Consciousness and Cognition

Consciousness and Cognition
ISBN-10
0195349652
ISBN-13
9780195349658
Category
Philosophy
Pages
296
Language
English
Published
2002-01-10
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Michael Thau

Description

Our thinking about consciousness and cognition is dominated by a certain very natural conception. This conception dictates what we take the fundamental questions about consciousness and cognition to be as well as the form that their answers must take. In this book, Michael Thau shows that, despite its naturalness, this conception begins with and depends upon a few fundamental errors. Exorcising these errors requires that we completely reconceive the nature of both consciousness and cognition as well as the fundamental problems each poses. Thau proceeds by discussing three famous and important philosophical puzzles - Spectrum Inversion, Frege's Puzzle, and Black-and-White Mary - each of which concerns some aspect of either consciousness or cognition. It has gone unnoticed that at a certain important level of generality, each of these puzzles presents the very same problem and, in bringing out this common problem, the errors in our natural conception of consciousness and cognition are also brought out. Thau's book will appeal to the casual reader interested in the proper solution of these puzzles and the nature of consciousness and cognition. The discussion of Frege's puzzle also contains important insights about the nature of linguistic communication and, hence, anyone interested in the fundamental questions in philosophy of language will also want to read the book.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
    By Karen Warren

    Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .

  • Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
    By Karen Casey

    7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.

  • Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
    By Todd May

    28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...

  • Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
    By Todd Ryan

    Bayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.

  • Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
    By John Coakley, Jennifer Todd

    However, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.

  • The Philosopher's Way
    By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.

    Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.

  • Swimmer in a Dark Sea
    By Pierce Timberlake

    Take a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.

  • Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
    By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady

    "This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.

  • Ecological Feminism
    By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-Howe

    The essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...

  • Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
    By Karen Green

    6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...