Questioning Consciousness
The interplay of imagery, cognition, and emotion in the human brain
1st Edition
Published on 29. June 1995
VIII, 262 pages
978-90-272-8360-3 (ISBN)
Description
Questioning Consciousness brings together neuroscientific, psychological and phenomenological research, combining in a readable format recent developments in image research and neurology. It reassesses the mind-body relation and research on 'mental models', abstract concept formation, and acquisition of logical and apparently 'imageless' inference skills. It is argued that to be conscious of an object is essentially to imagine in a habituated way what would happen if we were to perform certain actions in relation to the object; and that mental images fit together to build up abstract concepts. This analysis shows why conscious information processing is so structurally different from - yet interrelated with - non-conscious processing, and how mind and body interrelate as a process to its substratum in the way that a sound wave relates to the medium through which it passes. (Series A)
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Ralph D. Ellis
Questioning Consciousness
The interplay of imagery, cognition, and emotion in the human brain
Book
06/1995
John Benjamins Publishing Co
€72.08
Shipment within 10-15 days
Person
Content
- QUESTIONING CONSCIOUSNESS
- Editorial page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION Differences between Conscious and Non-conscious Processing: Why They Make a Difference
- 1. The Legacy of Behaviorism
- 2. 'Derivatively' versus 'Primitively' Unconscious Processes and the Various Levels of Semi-consciousness
- 3. The Danger of Equivocating the Language of Consciousness: The Crucial Distinction Between 'Knowing' and Knowing
- 4. The Distinction Between 'Desire' and Desire and Its Importance for Cognitive Theory
- The Primacy of the Subjunctive Imagination in Conscious Processing
- CHAPTER ONE. The Relation between Imaginary and Perceptual Contents
- 1. Different Conscious Modalities with Similar 'Content': A Puzzle for Neuroscientists
- 2. The Crucial Relation between 'Looking-for' and 'Looking-at'
- 3. Consciousness of Images and of Negations
- Consciousness of A Priori Negations of Contradictory Images
- 4. Early and Late Selection for 'Attention': A Synthesis
- 5. The Primacy of the Efferent over the Afferent in Conscious Processing
- 6. Afferent-Efferent Relations in Dreaming and Waking Consciousness
- 7. Transition to the Problem of Concepts
- CHAPTER TWO. From Images to Concepts
- 1. The Relation between Images and 'Imageless Concepts'
- 2. The Role of Inhibition
- 3. Future Anticipations and Subjunctive Conditionals
- 4. Conclusion
- CHAPTER THREE. Images, Logic, and Mental Development
- 1. How Logical Inference Rules Are Acquired and Executed
- (a) Learning and executing inference rules: Two sets of images or one ?
- (b) How can images ground syntax?
- (c) How are semantic differences bridged in working with image patterns?
- (d) How users of logic recognize rhythm patterns
- 2. How Do Concepts Evolve from Images? A Developmental Perspective
- 3. General Implications for Cognitive Theory
- CHAPTER FOUR. The Ontological Status of Consciousness
- 1. Formulating the Essential Ontological Problem
- 2. Why Theories of Interactionism and Causal Epiphenomenalism Have Failed
- 3. Process and Substratum: How Consciousness and Its Physiological Correlates Can Be Inseparable yet Different
- 4. The Multiple Realizability Problem
- 5. Why the Process-Substratum Model Is Not a Psychophysical Identity Theory
- CHAPTER FIVE. The Priority of Process over Substratum: Consciousness as an Organic Phenomenon
- 1. How Does 'Desire' Become Desire? Internal Conflict as an 'Ecological' Problem
- 2. The Relationship between Consciousness and Organicity
- 3. The Process-Substratum Relation: A Closer Look
- 4. Conclusion
- CHAPTER SIX. Memory, Emotion, and Symbolization
- 1. Toward a Process-Substratum Approach to Memory, Emotion, and Symbolization
- 2. Gendlin's 'Implicit Bodily Sense'
- 3. How the Brain Learns to Recognize and Re-enact Efferent Memory-Behaviors
- 4. Further Questions about Memory: Single-Trial Learning and the 'Feeling of Recognition'
- CONCLUSION The Centrality of Subjunctives
- REFERENCES
- Index
