| Describing Inner Experience?: Proponent Meets Skeptic Contributor(s): Hurlburt, Russell (Author), Schwitzgebel, Eric (Author) |
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ISBN: 0262516497 ISBN-13: 9780262516495 Publisher: MIT Press OUR PRICE: $39.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2011 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Psychology | Cognitive Psychology & Cognition - Philosophy |
| Dewey: 153 |
| Series: Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psycholog |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.7" W x 8.6" (0.85 lbs) 336 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A psychologist and a philosopher with opposing viewpoints discuss the extent to which it is possible to report accurately on our own conscious experience, considering both the reliability of introspection in general and the particular self-reported inner experiences of Melanie, a subject interviewed using the Descriptive Experience Sampling method. Can conscious experience be described accurately? Can we give reliable accounts of our sensory experiences and pains, our inner speech and imagery, our felt emotions? The question is central not only to our humanistic understanding of who we are but also to the burgeoning scientific field of consciousness studies. The two authors of Describing Inner Experience disagree on the answer: Russell Hurlburt, a psychologist, argues that improved methods of introspective reporting make accurate accounts of inner experience possible; Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosopher, believes that any introspective reporting is inevitably prone to error. In this book the two discuss to what extent it is possible to describe our inner experience accurately. Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel recruited a subject, Melanie, to report on her conscious experience using Hurlburt's Descriptive Experience Sampling method (in which the subject is cued by random beeps to describe her conscious experience). The heart of the book is Melanie's accounts, Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel's interviews with her, and their subsequent discussions while studying the transcripts of the interviews. In this way the authors' dispute about the general reliability of introspective reporting is steadily tempered by specific debates about the extent to which Melanie's particular reports are believable. Transcripts and audio files of the interviews will be available on the MIT Press website. Describing Inner Experience? is not so much a debate as it is a collaboration, with each author seeking to refine his position and to replace partisanship with balanced critical judgment. The result is an illumination of major issues in the study of consciousness--from two sides at once. |
Contributor Bio(s): Hurlburt, Russell: - Russell T. Hurlburt is Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Wilson, Robert A.: - Robert A. Wilson is Professor of Philosophy at La Trobe University, the author of Genes and the Agents of Life, and coeditor of The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences and of Explanation and Cognition (MIT Press). He directed the project that built EugenicsArchive.ca and is a director and the executive producer of the documentary Surviving Eugenics.Schwitzgebel, Eric: - Eric Schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of Perplexities of Consciousness (MIT Press). His short, accessible essays on philosophical topics have appeared in a range of publications and on his popular blog, The Splintered Mind.Sterelny, Kim: - Kim Sterelny is Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. His books include Language and Reality (with Michael Devitt; second edition, MIT Press). |