Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research (The MIT Press) - Hardcover

Windt, Jennifer M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262028670 ISBN 13: 9780262028677

Publisher: MIT Press, 2015

Synopsis

Dreams, conceived as conscious experience or phenomenal states during sleep, offer an important contrast condition for theories of consciousness and the self. Yet, although there is a wealth of empirical research on sleep and dreaming, its potential contribution to consciousness research and philosophy of mind is largely overlooked. This might be due, in part, to a lack of conceptual clarity and an underlying disagreement about the nature of the phenomenon of dreaming itself. In Dreaming, Jennifer Windt lays the groundwork for solving this problem. She develops a conceptual framework describing not only what it means to say that dreams are conscious experiences but also how to locate dreams relative to such concepts as perception, hallucination, and imagination, as well as thinking, knowledge, belief, deception, and self-consciousness. Arguing that a conceptual framework must be not only conceptually sound but also phenomenologically plausible and carefully informed by neuroscientific research, Windt integrates her review of philosophical work on dreaming, both historical and contemporary, with a survey of the most important empirical findings. This allows her to work toward a systematic and comprehensive new theoretical understanding of dreaming informed by a critical reading of contemporary research findings. Windt's account demonstrates that a philosophical analysis of the concept of dreaming can provide an important enrichment and extension to the conceptual repertoire of discussions of consciousness and the self and raises new questions for future research.

About this title

About the Author:

Jennifer M. Windt is a Lecturer at Monash University, Melbourne, and the author of Dreaming (MIT Press).

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0262028670
• ISBN 13: 9780262028677
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 824