Consciousness Explained - Softcover

Daniel C. Dennett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316180661 ISBN 13: 9780316180665

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 1992

Synopsis

Daniel Dennett's "brilliant" exploration of human consciousness — named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times — is a masterpiece beloved by both scientific experts and general readers (New York Times Book Review). 

Consciousness Explained is a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life — of people, animal, even robots — are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book.

"Dennett is a witty and gifted scientific raconteur, and the book is full of fascinating information about humans, animals, and machines. The result is highly digestible and a useful tour of the field." —Wall Street Journal

About this title

Review

Consciousness is notoriously difficult to explain. On one hand, there are facts about conscious experience--the way clarinets sound, the way lemonade tastes--that we know subjectively, from the inside. On the other hand, such facts are not readily accommodated in the objective world described by science. How, after all, could the reediness of clarinets or the tartness of lemonade be predicted in advance? Central to Daniel C. Dennett's attempt to resolve this dilemma is the "heterophenomenological" method, which treats reports of introspection nontraditionally--not as evidence to be used in explaining consciousness, but as data to be explained. Using this method, Dennett argues against the myth of the Cartesian theater--the idea that consciousness can be precisely located in space or in time. To replace the Cartesian theater, he introduces his own multiple drafts model of consciousness, in which the mind is a bubbling congeries of unsupervised parallel processing. Finally, Dennett tackles the conventional philosophical questions about consciousness, taking issue not only with the traditional answers but also with the traditional methodology by which they were reached.

Dennett's writing, while always serious, is never solemn; who would have thought that combining philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience could be such fun? Not every reader will be convinced that Dennett has succeeded in explaining consciousness; many will feel that his account fails to capture essential features of conscious experience. But none will want to deny that the attempt was well worth making. --Glenn Branch

About the Author

Daniel Dennett is the author of Brainstorms, Brainchildren, Elbow Room, Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea. He is currently the Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He lives in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316180661
• ISBN 13: 9780316180665
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528