Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind
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Opens a dialogue between process philosophy and contemporary consciousness studies.
Description
This collection opens a dialogue between process philosophy and contemporary consciousness studies. Approaching consciousness from diverse disciplinary perspectives—philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, neuropathology, psychotherapy, biology, animal ethology, and physics—the contributors offer empirical and philosophical support for a model of consciousness inspired by the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947). Whitehead's model is developed in ways he could not have anticipated to show how it can advance current debates beyond well-known sticking points. This has trenchant consequences for epistemology and suggests fresh and promising new perspectives on such topics as the mind-body problem, the neurobiology of consciousness, animal consciousness, the evolution of consciousness, panpsychism, the unity of consciousness, epiphenomenalism, free will, and causation.
Michel Weber is Director of the Center for Philosophical Practice "Chromatiques whiteheadiennes," Brussels, and author of Whitehead's Pancreativism: The Basics. Anderson Weekes is an independent scholar and an educational consultant in New York.
Reviews
"…process thought needs a book like this … The authors engage richly with the history of western philosophy, contemporary analytic philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, creating a fine meshwork of connections in which the process approach stands out in vivid contrast with modern alternatives, while at the same time making sense of its perennial minority status. " — American Journal of Theology and Philosophy
"Weber and Weekes have produced a volume of essays that fills a lacuna in the Whitehead literature, namely, A. N. Whitehead's process approach to consciousness and its relevance to contemporary consciousness studies … Contributors include an international lineup of philosophers, biologists, psychologists, and neurologists. " — CHOICE
"Weber's and Weekes's collection shows that Whitehead paves the way to a new philosophy of mind that reorients all the currently debated issues and in particular enables us to root psychotherapy in processes hitherto ignored because they belong to an order of reality that eludes scientific observation. " — Jean-Marie Breuvart, Professor of Philosophy (retired), Université Catholique de Lille