Consciousness Reconsidered

by Owen J. Flanagan

Consciousness is neither miraculous nor ultimately mysterious. In this broad, entertaining, and persuasive account Owen Flanagan argues that we are on the way to understanding consciousness and its place in the natural order. No aspect of consciousness escapes Flanagan's probe. Qualia, self-consciousness, autobiographical memory, perceptions, sensations, the stream of consciousness, disorders such as blindsight, various kinds of amnesia, and multiple personality all find a place in a constructive theory that brings into reflective equilibrium insights from a wide array of disciplines to reveal the deep, rich, and complex hidden structure of consciousness.Flanagan roams freely through a variety of scientific and philosophical domains, showing how it is possible to understand human consciousness in a way that gives its subjective, phenomenal aspects their full due while at the same time taking into account the neural bases of subjectivity. The result is a powerful synthetic theory of consciousness, a "constructive naturalism," according to which subjective consciousness is real, plays an important causal role, and resides in the brain.Flanagan draws the reader into a world of exciting current debates among such philosophers as Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennett, Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, and Colin McGinn, and he makes this world accessible. He masterfully weaves the latest insights from theory and research in cognitive neuroscience, neural darwinism, connectionist brain architecture, and PET scanners to reveal clear links between events that "seem a certain way" and underlying neural activity. William James's famous phenomenological analysis of consciousness and neurologically impaired characters from the writings of Oliver Sacks and A.R. Luria join the narrative, providing valuable insights into important current controversies on the relation of consciousness to self.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Neuroscience

252 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 1992

About the author

Owen Flanagan, Ph.D. (born 1949) is the James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Neurobiology at Duke University. Flanagan has done work in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, ethics, contemporary ethical theory, moral psychology, as well as Buddhist and Hindu conceptions of the self.

Flanagan earned his Ph.D from Boston University and his Bachelor of arts degree from Fordham University.

Flanagan has written extensively on consciousness. He has been realistic about the difficulty of consciousness as a scientific and philosophical problem, but optimistic about the chance of solving the problem. One of the problems in a study of consciousness is the hidden way in which conscious states are dependent on brain states. Flanagan has proposed that there is a "natural method" to go about understanding consciousness that involves creating a science of mind. Three key elements of this developing science are: 1) paying attention to subjective reports on conscious experiences, 2) incorporating the results from psychology and cognitive science, and 3) including the results from neuroscience that will reveal how neuronal systems produce consciousness.

Flanagan is currently on the Editorial Board of Greater Good Magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley. Flanagan's contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Fla...

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, this book was weak. My criticisms range from OF continually question-begging on the critical points, ala the Churchlands (look at how many neurons there are...come on...that's enough to explain consciousness!) to his often muddled, sometimes contradictory position on specific points.

OF's central thesis is that a combination of neuroscience and phenomenology makes consciousness FULLY transparent and ENTIRELY explainable.

Yet, OF goes on to claim that to demand a FULL explanation of consciousness is just too tough a standard, and if that is what we required, we would not get very far.

Also, in reference to the knowledge argument against materialism (aka the neuroscientist Mary argument), OF admits that once out of her colorless room and exposed to the color red, Mary would indeed know more than she did before. However, he says that this is because experiential information cannot be ENTIRELY explained in the language of the natural sciences.

So...we have the potential for a robust scientific understanding of mind that is partially unexplainable in scientific terms? Oh, and we have the potential for a full understanding of the subject so long as we don't really mean full understanding?

These colloquial replies to this book are just a few of the sties in the eyes of at least one reader. There are some useful aspects of this book, but I suggest that it is too much to wade through the rest of the book to get to these aspects.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE PHILOSOPHER/NEUROBIOLOGIST EXPOUNDS "CONSTRUCTIVE NATURALISM"

