A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World (Philosophy of Mind Series)

Rating:
Summary: Rosenberg, Consciousness & Causality
Review: This book offers an ambitious new metaphysical proposal for understanding the natural world. It does this by exploring the deep connection between the philosophical problems of consciousness and causality, and then offering a thorough and detailed model for addressing both.

The outline of the book is as follows: first Rosenberg offers his take on the problem of consciousness in the context of contemporary philosophy of mind. Toward the end of this discussion he foreshadows how the issues which need to be addressed in this area connect to the challenges of understanding causality. He then shifts gears to critique past accounts of causality and present his own solution. Finally, he shows the connection between consciousness and causality and how to improve our understanding of both through a unified approach.

From the perspective of a general reader, I would say that the more background reading you've done on these topics, the better you will understand the book. Between my first and second reading I read other philosophy papers on causality and this helped. But at the same time, I think there are so many good ideas in the book that I would recommend it to anyone, even if you end up skimming some parts.

In recent reading I've done, it has been somewhat a revelation to realize the degree to which causality had still posed such a philosophical challenge. We are led to believe that the types of physical theories we have are also good objective causal explanations, but they are not. In showing how the challenges of understanding consciousness and causality are linked and making a proposal for a unified solution, Rosenberg's book should make it extremely difficult for the reader to consider either topic in isolation from the other going forward.

To conclude, I thought this was an excellent and thought-provoking book which really moves the discussion forward toward an improved metaphysics of the natural world. I hope the ideas in it gain circulation.