The Routledge Handbook Of Consciousness

There has been an explosion of work on consciousness in the last 30–40 years from philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists. Thus, there is a need for an interdisciplinary, comprehensive volume in the field that brings together contributions from a wide range of experts on fundamental and cutting-edge topics. The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness fills this need and makes each chapter’s importance understandable to students and researchers from a variety of backgrounds. Designed to complement and better explain primary sources, this volume is a valuable "first-stop" publication for undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in any course on "Consciousness," "Philosophy of Mind," or "Philosophy of Psychology," as well as a valuable handbook for researchers in these fields who want a useful reference to have close at hand. The 34 chapters, all published here for the first time, are divided into three parts: Part I covers the "History and Background Metaphysics" of consciousness, such as dualism, materialism, free will, and personal identity, and includes a chapter on Indian philosophy. Part II is on specific "Contemporary Theories of Consciousness," with chapters on representational, information integration, global workspace, attention-based, and quantum theories. Part III is entitled "Major Topics in Consciousness Research," with chapters on psychopathologies, dreaming, meditation, time, action, emotion, multisensory experience, animal and robot consciousness, and the unity of consciousness. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction and concludes with a list of "Related Topics," as well as a list of "References," making the volume indispensable for the newcomer and experienced researcher alike.

Panpsychism is the view that consciousness – the most puzzling and strangest phenomenon in the entire universe – is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the world, though in a form very remote from human consciousness. At a very basic level, the world is awake. Panpsychism seems implausible to most, and yet it has experienced a remarkable renaissance of interest over the last quarter century. The reason is the stubbornly intractable problem of consciousness. Despite immense progress in understanding the brain and its relation to states of consciousness, we still really have no idea how consciousness emerges from physical processes which are presumed to be entirely non-conscious. The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism provides a high-level comprehensive examination and assessment of the subject – its history and contemporary development. It offers 28 chapters, appearing in print here for the first time, from the world’s leading researchers on panpsychism. The chapters are divided into four sections that integrate panpsychism’s relevance with important issues in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and even ethics: Historical Reflections Forms of Panpsychism Comparative Alternatives How Does Panpsychism Work? The volume will be useful to students and scholars as both an introduction and as cutting-edge philosophical engagement with the subject. For anyone interested in a philosophical approach to panpsychism, the Handbook will supply fascinating and enlightening reading. The topics covered are highly diverse, representing a spectrum of views on the nature of mind and world from various standpoints which take panpsychism seriously.

Bodily awareness is one of the most interesting and enigmatic forms of experience. Our earliest and most pervasive form of conscious experience, it also arguably remains the most private. Bodily awareness has also long played a central role in the study of the mind and self-consciousness, and is fundamental to much current philosophical and psychological research. The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness is an outstanding reference source to this fascinating subject. Comprising over thirty chapters by an international team of contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts: Epistemology and Metaphysics Historical Issues Body Representation Sensing the Body Dynamics Pathology Interaction Within these sections specific topics covered include bodily ownership, personal identity, self-consciousness, body modelling in robot design, body illusions, touch, proprioception, phantom limb syndrome, pain, eating disorders, out-of-body experiences and virtual reality. The handbook features specially commissioned contributions from researchers in a wide array of disciplines, whilst being accessible to readers with any disciplinary background. It also includes an interdisciplinary introduction, written by the editors, tying together the central themes with particular attention to the interaction between conceptual, technological and empirical issues. The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness will be of great interest to those in a wide variety of philosophical subdisciplines as well as those in psychology, cognitive science, sociology and related subjects.

