Harvard University Press (1998)
Abstract |
In this important book, Susan Hurley sheds new light on consciousness by examining its relationships to action from various angles. She assesses the role of agency in the unity of a conscious perspective, and argues that perception and action are more deeply interdependent than we usually assume. A standard view conceives perception as input from world to mind and action as output from mind to world, with the serious business of thought in between. Hurley criticizes this picture, and considers how the interdependence of perceptual experience and agency at the personal level (of mental contents and norms) may emerge from the subpersonal level (of underlying causal processes and complex dynamic feedback systems). Her two-level view has wide implications, for topics that include self-consciousness, the modularity of mind, and the relations of mind to world. The self no longer lurks hidden somewhere between perceptual input and behavioral output, but reappears out in the open, embodied and embedded in its environment. Hurley traces these themes from Kantian and Wittgensteinian arguments through to intriguing recent work in neuropsychology and in dynamic systems approaches to the mind, providing a bridge from mainstream philosophy to work in other disciplines. Consciousness in Action is unique in the range of philosophical and scientific work it draws on, and in the deep criticism it offers of centuries-old habits of thought.
|
Keywords | Action Consciousness Metaphysics Mind Perception |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Buy this book |
Find it on Amazon.com
|
Call number | B808.9.H87 1998 |
ISBN(s) | 0674164202 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options

References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
Exograms and Interdisciplinarity: History, the Extended Mind, and the Civilizing Process.John Sutton - 2010 - In Richard Menary (ed.), The Extended Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 189-225.
Introduction: The Varieties of Enactivism.Dave Ward, David Silverman & Mario Villalobos - 2017 - Topoi 36 (3):365-375.
The Uses and Abuses of the Personal/Subpersonal Distinction.Zoe Drayson - 2012 - Philosophical Perspectives 26 (1):1-18.
View all 354 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
Consciousness in Action: Antecedents and Origins.Marcel Kinsbourne - 2000 - Mind and Language 15 (5):545-555.
Perception, Action, and Consciousness: Sensorimotor Dynamics and Two Visual Systems.Nivedita Gangopadhyay, Michael Madary & Finn Spicer (eds.) - 2010 - Oxford University Press.
A Short Review of Consciousness in Action by Susan Hurley.Axel Cleeremans & Erik Myin - 1999 - Revue Internationale de Philosophie 3:455-458.
Consciousness in Act and Action.Keith Hossack - 2003 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 2 (3):187-203.
Consciousness Emerging: The Dynamics of Perception, Imagination, Action, Memory, Thought, and Language.Renate Bartsch - 2002 - John Benjamins.
Consciousness of Action and Self-Consciousness: A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach.Marc Jeannerod - 2003 - In Johannes Roessler & Naomi Eilan (eds.), Agency and Self-Awareness: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind.David Woodruff Smith & Amie Lynn Thomasson (eds.) - 2005 - Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
242 ( #44,939 of 2,498,775 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
7 ( #102,173 of 2,498,775 )
2009-01-28
Total views
242 ( #44,939 of 2,498,775 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
7 ( #102,173 of 2,498,775 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads