has around 80 publications on consciousness including Understanding Consciousness (2000), which was shortlisted for the British Psychological Society book of the year award in 2001 and 2002. Other publications include The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological and Clinical Reviews (1996), Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: New Methodologies and Maps (2000), and How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains? (2003). He was a co–founder and, from 2004 to 2006, Chair of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society.

Susan Schneider is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. She focuses on issues involving the philosophy of cognitive science and, in particular, the plausibility of computational theories of mind and theoretical issues in artificial intelligence. She also has authored numerous articles in metaphysics.

Editorial Board:
Science of Consciousness: Jeffrey Gray, John Kihlstrom, Phil Merikle, Stevan Harnad
Philosophy of Consciousness: Ned Block, David Chalmers, José Bermúdez, Brian McLaughlin, George Graham

Customer Reviews

A good and up to date companion
This is probably the best anthology I've seen in this area. The Consciousness literature has gone from being tiny to massive if little more than fifteen years or so; to the point it is getting difficult to find a way in.

This book has commissioned some new essays by some of the stars of the field and seems to have a fairly complete coverage even of some of the less well-known areas such as the contributions of philosophical psychopathology and machine consciousness. I'll definitely be using it for background as a resource for my courses, and think it is a good alternative to an 'introduction' for university students doing a courses on consciousness.

That said the casual reader might find this a little difficult to navigate and might do better with one of the more approachable single author volumes like Blackmore's introduction, Vellmans own introductory book (although both of these are idiosynchratic) or for the more ambitious Dennett's Consciousness Explained or Metzinger's Being No-One (although this latter is hard).

This book is certainly "a good companion" for the student of consciousness studies and the new essays treatment also offers something to the professional. It would also certainly be possible to build a course round its contents. For the general interest reader interested in getting acquainted with the field perhaps a more concise single author volume might be more appropriate.

Coherent Compendium
Whilst I confess I haven't finished reading it yet (725 pages excluding appendix and index) it is clear that this is a good 'companion'.
It certainly isn't an introduction for those new to the subject, and it does come with all the benefits (varied perspectives) and problems (different styles) of being a collection by multiple authors.
Why it is so good is that it isn't a selection of seemingly random papers by people with something interesting to say, but a well structured, no messing, clearly written and up-to-date exploration of the subject.
What's more, you get both a philosophical and a scientific slant - vital in my view given the current state of play.

Useful and wide ranging
The best feature of this companion is the wide range of topics discussed and the many points of view included. It treats, even if in many cases only marginally or superficially, a great many of the important topics on consciousness. Together with its references, it is certainly a recommendable place to start, but by no means is it a definitive survey, not only because there is no definitive text available, owing to the state of our knowledge on consciousness, but more precisely because many of the essays which treat important areas are inconclusive, vague or treat only marginally important areas of the topic. There are some very clear and systematic essays, which clarify many of the muddy points in this complex subject area. I found David Fontana's 2 essays on "Meditation" and on "Mystical Experience" well done, John Searle's essay on Biological Naturalism, full of clarity and down-to-earthness,and the very clear discussion of "Sensory and Perceptual Consciousness" by Austen Clark to be recommendable. It definitely is deficient on the philosophy of consciousness, probably treated better in the Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Mind. Recommended as a start however. A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)