In recent years consciousness has become a significant area of study in the cognitive sciences. The Frontiers of Consciousness is a major interdisciplinary exploration of consciousness. The book stems from the Chichele lectures held at All Souls College in Oxford, and features contributions from a 'who's who' of authorities from both philosophy and psychology. The result is a truly interdisciplinary volume, which tackles some of the biggest and most impenetrable problems in consciousness. The book includes chapters considering the apparent explanatory (...) gap between science and consciousness, our conscious experience of emotions such as fear, and of willed actions by ourselves and others. It looks at subjective differences between two ways in which visual information guides behaviour, and scientific investigation of consciousness in non-human animals. It looks at the challenges that the mind-brain relation presents for clinical practice as well as for theories of consciousness. The book draws on leading research from philosophy, experimental psychology, functional imaging of the brain, neuropsychology, neuroscience, and clinical neurology. Distinctive in its accessibility, authority, and its depth of coverage, Frontiers of Consciousness will be a groundbreaking and influential addition to the consciousness literature. (shrink)

within-field task as testing proceeded. (In any case, the two-field task is presumably a more difficult one than the one-field task. ...

The phenomenon of `consciousness' is intrinsically related to one's awareness of one's self, of time, and of the physical world. What, then, can be learned about consciousness from people who have suffered brain damage such as amnesia which affects their awareness? This is the question explored by Lawrence Weiskrantz, a distinguished neuropsychologist who has worked with such patients over 30 years. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Consciousness Lost and Found provides a unique perspective on one of (...) the most challenging issues in science today. (shrink)

The first edition of Blindsight, written by Lawrence Weiskrantz was an important and highly cited account of studies of the phenomenon - Blindsight. The updated edition retains the original text of the first edition, but brings the book up to date with developments in this area in the past decade.

Listening to subject’s commentaries can be a useful spur to novel scientific departures, as in studies of blindsight. Recently further testing has been possible with subject DB, who was a blindsight patient tested intensively over a period of 10 years and who was the subject of the book, . Essentially his original capacity is the same or somewhat more sensitive. Some further types of discriminations have now been tested that were not possible in the original study. But a new feature (...) was discovered, namely that he describes conscious after-images of a wide range of inducing stimuli of which he is unconscious. The properties of the after-images are briefly described, such as their occurrence following unseen colour patches, luminance changes, shape, spatial frequency, their long durations, showing inter-ocular transfer, as well as their conforming to Emmert’s Law. Various approaches are discussed towards finding the source of their generation, such as the use of after-images of colour mixes of separate inputs to the two eyes . They are also discussed in terms of after-images in normal subjects that are generated by imagination. The discovery offers a rare potential opportunity to compare the brain activity associated with both the conscious and unconscious attributes of the precisely the same stimuli in the same locus in the same subject. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Lawrence Weiskrantz, Consciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsychological Exploration.

Books reviewed in this article: José Luis Bermú dez, The Paradox of Self‐Conciousness Lawrence Weiskrantz, Conciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsychological Exploration.

Embodied cognition is one of the foremost areas of study and research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key philosophers, topics and debates in this exciting subject and essential reading for any student and scholar of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts: Historical Underpinnings Perspectives (...) on Embodied Cognition Applied Embodied Cognition: Perception, Language and Reasoning Applied Embodied Cognition: Social and Moral Cognition and Emotion Applied Embodied Cognition: Memory, Attention and Group Cognition Meta-Topics. The early chapters of the Handbook cover empirical and philosophical foundations of embodied cognition, focusing on Gibsonian, phenomenological and cybernetic approaches. Subsequent chapters cover additional, important themes common to work in embodied cognition, incuding embedded , extended and enactive cognition as well as chapters on embodied cognition and empirical research in perception, language, reasoning, social and moral cognition, emotion, consciousness, memory and learning and development. (shrink)

After considering Buber’s and Levinas’s critiques of Heidegger and of each other, I propose that we should acknowledge authenticity, “essential relations” of love and friendship, and holiness as aspects of a good life, though they pull in different directions. We should resist the temptation to take sides in a battle between different approaches to the complex nature of our social being.

Soon after the book's publication in 1982, artist David Hockney read Lawrence Weschler's _Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin _and invited Weschler to his studio to discuss it, initiating a series of engrossing dialogues, gathered here for the first time. Weschler chronicles Hockney's protean production and speculations, including his scenic designs for opera, his homemade xerographic prints, his exploration of physics in relation to Chinese landscape painting, his investigations (...) into optical devices, his taking up of watercolor—and then his spectacular return to oil painting, around 2005, with a series of landscapes of the East Yorkshire countryside of his youth. These conversations provide an astonishing record of what has been Hockney's grand endeavor, nothing less than an exploration of "the structure of seeing" itself. (shrink)

Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of 'automatic deliberation'. Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, paedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and effortful, displaying a combination of habituated understandings and conscious deliberation. Advancing a blended view of (...) cognition by which individuals draw on schemas and frames to think through complex topics, this volume will appeal to sociologists and psychologists with interests in cognition and the ways in which we make decisions. (shrink)

Het christendom zit in de verdrukking. De kerken lopen leeg. Wie leest er nog de Bijbel? Toch is er in deze verweesde postmoderne samenleving een grote hang naar zingeving. Velen zoeken het ver weg, in bijvoorbeeld het boeddhisme of zij kiezen voor zweverige esoterie. In 2018 wandelde God het leven van Lawrence Urbain binnen. De grote levensvragen kwamen op de voorgrond en de auteur van 'Tussen Hoop en Genade' zocht de antwoorden in het christendom, meer bepaald bij het protestantisme. (...) 'Tussen Hoop en Genade' bevat een verzameling essays over het christelijke geloof. Hoe verhoudt de christenheid zich tot de wetenschap? Bestaat er zoiets als een christelijke ethiek? En wat is de toekomst van het protestants-evangelisch onderwijs in Vlaanderen? Aan de hand van zeven essays geeft de auteur een inkijk in zijn opvattingen aangaande het christelijk-protestantse geloof. Tal van denkers en schrijvers passeren hierbij de revue. Veel aandacht gaat naar de protestantse theoloog Karl Barth, maar evenzeer komen de antieke bijbelwetenschapper Origenes, de liberale protestant Friedrich Schleiermacher en de psychoanalyticus Carl Gustav Jung voorbij. Lawrence Urbain (°1990) is Master in de Internationale Betrekkingen en Diplomatie (Universiteit Antwerpen). Hij is werkzaam als economisch adviseur en is daarnaast freelance-journalist. In 2017 publiceerde hij bij uitgeverij Polemos 'De Chrono-crisis'. Hij studeert momenteel theologie aan de Faculteit voor Protestantse Theologie en Religiestudies (FPTR) te Brussel. (shrink)