This book introduces the reader to Whitehead’s complex and often misunderstood metaphysics by showing that it deals with questions about the nature of causation originally raised by the philosophy of
What is consciousness? What is the place of consciousness in nature? These and related questions occupy a prominent place in contemporary studies in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, often involving complex interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, these questions play a fundamental role in the philosophies of great thinkers of the past such as, among others, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, William James and Edmund Husserl. This new collection of essays by leading contemporary philosophers of mind and historians of philosophy seeks to address these questions from both a systematic and a theoretical perspective and to create a new and fruitful forum for future discussion. In the attempt to do justice to the richness of our mental life, the volume features in-depth examinations not solely of mainstream physicalist doctrines, but also of largely neglected positions such as Cartesian du
At the beginning of his magnum opus, Process and Reality (1929), Whitehead lists a series of beliefs which he thinks are widely held by contemporary philosophers. They are all condemned as dangerously
