Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind

by Jack Symes (Series Editor)

We know, more intimately than anything else, what it's like to undergo a rich world of agonizing pains, dizzying pleasures, heady rage and existential doubts. But, despite the incredible advances of physical science, it seems that we're no closer to an explanation of how this inner world of experiences comes about. No matter how detailed our description of the physical brain, perhaps we'll always be left with this same how and why does the brain produce consciousness?

This book is a short, accessible and engaging guide to the mystery of consciousness. Featuring remastered interviews and original essays from the world's leading thinkers, Philosophers on Consciousness sheds new light on the most promising theories in philosophy and science. Beyond understanding the mind, this is a journey into personal identity, the origin of meaning, the nature of morality and the fundamental structure of reality.

Contributors Miri Albahari, Susan Blackmore, David Chalmers, Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Keith Frankish, Philip Goff, Frank Jackson, Casey Logue, Gregory Miller, Michelle Montague, Massimo Pigliucci and Galen Strawson.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

Published February 10, 2022

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been fascinated by the philosophy of mind for about 30 years and I must've read 20-odd books about it. About 5 years ago, I decided I needed to take a serious look and signed up to do a degree in philosophy. By an accident of fate, I discovered a problem in my brain at around the time which motivated me to read a whole bunch of neuroscience too.

Symes' book provides a wonderful survey of contemporary philosophical opinions about consciousness. Each chapter is an interview with a different philosopher and Symes does a great job of getting to the bottom of what they believe in just a few pages. I needn't have read all those books before — it's all in here: from panpsychists to materialists; from dualists to materialists.

If I have one small complaint, it's that Symes sometimes lets the current interviewee misrepresent the previous ones. For example, he got Dennett to go into great detail about his position but then allowed the next three philosophers to completely make up crap that misrepresented Dennett's beliefs.

Several of the philosophers made the point that until philosophers have a good understanding of the findings of neuroscience, they are wasting their time. Some of their ideas seem to come from cloud cuckoo land.

What I have learned is that philosophers of mind are mostly off their rockers and have nothing to contribute to the understanding of how the brain works or how it relates to the mind and consciousness. That understanding will come from cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. Still, I am glad I read Symes' book. I can put the whole issue to rest now and study something else.

FWIW Here's my understanding:

Brains build models of what is going on in the world. They update their models from their sense organs and they use their models to make decisions and initiate actions. These brain processes constitute our minds. There is no mystery about the relationship between minds and brains: mind is what the brain does. Our minds introspect their models of the world and we experience the resulting awareness as consciousness.

There's still a lot to be figured out about brains, minds and consciousness but it will not, IMO, be figured out by philosophers.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good introduction to the philosophy of consciousness with contributions from many of the big players. Some concepts were explained better than others (I had no idea what they were talking about in the last chapter) and Symes' side notes and commentary were a bit hit-and-miss for me personally, but, on the whole, the volume was very accessible and fun to read. Symes has done a great job putting this together. I’d definitely recommend.

[Arpit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an enjoyable and concise introduction to several approaches to understand consciousness (viz. illusionism, panpsychist materialism and panpsychist idealism etc.) in the form of articles by or interviews of prominent philosophers of mind (Chalmers, Dennett, Goff and Frankish etc.).

The sharp criticism some of the philosophers have of each other (especially the heated conflict between Dennett and Strawson) adds to the fun, to be honest. And, I appreciate the curated list of sources for further reading that accompanies each chapter.

I must note that I found the chapters of Pigliucci and Churchland quite disappointing, because it seems to me that they couldn't really understand other philosophers' ideas and thus responded to a misunderstanding of them.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
I think my conclusion is that philosophy is a bit nonsense for some of these matters and this is one of them. The first few are dull, but the more sciency ones are interesting