Experience is inescapably temporal. But how do we experience time? Temporal experience is a fundamental subject in philosophy – according to Husserl, the most important and difficult of all. Its puzzles and paradoxes were of critical interest from the Early Moderns through to the Post-Kantians. After a period of relative neglect, temporal experience is again at the forefront of debates across a wealth of areas, from philosophy of mind and psychology, to metaphysics and aesthetics. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience is an outstanding reference source to the key debates in this exciting subject area and represents the first collection of its kind. Comprising nearly 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is organized into seven clear parts: Ancient and early modern perspectives Nineteenth and early twentieth-century perspectives The structure of temporal experience Temporal experience and the philosophy of mind Temporal experience and metaphysics Empirical perspectives Aesthetics Within each part, key topics concerning temporal experience are examined, including canonical figures such as Locke, Kant and Husserl; extensionalism, retentionalism and the specious present; interrelations between temporal experience and time, agency, dreaming, and the self; empirical theories of perceiving and attending to time; and temporal awareness in the arts including dance, music and film. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience is essential reading for students and researchers of philosophy of mind and psychology. It is also extremely useful for those in related fields such as metaphysics, phenomenology and aesthetics, as well as for psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists.

Embodied cognition is one of the foremost areas of study and research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key topics and debates in this exciting subject and essential reading for any student and scholar of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts: Historical underpinnings Perspectives on embodied cognition Applied embodied cognition: perception, language, and reasoning Applied embodied cognition: social and moral cognition and emotion Applied embodied cognition: memory, attention, and group cognition Meta-topics. The early chapters of the Handbook cover empirical and philosophical foundations of embodied cognition, focusing on Gibsonian and phenomenological approaches. Subsequent chapters cover additional, important themes common to work in embodied cognition, including embedded, extended and enactive cognition as well as chapters on empirical research in perception, language, reasoning, social and moral cognition, emotion, consciousness, memory, and learning and development.

The conscious mind is life as we experience it; we see the world, feel our emotions and think our thoughts thanks to consciousness. This book provides an easy introduction to the foundations of consciousness; how can subjective consciousness be measured scientifically? What happens to the conscious mind and self when the brain gets injured? How does consciousness, our subjective self or soul, arise from the activities of the brain? Addressing the philosophical and historical roots of the problems alongside current scientific approaches to consciousness in psychology and neuroscience, Foundations of Consciousness examines key questions as well as delving deeper to look at altered and higher states of consciousness. Using student-friendly pedagogy throughout, the book discusses some of the most difficult to explain phenomena of consciousness, including dreaming, hypnosis, out-of-body experiences, and mystical experiences. Foundations of Consciousness provides an essential introduction to the scientific and philosophical approaches to consciousness for students in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy. It will also appeal to those interested in the nature of the human soul, giving an insight into the motivation behind scientist’s and philosopher’s attempts to understand our place as conscious beings in the physical world.

Computational approaches dominate contemporary cognitive science, promising a unified, scientific explanation of how the mind works. However, computational approaches raise major philosophical and scientific questions. In what sense is the mind computational? How do computational approaches explain perception, learning, and decision making? What kinds of challenges should computational approaches overcome to advance our understanding of mind, brain, and behaviour? The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind is an outstanding overview and exploration of these issues and the first philosophical collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by an international team of contributors from different disciplines, the Handbook is organised into four parts: History and future prospects of computational approaches Types of computational approach Foundations and challenges of computational approaches Applications to specific parts of psychology. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of science, The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind will also be of interest to those studying computational models in related subjects such as psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.

While philosophers have been interested in animals since ancient times, in the last few decades the subject of animal minds has emerged as a major topic in philosophy. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising nearly fifty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into eight parts: Mental representation Reasoning and metacognition Consciousness Mindreading Communication Social cognition and culture Association, simplicity, and modeling Ethics. Within these sections, central issues, debates, and problems are examined, including: whether and how animals represent and reason about the world; how animal cognition differs from human cognition; whether animals are conscious; whether animals represent their own mental states or those of others; how animals communicate; the extent to which animals have cultures; how to choose among competing models and explanations of animal behavior; and whether animals are moral agents and/or moral patients. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, ethics, and related disciplines such as ethology, biology, psychology, linguistics, and anthropology.