In this book, top researchers from each of the 3 main areas of study in consciousness introduce their angle and lead the student through the basic debates and research to date, ending with suggestions for further reading.

Consciousness is perplexing: too familiar and intimate to ignore, too complex and elusive to understand. Although consciousness is embedded in all our experience and is considered basic to all our knowing, no one seems to know what exactly it is, and the concept is both widely used and much abused. For the better part of the twentieth century, the study of consciousness was viewed as unworthy of scholarly and scientific pursuit. Research has consequently suffered. This cross-cultural examination first explores the varieties of conscious experience and reflects on the attempts to understand and explain consciousness in the Western scholarly and scientific tradition. The next section deals with Eastern spiritual traditions and how they differ with and complement the Western viewpoints. In the final chapters the author reconciles the two traditions for a comprehensive understanding of what consciousness is, and considers how such an understanding may be helpful for a cross-cultural assessment of behavior, as well as for enhancing human abilities and wellness.

Consciousness is undoubtedly one of the last remaining scientific mysteries and hence one of the greatest contemporary scientific challenges. How does the brain's activity result in the rich phenomenology that characterizes our waking life? Are animals conscious? Why did consciousness evolve? How does science proceed to answer such questions? Can we define what consciousness is? Can we measure it? Can we use experimental results to further our understanding of disorders of consciousness, such as those seen in schizophrenia, delirium, or altered states of consciousness? These questions are at the heart of contemporary research in the domain. Answering them requires a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach that engages not only philosophers, but also neuroscientists and psychologists in a joint effort to develop novel approaches that reflect both the stunning recent advances in imaging methods as well as the continuing refinement of our concepts of consciousness. In this light, the Oxford Companion to Consciousness is the most complete authoritative survey of contemporary research on consciousness. Five years in the making and including over 250 concise entries written by leaders in the field, the volume covers both fundamental knowledge as well as more recent advances in this rapidly changing domain. Structured as an easy-to-use dictionary and extensively cross-referenced, the Companion offers contributions from philosophy of mind to neuroscience, from experimental psychology to clinical findings, so reflecting the profoundly interdisciplinary nature of the domain. Particular care has been taken to ensure that each of the entries is accessible to the general reader and that the overall volume represents a comprehensive snapshot of the contemporary study of consciousness. The result is a unique compendium that will prove indispensable to anyone interested in consciousness, from beginning students wishing to clarify a concept to professional consciousness researchers looking for the best characterization of a particular phenomenon.

Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness explores a variety of different approaches to the study of consciousness developed by Buddhist philosophers in classical India and China. It addresses questions that are still being investigated in cognitive science and philosophy of mind.

This volume presents a theoretical framework for understanding consciousness and learning. Drawing on work in cognitive psychology and philosophy, this framework begins with the observation that to be conscious is literally to have a point of view. From this starting point, the book develops a descriptive scheme that allows perceptual, symbolic, and emotional awareness to be discussed in common theoretical terms, compatible with a computational view of the mind. A central theme is our experience of ourselves as agents, consciously controlling activities situated in environments. In contrast to previous theories of consciousness, the experienced cognition framework emphasizes the changes in conscious control as individuals acquire skills. The book is divided into four parts. The first introduces the central themes and places them in the context of information-processing theory and empirical research on cognitive skill. The second develops the theoretical framework, emphasizing the unity of perceptual, symbolic, and emotional awareness and the relation of conscious to nonconscious processes. The third applies the experienced cognition framework to a variety of topics in cognitive psychology, including working memory, problem solving, and reasoning. It also includes discussions of everyday action, skill, and expertise, focusing on changes in conscious control with increasing fluency. The last concludes the book by evaluating the recent debate on the "cognitive unconscious" and implicit cognition from the perspective of experienced cognition, and considering the prospects for a cognitive psychology focused on persons. This book addresses many of the issues raised in philosophical treatments of consciousness from the point of view of empirical cognitive psychology. For example, the structure of conscious mental states is addressed by considering how to describe them in terms of variables suitable for information-processing theory. Understanding conscious states in this way also provides a basis for developing empirical hypotheses, for example, about the relation of emotion and cognition, about the apparent "mindlessness" of skilled activity, and about the nature and role of goals in guiding activity. Criticisms of the computational view of mind are addressed by showing that the role of first-person perspectives in cognition can be described and investigated in theoretical terms compatible with a broadly-conceived information-processing theory of cognition.

Timothy Sprigge has been a major player on the philosophical scene contributing to discussions as diverse as consciousness, the ontology of time, personal identity, animal rights, punishment, censorship and wider issues in metaphysics, ethics and the history of philosophy. He is, however, less well known for his own highly original system of metaphysics and ethics'a synthesis of Absolute Idealism, panpsychism and utilitarianism. The contributions gathered in this volume, written by philosophers of international reputation or by acknowledged scholars in their specialized fields of inquiry, engage themes in his metaphysics and ethics and provide a critical assessment of his ideas and arguments. In a concluding essay, Sprigge answers the most significant objections raised by his critics: the final result is an engaging dialogue on the perennial and most fundamental questions of philosophy.

The Language of Surrealism explores the revolutionary experiments in language and mind undertaken by the surrealists across Europe between the wars. Highly influential on the development of art, literary modernism, and current popular culture, surrealist style remains challenging, striking, resonant and thrilling – and the techniques by which surrealist writing achieves this are set out clearly in this book. Stockwell draws on recent work in cognitive poetics and literary linguistics to re-evaluate surrealism in its own historical setting. In the process, the book questions later critical theoretical views of language that have distorted our ideas about both surrealism and language itself. What follows is a piece of literary criticism that is fully contextualised, historically sensitive, and textually driven, and which sets out in rich and readable detail this most intriguing and disturbing literature.

This book, Addiction to Recovery: Unlocking Your Potential, is an accumulation of existential realization, many resources, years of recovery, education, insights, and years working in the field of addiction, with all adepts in the goal of personal transformation from addiction to recovery. This is an integrative approach to living in wellness of recovery. I vacated my own mind through deep personal process, my own form of meditation, and this book came about. My hope is this book unlocks the potential that advances new insight into the recovery process for each individual by reframing the process in such a way that the right interpretation by the reader will help recovery click into place. What we need to celebrate in recovery is the self-discovery of the individual. I offer my carefully considered overviews and assessments on the best-known treatments (theories) connected to recovery. I have provided a new outlook as a guide for the unwary who had failed at recovery in the past and those just coming into recovery for the first time. I count myself among the autodidacts, the self-taught perpetual student fueled by a passion for new answers and a sense of mission.

This Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment 2-Volume Set constitutes an essential resource for shaping the future of the scientific foundation of personality research, measurement, and practice. It reviews the major contemporary personality models (Volume 1) and associated psychometric measurement instruments (Volume 2) that underpin the scientific study of this important area of psychology. With contributions from internationally renowned academics, this work will be an important reference work for a host of researchers and practitioners in the fields of individual differences and personality assessment, clinical psychology, educational psychology, work and organizational psychology, health psychology and other applied fields as well. Volume 1: Personality Theories and Models. Deals with the major theoretical models underlying personality instruments and covers the following broad topics, listed by section heading: " Explanatory Models For Personality " Comprehensive Trait Models " Key Traits: Psychobiology " Key Traits: Self-Regulation And Stress " New Trait And Dynamic Trait Constructs " Applications