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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Philosophy of mind

Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood (Hardcover): Simon J. Evnine Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood (Hardcover)
Simon J. Evnine
R1,971 Discovery Miles 19 710 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Simon Evnine examines various epistemic aspects of what it is to be a person. Persons are defined as finite beings that have beliefs, including second-order beliefs about their own and others' beliefs, and are agents, capable of making long-term plans. It is argued that for any being meeting these conditions, a number of epistemic consequences obtain. First, all such beings must have certain logical concepts and be able to use them in certain ways. Secondly, there are at least two principles governing belief that it is rational for persons to satisfy and are such that nothing can be a person at all unless it satisfies them to a large extent. These principles are that one believe the conjunction of one's beliefs and that one treat one's future beliefs as, by and large, better than one's current beliefs. Thirdly, persons both occupy epistemic points of view on the world and show up within those views. This makes it impossible for them to be completely objective about their own beliefs. Ideals of rationality that require such objectivity, while not necessarily wrong, are intrinsically problematic for persons. This "aspectual dualism" is characteristic of treatments of persons in the Kantian tradition. In sum, these epistemic consequences support a traditional view of the nature of persons, one in opposition to much recent theorizing.

Species intelligibilis - From Perception to Knowledge (Hardcover): Leen Spruit Species intelligibilis - From Perception to Knowledge (Hardcover)
Leen Spruit
R4,702 Discovery Miles 47 020 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This study examines the history of a fundamental problem in Aristotelian cognitive psychology, i.e. the nature and function of the mechanisms that provide the human mind with data concerning physical reality.
Chapter I traces the Classical and Arabic prehistory of the Medieval doctrine of intelligible species. Scholastic discussions on formal mediation in intellective cognition were constrained in essential ways by Thomas. Chapter II analyzes his views on mental representation in the context of the reception of Peripatetic psychology in the West. The following chapters (III-V) examine the controversies about the necessity of intelligible species, from Aquinas' death to the 15th century. Another volume is planned, devoted to Renaissance discussions, developments of later Scholasticism, and the elimination of the intelligible species in modern non-Aristotelian philosophy.

The Retrieval of Ethics (Hardcover, New): Talbot Brewer The Retrieval of Ethics (Hardcover, New)
Talbot Brewer
R2,966 Discovery Miles 29 660 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Talbot Brewer presents an invigorating new approach to ethical theory, in the context of human selfhood and agency. The first main theme of the book is that contemporary ethical theorists have focused too narrowly on actions and the discrete episodes of deliberation through which we choose them, and that the subject matter of the field looks quite different if one looks instead at unfolding activities and the continuous forms of evaluative awareness that carry them forward and that constitute an essential element of those activities. The second is that ethical reflection is itself a centrally important life activity, and that philosophical ethics is an extension of this practical activity rather than a merely theoretical reflection upon it.
Brewer's approach is founded on a far-reaching reconsideration of the notions of the nature and sources of human agency, and particularly of the way in which practical thinking gives shape to activities, relationships and lives. He contests the usual understanding of the relationship between philosophical psychology and ethics. The Retrieval of Ethics shows the need for a new contemplative vision of the point or value of human action -- without which we will remain unable to make optimal sense of our efforts to unify our lives around a tenable conception of how best to live them, or of the yearnings that draw us to our ideals and to each other.

Taming Anger - The Hellenic Approach to the Limitations of Reason (Hardcover): Kostas Kalimtzis Taming Anger - The Hellenic Approach to the Limitations of Reason (Hardcover)
Kostas Kalimtzis
R4,788 Discovery Miles 47 880 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

From Homer to Aristotle, understanding anger and harnessing its power was at the core of Hellenic civilization. Homer created the framework for philosophical inquiries into anger, one that persisted until it was overturned by Stoicism and Christianity. Plato saw anger as the guardian of justice and Aristotle conceived of it as bound to friendship. Yet both showed that anger can become a guardian of injustice and a defender of our psychological abnormalities. Plato claimed that reason is a tertiary factor in controlling anger and Aristotle argued that non-cognitive powers can issue commands for anger's arousal - findings that shed light as to why cognitive therapeutic approaches often prove to be ineffective. Both proposed nurturing the "thumos," the receptacle of anger and the seat of self-esteem. Aristotle's view of public anger as an early warning sign of social dissolution continues to be relevant to this day. In this carefully argued study, Kostas Kalimtzis examines the theories of anger in the context of the ancient world with an eye to their implications for the modern predicament.

