What is consciousness? How do physical processes in the brain give ris e to the self-aware mind and to feelings as profoundly varied as love or hate, aesthetic pleasure or spiritual yearning? These questions tod ay are among the most hotly debated issues among scientists and philos ophers, and we have seen in recent years superb volumes by such eminen t figures as Francis Crick, Daniel C. Dennett, Gerald Edelman, and Rog er Penrose, all firing volleys in what has come to be called the consc iousness wars. Now, in The Conscious Mind, philosopher David J. Chalme rs offers a cogent analysis of...

This is the one and only book by the pioneer of the identity theory of mind. The collection focuses on Place's philosophy of mind and his contributions to neighboring issues in metaphysics and epistemology. It includes an autobiographical essay as well as a recent paper on the function and neural location of consciousness.

What place does consciousness have in the natural world? If we reject materialism, could there be a credible alternative? In one classic example, philosophers ask whether we can ever know what is it is like for bats to sense the world using sonar. It seems obvious to many that any amount of information about a bat's physical structure and information processing leaves us guessing about the central questions concerning the character of its experience.

A Place for Consciousness begins with reflections on the existence of this gap. Is it just a psychological shortcoming in our...