What Is Consciousness? Review of The Science Of Consciousness by Max Velmans (ed.)

Abstract

REVIEW OF: Max Velmans (Ed.) (1996). The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological and Clinical Reviews. Routledge. xii +207pp. ISBN 0-4151-1082-3.International audienceMax Velmans is very clear about what a scientific understanding of consciousness must be: Thus, to understand what consciousness is, we need to understand what causes it, what its function(s) may be, how it relates to nonconscious processing in the brain and so on (p. 3). After pointing to structural features of this new book (section 1), I try to highlight its contribution to the different questions raised by this quotation (sections 2, 3, 4) and then signal some difficulties I had when reading the book and questions I have after reading it (section 5). In the final section (section 6) I give a snapshot of the book