Medieval Perceptual Puzzles - Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries (Hardcover): Elena Baltuta Medieval Perceptual Puzzles - Theories of Sense Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries (Hardcover)
Elena Baltuta
R5,376 Discovery Miles 53 760 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In our daily lives, we are surrounded by all sorts of things - such as trees, cars, persons, or madeleines - and perception allows us access to them. But what does 'to perceive' actually mean? What is it that we perceive? How do we perceive? Do we perceive the same way animals do? Does reason play a role in perception? Such questions occur naturally today. But was it the same in the past, centuries ago? The collected volume tackles this issue by turning to the Latin philosophy of the 13th and 14th centuries. Did medieval thinkers raise the same, or similar, questions as we do with respect to perception? What answers did they provide? What arguments did they make for raising the questions they did, and for the answers they gave to them? The philosophers taken into consideration are, among others, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, William of Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John Pecham, Richard Rufus, Peter Olivi, Robert Kilwardby, John Buridan, and Jean of Jandun. Contributors are Elena Baltuta, Daniel De Haan, Martin Klein, Andrew LaZella, Lukas Licka, Mattia Mantovani, Andre Martin, Dominik Perler, Paolo Rubini, Jose Filipe Silva, Juhana Toivanen, and Rega Wood.

Corpus Anima - Reflections from the Unity of Body and Soul (Hardcover): Cedrus Monte Corpus Anima - Reflections from the Unity of Body and Soul (Hardcover)
Cedrus Monte
R2,237 Discovery Miles 22 370 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Sounds - A Philosophical Theory (Hardcover): Casey O'Callaghan Sounds - A Philosophical Theory (Hardcover)
Casey O'Callaghan
R2,598 Discovery Miles 25 980 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Vision dominates philosophical thinking about perception, and theorizing about experience in cognitive science has traditionally focused on a visual model. In a radical departure from established practice, Casey O'Callaghan provides a systematic treatment of sound and sound experience, and shows how thinking about audition and appreciating the relationships between multiple sense modalities can enrich our understanding of perception and the mind.
Sounds proposes a novel theory of sounds and auditory perception. Against the widely accepted philosophical view that sounds are among the secondary or sensible qualities, O'Callaghan argues that, on any perceptually plausible account, sounds are events. But this does not imply that sounds are waves that propagate through a medium, such as air or water. Rather, sounds are events that take place in one's environment at or near the objects and happenings that bring them about. This account captures the way in which sounds essentially are creatures of time, and situates sounds in a world populated by items and events that have significance for us. Sounds are not ethereal, mysterious entities.
O'Callaghan's account of sounds and their perception discloses far greater variety among the kinds of things we perceive than traditional views acknowledge. But more importantly, investigating sounds and audition demonstrates that considering other sense modalities teaches what we could not otherwise learn from thinking exclusively about the visual. Sounds articulates a powerful account of echoes, reverberation, Doppler effects, and perceptual constancies that surpasses the explanatory richness of alternative theories, and also reveals a number ofsurprising cross-modal perceptual illusions. O'Callaghan argues that such illusions demonstrate that the perceptual modalities cannot be completely understood in isolation, and that the visuocentric model for theorizing about perception --according to which perceptual modalities are discrete modes of experience and autonomous domains of philosophical and scientific inquiry--ought to be abandoned.

Lies of the Magpie (Hardcover): Maleah Day Warner Lies of the Magpie (Hardcover)
Maleah Day Warner
R762 Discovery Miles 7 620 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science (Hardcover): Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels, Stephen P. Stich The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science (Hardcover)
Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels, Stephen P. Stich
R5,597 Discovery Miles 55 970 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Recent research across the disciplines of cognitive science has exerted a profound influence on how many philosophers approach problems about the nature of mind. These philosophers, while attentive to traditional philosophical concerns, are increasingly drawing both theory and evidence from empirical disciplines - both the framing of the questions and how to resolve them. However, this familiarity with the results of cognitive science has led to the raising of an entirely new set of questions about the mind and how we study it, questions which not so long ago philosophers did not even pose, let alone address. This volume offers an overview of this burgeoning field that balances breadth and depth, with chapters covering every aspect of the psychology and cognitive anthropology. Each chapter provides a critical and balanced discussion of a core topic while also conveying distinctive viewpoints and arguments. Several of the chapters are co-authored collaborations between philosophers and scientists.

On the Nature of Things (Hardcover): Lucretius On the Nature of Things (Hardcover)
Lucretius
R843 Discovery Miles 8 430 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Doing without Concepts (Hardcover, New): Edouard Machery Doing without Concepts (Hardcover, New)
Edouard Machery
R2,487 Discovery Miles 24 870 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Over recent years, the psychology of concepts has been rejuvenated by new work on prototypes, inventive ideas on causal cognition, the development of neo-empiricist theories of concepts, and the inputs of the budding neuropsychology of concepts. But our empirical knowledge about concepts has yet to be organized in a coherent framework.
In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concepts fail to provide such a framework and that drastic conceptual changes are required to make sense of the research on concepts in psychology and neuropsychology. Machery shows that the class of concepts divides into several distinct kinds that have little in common with one another and that for this very reason, it is a mistake to attempt to encompass all known phenomena within a single theory of concepts. In brief, concepts are not a natural kind. Machery concludes that the theoretical notion of concept should be eliminated from the theoretical apparatus of contemporary psychology and should be replaced with theoretical notions that are more appropriate for fulfilling psychologists' goals. The notion of concept has encouraged psychologists to believe that a single theory of concepts could be developed, leading to useless theoretical controversies between the dominant paradigms of concepts. Keeping this notion would slow down, and maybe prevent, the development of a more adequate classification and would overshadow the theoretical and empirical issues that are raised by this more adequate classification. Anyone interested in cognitive science's emerging view of the mind will find Machery's provocative ideas of interest.

Ignorance of Language (Hardcover, New): Michael Devitt Ignorance of Language (Hardcover, New)
Michael Devitt
R3,408 Discovery Miles 34 080 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Is there a 'language faculty'? These questions are crucial to our developing understanding of ourselves; Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers. He argues that linguistics is about linguistic reality and is not part of psychology; that linguistic rules are not represented in the mind; that speakers are largely ignorant of their language; that speakers' intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty and are not the main evidence for grammars; that the rules of 'Universal Grammar' are largely, if not entirely, innate structure rules of thought; indeed, that there is little or nothing to the language faculty. Devitt's controversial theses will prove highly stimulating to anyone working on language and the mind.

Philosophy of Mind - Translated from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences with Five Introductory Essays by William... Philosophy of Mind - Translated from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences with Five Introductory Essays by William Wallace (Hardcover)
Georg H.W. Hegel; Translated by William Wallace
R1,060 Discovery Miles 10 600 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

An easy-to-digest introduction the science of the experience of consciousness as the German Idealist philosopher GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (17701831) understood it, this condensed version of Hegels The Phenomenology of Spiritwhich the author created himself for his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciencesexplores Hegels take on: [ what mind is [ the sensibility of the physical soul [ the immediacy of the feeling soul [ consciousness and the intellect [ the theoretical mind [ memory, intuition, and imagination [ the morality of conscience [ moral life, or social ethics [ revealed religion in the absolute mind [ and much more. This 1894 translation of the 18271830 German original, by Scottish philosopher and Oxford University professor WILLIAM WALLACE (18431897), remains a favorite of Hegel students, and is celebrated for its style and eloquence.

