Ignorance and Imagination
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Description
Ignorance and Imagination advances a novel way to resolve the central philosophical problem about the mind: how it is that consciousness or experience fits into a larger naturalistic picture of the world.The correct response to the problem, Stoljar argues, is not to posit a realm of experience distinct from the physical, nor to deny the reality of phenomenal experience, nor even to rethink our understanding of consciousness and the language we use to talk about it. Instead, we should view the problem itself as a consequence of our ignorance of the relevant physical facts. Stoljar shows that this change of orientation is well motivated historically, empirically, and philosophically, and that it has none of the side effects it is sometimes thought to have. The result is a philosophical perspective on the mind that has a number of far-reaching consequences: for consciousness studies, for our place in nature, and for the way we think about the relationship between philosophy and science.
Reviews
"Stoljar's book makes a fresh and invaluable contribution to the literature on consciousness. To articulate so crisply such a theoretically original yet pre-theoretically natural position; to argue for it so comprehensively and so agilely, and moreover in a way that clarifies tremendously the logical structure of the issues involved; to address the relevant considerations and alternative options so thoroughly and so relentlessly, amounts in the end to an intellectual achievement of the first magnitude. Most of all, it is a testament to the book's force that by the time one is finished with it, one finds it astonishing that its central thesis had never been seriously defended before. To my mind, with the publication of this book the epistemic view has earned its place among the handful of leading options for handling the problem of consciousness."--Australasian Journal of Philosophy
"Stoljar's book presents a well argued thesis that gives rise to many questions and should stimulate many thoughts about the problem of experience."--Biagio G. Tasssone, Metapsychology Online Reviews
"I regard Ignorance and Imagination as an extremely valuable book. There is a great deal of contemporary interest among philosophers in the epistemic solution to the problem of consciousness. Stoljar explores this solution with care, clarity, and a great deal of ingenuity. Anybody who wants to be fully informed about the epistemic view should read this book."--David Papineau, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
About the Author(s)
Daniel Stoljar was educated as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney, and received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently Senior Fellow in the Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He lives in Canberra with his wife Helen Keane and their two sons.
