Abstract
This volume comprises an original introduction and six well-known essays in contemporary philosophy of mind. Each of these seeks to find a place in nature for consciousness without reducing it to strictly material states.
The essays have all been published in the last decades, a period in which non-reductive approaches have become a significant voice in philosophy of mind. That is not to say that non-reductive approaches constitute a homogenous philosophical standpoint.
The different opponents of reduction represented here do not constitute anything like a 'school'. Rather, they form a loose coalition of approaches that take seriously the subjective view, and are sceptical towards existing reductionist proposals.
It should be stressed that all these positions still integrate consciousness into nature, and they make no appeal to extra-natural, or supernatural, agency. They therefore steer clear not only of physicalism but also of overtly theistic or idealist solutions.
They may therefore be said to embrace an expanded conception of nature that goes beyond a narrowly-materialist ontology.