Table of Contents

Refereed Articles:

P. Sven Arvidson, Transformations in Consciousness: Continuity, the Self and Marginal Consciousness   Abstract
C. Jason Throop, Shifting From a Constructivist to an Experiential Approach  to the Anthropology of Self and Emotion: An investigation
  ‘within and beyond’ the boundaries of culture   Abstract
Burton Voorhees, Dennett and the Deep Blue Sea   Abstract

Poetry:

Guy Claxton, The Artesian Theatre

Review Article and Book Reviews:

  • Douglas F. Watt, Emotion and Consciousness: Part II (Review of  Anthony Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens)
  • Walter J. Freeman, How Brains Make Up Their Minds, reviewed by Arnold H. Modell
  • Bruce N. Waller, The Natural Selection of Autonomy, reviewed by Thomas W. Clark
  • Karl H. Pribram, Brain and Values: Is a Biological Science of Values Possible? reviewed by Helen Lawson-Williams
  • John McCrone, Going Inside: A Tour Round a Single Moment of Consciousness reviewed by Douglas F. Watt
  • Joseph F. Rychlak, In Defense of Human Consciousness reviewed by Chris Nunn
  • U. Ratsch, M.M. Richter and I-O. Stamatescu, Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence: An Interdisciplinary Debate reviewed by D.W. Salt
  • Charles G. Gross, Brain, Vision, Memory: Tales in the History of Neuroscience reviewed by Julie Martineau
  •  Books received

    • Abstracts

    Transformations in Consciousness: Continuity, the Self and Marginal Consciousness.
    P. Sven Arvidson, Department of Philosophy, Seattle University, Seattle, WA 98122, USA. Email: drarvidson@mindspring.com

    The term ‘consciousness’ is usually reserved only for the focus of attention. This restriction empties the phenomenology of consciousness of some of its richness. Rather than conceiving of consciousness as one-dimensional, researchers should consider that consciousness has a three-dimensional organization. Conscious presentations are structured in a focus, context and margin pattern. Inclusion of these other dimensions of consciousness as consciousness (rather than, for example, as unconsciousness) is important for an adequate relation between scientific method and phenomenology. The problem becomes especially acute when transformations in consciousness — attentional and temporal continuity — are considered. Using Aron Gurwitsch’s work, this paper presents an alternative to Galen Strawson’s view of consciousness and the self, as an example of the usefulness of this fuller conception of consciousness. I argue here that there is significant attentional and temporal continuity in consciousness, and that this continuity provides for a sense of the self as a distinct, but continuous experience.

    Shifting From a Constructivist to an Experiential Approach  to the Anthropology of Self and Emotion: An investigation ‘within and beyond’ the boundaries of culture. 
    C. Jason Throop, Department of Anthropology, UCLA, 3207 Hershey Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553, USA. Email: jthroop@ucla.edu

    This paper investigates the limits of the constructivist approach to the study of self and emotion in anthropology and outlines a viable alternative to this perspective, namely an experiential approach. The roots of the experiential and constructivist approaches to self and emotion in anthropology  are  traced to the work of  William James and George Herbert Mead respectively.  The limitations of the constructivist perspective are explored through a discussion of James’s radical empirical doctrine, Anthony P. Cohen’s work on creative self-consciousness, and Arlie Hochschild’s writings on ‘emotional discrepancy’.  A discussion of transpersonal aspects of emotional experience, altered states of consciousness and the experience of ‘pure consciousness’ is used to suggest some further limits of this approach. Finally, connections between this work and some of James’ later writings on self and mystical experience are drawn and the implications of this work for the study of self and emotion are explored.

    Dennett and the Deep Blue Sea.
    Burton Voorhees, Center for Natural and Human Science, Athabasca University, Box 10,000, Athabasca, Alberta, CANADA T9S 1A1

    A critical analysis of Daniel Dennett’s book Consciousness Explained (1991) is carried out, both substantively, and in terms of the rhetorical structure of the book. It is shown that the thesis implied by the title is not substantiated. This is attributed to a failure of method, which results in the necessity to assume that which it is claimed is being explained. An alternative thesis, that consciousness must be assumed to have an a priori ontological existence is suggested. In addition, some relationships between certain esoteric ideas and the nature of Dennett’s argument are discussed.