Philosophy

Actual Consciousness by Ted Honderich

Item: Actual Consciousness
Author: Janna Thompson

by Janna Thompson •

April 2015, no. 370

Oxford University Press, $46.95 hb, 432 pp, 9780198714385

Philosophy

Actual Consciousness by Ted Honderich

by Janna Thompson •

April 2015, no. 370

Our perceptual world is rich in colour and sound. We think and imagine. We experience repugnance and longing. Meanwhile, in our brains neurons are firing and chemical reactions are taking place. Conscious experience and brain events are obviously related. Reputable Australian philosophers insist that they are one and the same. But how can events with such different qualities fit together?

Janna Thompson

Janna Thompson is a professor of philosophy at La Trobe University. She is the author of Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice (2002) and Intergenerational Justice: Rights and Responsibilities in an Intergenerational Polity (2009). She has also written articles on environmental philosophy, aesthetics, feminism, and global justice.