Focusing on sensory experience and perception qualities to present a dualistic view of the mind (called Qualitative Event Realism), this book doesn't conform to the dominant materialist views. Its theory is relevant to the development of a science of consciousness now being pursued, not only by philosophers, but by researchers in psychology and the neurosciences.

A pair of facts often gives rise to puzzles and anxieties: You depend on your brain for your thoughts, actions, and sense of self, yet you do not control its operations -- in everyday life, you don't even know what it's doing. In this book, philosopher William S. Robinson clarifies puzzles about our mental life, addresses anxieties about selfhood and moral responsibility, and explains a set of attitudes toward ourselves that fit with both common sense and what we have learned from neuroscience.