Self and Other - Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame (Hardcover): Dan Zahavi Self and Other - Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame (Hardcover)
Dan Zahavi
R2,413 Discovery Miles 24 130 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Can you be a self on your own or only together with others? Is selfhood a built-in feature of experience or rather socially constructed? How do we at all come to understand others? Does empathy amount to and allow for a distinct experiential acquaintance with others, and if so, what does that tell us about the nature of selfhood and social cognition? Does a strong emphasis on the first-personal character of consciousness prohibit a satisfactory account of intersubjectivity or is the former rather a necessary requirement for the latter? Engaging with debates and findings in classical phenomenology, in philosophy of mind and in various empirical disciplines, Dan Zahavi's new book Self and Other offers answers to these questions. Discussing such diverse topics as self-consciousness, phenomenal externalism, mindless coping, mirror self-recognition, autism, theory of mind, embodied simulation, joint attention, shame, time-consciousness, embodiment, narrativity, self-disorders, expressivity and Buddhist no-self accounts, Zahavi argues that any theory of consciousness that wishes to take the subjective dimension of our experiential life serious must endorse a minimalist notion of self. At the same time, however, he also contends that an adequate account of the self has to recognize its multifaceted character, and that various complementary accounts must be integrated, if we are to do justice to its complexity. Thus, while arguing that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed and not constitutively dependent upon others, Zahavi also acknowledges that there are dimensions of the self and types of self-experience that are other-mediated. The final part of the book exemplifies this claim through a close analysis of shame.

Self, No Self? - Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions (Hardcover): Mark Siderits, Evan... Self, No Self? - Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions (Hardcover)
Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson, Dan Zahavi
R2,376 Discovery Miles 23 760 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The nature and reality of self is a subject of increasing prominence among Western philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists. It has also been central to Indian and Tibetan philosophical traditions for over two thousand years. It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind. Leading philosophical scholars of the Indian and Tibetan traditions join with leading Western philosophers of mind and phenomenologists to explore issues about consciousness and selfhood from these multiple perspectives. Self, No Self? is not a collection of historical or comparative essays. It takes problem-solving and conceptual and phenomenological analysis as central to philosophy. The essays mobilize the argumentative resources of diverse philosophical traditions to address issues about the self in the context of contemporary philosophy and cognitive science. Self, No Self? will be essential reading for philosophers and cognitive scientists interested in the nature of the self and consciousness, and will offer a valuable way into the subject for students.

Thomas Reid's Theory of Perception (Hardcover): Ryan Nichols Thomas Reid's Theory of Perception (Hardcover)
Ryan Nichols
R3,629 Discovery Miles 36 290 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The thesis that the mind cannot directly apprehend features of the physical world - what Reid calls the Way of Ideas - is a staple of Early Modern philosophical tradition. This commitment to the direct awareness of, and only of, mental representations unifies the otherwise divergent philosophical systems of Rationalists and Empiricists. Thomas Reid battles against this thesis on many fronts, in particular over the nature of perception. Ryan Nichols lays the groundwork for Reid's theory of perception by developing Reid's unheralded argument against a representational theory of thought, which Nichols applies to his discussion of the intentionality of perceptual states and Reid's appeal to 'signs'. Reid's efforts to preserve common sense epistemic commitments also lead him to adopt unique theories about our concepts of primary and secondary qualities, and about original and acquired perceptions. About the latter pair, Nichols argues that most perceptual beliefs depend for their justification upon inferences. The Way of Ideas holds that sensations are objects of awareness and that our senses are not robustly unified. Nichols develops Reid's counter-proposals by examining his discussion of the evolutionary purpose of sensations, and the nature of our awareness of sensations, as well as his intriguing affirmative answer to Molyneux's questions. Nichols brings to the writing of this book a consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, published and unpublished, and a keen appreciation for Reid's responses to his predecessors. He frequently reconstructs arguments in premise/conclusion form, thereby clarifying disputes that have frustrated previous Reid scholarship. This clarification, his lively examples, and his plainspoken style make this book especially readable. Reid's theory of perception is by far the most important feature of Reid's philosophical system, and Nichols offers what will be, for a long time to come, the definitive analysis of this theory.

Cartesian Views - Papers presented to Richard A. Watson (Hardcover): Thomas Lennon Cartesian Views - Papers presented to Richard A. Watson (Hardcover)
Thomas Lennon
R4,685 Discovery Miles 46 850 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Many kinds of Cartesian views are treated by these papers: the views that Descartes held, views from our perspective on those views, views on Descartes held by his early critics and followers, and views that are Cartesian in outlook (not for nothing is Descartes still regarded as the father of modern philosophy.) These overlapping views provide the unity of this volume, and reflect the unity of Richard A.Watson's philosophical work. Not least among Watson's contributions has been his depiction of Cartesianism as a response to a set of problems within Descartes's philosophy. The later Cartesians were not slavish followers of Descartes. The contributors to this volume might be viewed as standing to Watson as the Cartesians did to Descartes. Contributors include: Jean-Robert Armogathe, Leslie Armour, Alan Gabbey, Daniel Garber, William H. Gass, Alan Hausman, David Hausman, Thomas M. Lennon, Jose R. Maia Neto, Steven Nadler, Richard H. Popkin, Han van Ruler, Theo Verbeek, Fred Wilson, and Alison Wylie.

The Analysis of Mind (Hardcover): Bertrand Russell The Analysis of Mind (Hardcover)
Bertrand Russell
R830 Discovery Miles 8 300 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Personal Value (Hardcover, New): Toni Ronnow-Rasmussen Personal Value (Hardcover, New)
Toni Ronnow-Rasmussen
R2,592 Discovery Miles 25 920 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Certain things, like justice, have impersonal value. Other things, like your parents, carry personal values: they have value for you. Besides whatever value they have, they are valuable to you. The philosophical literature as well as non-philosophical literature is inundated with suggestions about the kinds of thing that are good for us or, if it is a negative personal value, what is bad for us. This is a stimulating and vivid area of philosophical research, but it has tended to monopolize the notion of 'good-for', linking it necessarily to welfare or well-being. Since these more or less well-grounded pieces of advice are seldom accompanied by an analysis of the notion of 'good-for', there is a need for such an analysis. Ronnow-Rasmussen remedies this need, by offering a novel way of analyzing the notion of personal value. He defends the idea that we have reason to expand our classical value taxonomy with these personal values. By fine-tuning a pattern of value analysis which has roots in the writings of the Austrian philosopher Franz Bretano, this sort of analysis will come to cover personal values, too. In addition, Ronnow-Rasmussen makes substantial contributions to a number of issues, including hedonism vs. preferentialism, subjectivism vs. objectivism, value bearer monism vs. value bearer pluralism, and the wrong kind of reason problem -- all of which are much debated among today's value theorists.

Robots, Zombies and Us - Understanding Consciousness (Hardcover): Robert Kirk Robots, Zombies and Us - Understanding Consciousness (Hardcover)
Robert Kirk
R4,040 Discovery Miles 40 400 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Could robots be genuinely intelligent? Could they be conscious? Could there be zombies? Prompted by these questions Robert Kirk introduces the main problems of consciousness and sets out a new approach to solving them. He starts by discussing behaviourism, Turing's test of intelligence and Searle's famous Chinese Room argument, and goes on to examine dualism - the idea that consciousness requires something beyond the physical - together with its opposite, physicalism. Probing the idea of zombies, he concludes they are logically impossible. Having presented the central problems, he sketches his solution: a version of functionalism, according to which consciousness consists in the performance of functions. While there is wide agreement among philosophers about what the main problems of consciousness are, there is little agreement on how to go about solving them. With this powerful case for his version of functionalism, Kirk offers an engaging introduction to both the problems and a possible solution.

Between Saying and Doing - Towards an Analytic Pragmatism (Hardcover): Robert B. Brandom Between Saying and Doing - Towards an Analytic Pragmatism (Hardcover)
Robert B. Brandom
R2,007 Discovery Miles 20 070 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Between Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism (in both its classical American and its Wittgensteinian forms) with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics (the theory of the meanings of utterances and the contents of thoughts) and pragmatics (the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional relations between subjects and objects.

Knowledge on Trust (Hardcover): Paul Faulkner Knowledge on Trust (Hardcover)
Paul Faulkner
R2,044 Discovery Miles 20 440 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

We know a lot about the world and our place in it. We have come to this knowledge in a variety of ways. And one central way that we, both as individuals and as a society, have come to know what we do is through communication with others. Much of what we know, we know on the basis of testimony. In Knowing on Trust, Paul Faulkner presents an epistemological theory of testimony, or a theory that explains how it is that we acquire knowledge and warranted belief from testimony.
The key questions addressed in this book are: what makes it reasonable to accept a piece of testimony? And what warrants belief formed on this testimonial basis? Faulkner argues that existing theories of testimony largely fail because they do not recognise how issues of practical rationality motivate the first question, and this is what makes testimony distinctive as a source of knowledge. At the heart of the theory this book presents is the idea that trust is central to answering these two questions. An attitude of trust can make it reasonable to depend on another's testimony, but what warrants testimonial belief is not trust but the body of evidence the testimony originates from. Testimonial knowledge and testimonially warranted belief are formed on trust. Faulkner goes on to argue that our having a way of life wherein testimony can provide such a source of knowledge and warrant is dependent upon a society in which a certain kind of trust is possible.

Tao Te Ching (Large print, Hardcover, Large type / large print edition): Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching (Large print, Hardcover, Large type / large print edition)
Lao Tzu; Translated by James Legge
R628 Discovery Miles 6 280 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Roots Of Thinking (Paperback): Maxine Sheets-Johnstone The Roots Of Thinking (Paperback)
Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
R725 Discovery Miles 7 250 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Focusing on conceptual origins, this book shows that there is a bond between hominid thinking and hominid evolution, a bond cemented by the living body. This thesis is illustrated in eight paleoanthropological case studies ranging from tool-using/tool-making to counting, sexuality, representation, language, death, and cave art.

The Phenomenal Self (Hardcover): Barry Dainton The Phenomenal Self (Hardcover)
Barry Dainton
R3,904 Discovery Miles 39 040 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Barry Dainton presents a fascinating new account of the self, the key to which is experiential or phenomenal continuity.
Provided our mental life continues we can easily imagine ourselves surviving the most dramatic physical alterations, or even moving from one body to another. It was this fact that led John Locke to conclude that a credible account of our persistence conditions - an account which reflects how we actually conceive of ourselves - should be framed in terms of mental rather than material continuity. But mental continuity comes in different forms. Most of Locke's contemporary followers agree that our continued existence is secured by psychological continuity, which they take to be made up of memories, beliefs, intentions, personality traits, and the like. Dainton argues that that a better and more believable account can be framed in terms of the sort of continuity we find in our streams of consciousness from moment to moment. Why? Simply because provided this continuity is not lost - provided our streams of consciousness flow on - we can easily imagine ourselves surviving the most dramatic psychological alterations. Phenomenal continuity seems to provide a more reliable guide to our persistence than any form of continuity. The Phenomenal Self is a full-scale defence and elaboration of this premise.
The first task is arriving at an adequate understanding of phenomenal unity and continuity. This achieved, Dainton turns to the most pressing problem facing any experience-based approach: losses of consciousness. How can we survive them? He shows how the problem can be solved in a satisfactory manner by construing ourselves as systems of experiential capacities. He thenmoves on to explore a range of further issues. How simple can a self be? How are we related to our bodies? Is our persistence an all-or-nothing affair? Do our minds consist of parts which could enjoy an independent existence? Is it metaphysically intelligible to construe ourselves as systems of capacities? The book concludes with a novel treatment of fission and fusion.

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