Owen Flanagan (born 1949) is Professor of Philosophy and Neurobiology at Duke University; he has also written other books such as 'The Problem Of The Soul: Two Visions Of Mind And How To Reconcile Them,' 'The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1992 book, "Naturalism is the view that the mind-brain relation is a natural one. Mental processes just are brain processes... But there is a gnawing suspicion that the picture of persons as sophisticated information processors leaves something out. And indeed, it does. We are CONSCIOUS CREATURES... Our mental life has a phenomenal side, a subjective side, that the most sophisticated information processor might lack. Whereas the brain seems suited to processing information, it is harder to imagine the brain's giving rise to consciousness. The very idea of consciousness materializing... is puzzling. The rich phenomenology of the conscious stream and complex neural activity appear to belong to two entirely different orders: the subjective and the objective. This book is an attempt to make less puzzling the idea that consciousness is a natural phenomenon." (Pg. xi)

He says in the first chapter, "There are several main philosophical positions on the problem of consciousness... Finally, there is constructive naturalism. This is the position I aim to defend... I think that naturalism is true... I maintain that there is reason for optimism about our ability to understand the relation between consciousness and the brain. We can make intelligible the existence of consciousness in the natural world." (Pg. 2) He adds, "Consciousness IS essentially involved in being intelligent and purposeful in the way(s) in which we are... I take the nature and function of conscious mental events and the action they figure in as fundamental. For this reason I favor a form of functionalism that analyzes input-output relations in terms of the processes that mediate and subserve them in the normal biological cases, not in any possible cases whatsoever." (Pg. 6) He also adds, "The theory of consciousness I favor is a neurophilosophical one, so it will be good if I can have the eminent neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland in my camp." (Pg. 26)

He asserts, "Naturalism can explain why only you can capture what it is like to be you. Only your sensory receptors and brain are properly hooked up to each other and to the rest of you so that what is received at those receptors accrues to you as your experiences. That consciousness exists at all is amazing. But given that it does, Dewey is right that 'there is no mystery with its being connected with what it is connected with.'" (Pg. 94)

He says in the final chapter, "There must be truths about consciousness, since consciousness exists, is a natural phenomena, and is in need of explanation. So there can be a theory of consciousness. What sort of unity the theory will possess and what interrelations it will have to other theories within the overall science of the mind we do not yet know." (Pg. 220) He concludes, "the task is... to sketch a naturalistic theory of consciousness consistent with our natures as biological creatures with nervous systems of a certain kind. There are possible creatures that are identical to us at the level of observable input-output relations but that lack inner lives altogether. We are not like this. Consciousness is essential to human nature and to the human mind." (Pg. 221)

This book is of considerable interest for anyone seriously studying the philosophy of mind, or cognitive neuroscience.

[Keerthi Vasishta]

Flannagan argues that the best way to construct a theory of consiousness is to take a constructivist, naturalist method. He summarises theoretical advances in stimuli-related activity and neurological processes to the time of his writing. He then puts forth the value of phenomenology to understand the gaps left by straightforward neurological cause-effect explanations. Correlation is not causation he reminds the reader. The second part of the book, explores the theories of stream of consciousness and the location of the self in that framework. The self is narrativised and constructed, not something given to a person in nature- Flannagan argues. The self is a fiction to him but the fiction is valuable. Although consiousness could be parallel, a stream or a combination of many variables of the two, Flannagan contends that consiousness exists as a thing to be understood, even if what that understanding is will alter the explanation of consiousness as a term. He essentially makes a clever linguistic distinction between the self and consiousness, the phenomenological questions and the naturalist ones.
I am on board with much of what he says, I return to the question of the constructed self and its mystery. It is incredibly explicable but is experientially complex to the point of inexplicability. The self and consciousness of the self cannot be reduced to causation-related discussions because that negates experience. But the value in constructing a theory of cause-effect is of immense value in neurological and psychopathological terms. I'd love for the self to be de-mystified. For now, we are are as far as we ever were. Although, if consiousness were a conglomerate of different neural networks in different parts of the brain powered by trillions of receptors, we're only wiring technology away from a replicable of artificial consiousness. AI then can move from language-based Machine learning to functioning mechanical beings. But at that point, one wonders why even bother? Aren't human beings bad enough to regulate and control?
Moreover, we may get closer to answering how are bodies work and further from why do they work at all? Which in all honesty is the pop-pathology best-selling formula and the real millenia-old philosophical question....