Course on Consciousness
Next spring, I'm teaching a cross-listed upper undergraduate/graduate course on consciousness for the first time. I'd like to strike a good balance between philosophical and scientific readings. Does anyone have suggestions as to what is a must-read in the huge literature on consciousness?
From an informal survey, it seems to me that the following two are good sources:
Baars, Bernard J., Newman, James B., Banks, William P., Eds. (2003). Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness.
Block, Ned, Flanagan, Owen J., Güzeldere, Güven, Eds. (1997). The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates.
Is this correct, or are there any better anthologies? Are there any good, up-to-date, introductory surveys (especially on relevant neuroscience) that may be used as background readings? What else, if anything, should I include? I'd be especially interested in references to any recent, ground-breaking work.
A few days ago i finished to read the edited volume by Steven Laureys: "The boundaries of Consciousness: Neurobiology and Neuropathology".
It´s a cornucopia of neuroscientific facts, philosophical arguments and ethics all related to consciousness.
Tim Bayne´s, Max Vellmans´ and Phillip Zelazo´s expected work on the subject is also necessary i think.
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G,
That Guzeldere et al is an arm-breaker and pretty heavy on the philosophy side. Guven's introductory essay is really nice though and almost worth the price of admission.
An anthology I like a lot is The Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness by Dehaene, ed. . It's a pretty good balance of science and philosophy.
A good survey text for undergrads is Susan Blackmore's Consciousness. I've taught from that and was pretty happy with it.
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Koch's book on consciousness is very good: he provides a lot of background on the neuroscience of vision before getting into the specifics on consciousness. (Some of his stuff on 'explicit' vs 'implicit' representations is a bit muddled, but that could actually be an excellent paper topic for undergraduates: note the key is in a footnote where he defines it formally).
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