Perplexities of Consciousness

MIT Press, 2011

In this book, I argue -- contra a long philosophical tradition going back at least to Descartes -- that we have poor knowledge of our own stream of conscious experience.  Examples receiving chapter-length treatment include: dreams, imagery, visual perspective, echolocation, visual experience with one's eyes closed, and the overall sparseness or abundance of experience.   Other examples receiving at least section-length discussion include: afterimages, combination tones, subtle visual illusions, emotional experience, cognitive phenomenology, peripheral vision, and the doubling of objects away from the point of visual convergence.

Here is a link to the book at Amazon.  And here at Barnes & Noble.

Below are drafts of the chapters from 2009.  These drafts give the basic position and arguments, but some details were changed in subsequent revision.  For purposes of citation, please consult the final published book.

• Preface
• Chapter One: Recoloring the Dreamworld
• Chapter Two: Do Things Look Flat?
• Chapter Three: Galton's Other Folly
• Chapter Four: Human Echolocation (with Michael S. Gordon)
• Chapter Five: Titchener's Introspective Training Manual
• Chapter Six: Do You Constantly Experience Your Feet in Your Shoes?
• Chapter Seven: The Unreliability of Naive Introspection
• Chapter Eight: When Your Eyes Are Closed, What Do You See?
• References

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