Stream of consciousness : unity and continuity in conscious experience

Abstract

What is the basic architecture of consciousness? How are time and space manifest in conscious experience? Is consciousness really like a stream, as William James famously argued? Although there has been a massive upsurge of interest recently in consciousness, most of this has been focused on the relationship between consciousness and the brain. This has meant that important and intriguing questions concerning the fundamental characteristics of consciousness itself have not received the attention they deserve. Stream of Consciousness is devoted to these questions, presenting a systematic, phenomenological inquiry into the most general features of conscious life: the nature of awareness, introspection, phenomenal space and time-consciousness. Barry Dainton shows us that a stream of consciousness is not a mosaic of discrete fragments of experience, but rather an interconnected flowing whole. This is due to a single primitive experiential relationship which he calls ‘coconsciousness’, a relationship which holds between those experiences that are had together both at a time and over time. Stream of Consciousness will interest anyone concerned with the current debates on consciousness in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience.