- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy The Diamond Jubilee A Classical Celebration Album for just £2.50 Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
The Illusion of Conscious Will (Bradford Books)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £4.45
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Illusion of Conscious Will (Bradford Books) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £4.45, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"...Dr. Wegner's critique... is less philosophical than empirical, drawing heavily upon recent research in cognitive science and neurology." John Horgan The New York Times "Fascinating...I recommend the book as a first-rate intellectual adventure." Herbert Silverman Science Books & Films "Fascinating." Herbert Silverman Science Books and Films "...very convincing." David Wilson American Scientist "Wegner has finessed all the usual arguments into a remarkable demonstration of how psychology can sometimes transform philosophy... [He] writes with humour and clarity." Sue Blackmore TLS "Wegner is a terrific writer, sharing his encyclopedic purchase on the material in amusing, entertaining, and masterful ways." David Brizer , M.D. Psychiatric Services "Wegner writes with humour and clarity." Sue Blackmore TLS "...well worth reading for [the author's]interesting analysis and insights." David Wilson American Scientist "A remarkable demonstration of how psychology can sometimes transform philosophy." Sue Blackmore Times Literary Supplement "Fascinating. This volume will appeal to a wide general audience as well as to those in the neurosciences..." Herbert Silverman Science Books & Films "Daniel Wegner is our foremost modern investigator of illusions of conscious agency--our tendency to believe that we really have more control over our own actions and thoughts than we do. In this book, Wegner boldly pursues the claim that our sense of conscious agency is ALWAYS imaginary. His arguments are based on clever experiments and deep analysis of the issues. This book will stand as a challenge to anyone trying to understand the nature of voluntary thought and action."--Bernard J. Baars, Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology, The Neurosciences Institute "Wegner presents diverse, persuasive, and entertaining evidence for his thesis that the experience of conscious will is an illusion. The book is a profound treatise on a central issue in psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind."--Gordon H. Bower, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University "Wegner may well have made a historic breakthrough in the age-old, nettlesome problem of 'free will'--namely, conceptualizing it as an act of causal attribution. His recounting of the history of the issue is rich with fascinating examples and illustrations. This sets us up for what may be the first experimental approach to this nettlesome philosophical problem. Because we know a lot about how people make causal attributions, we may suddenly and for the first time, thanks to Wegner's analysis, know a lot about why people believe so strongly that they have free will. Wegner shows that by manipulating the variables underlying these attributions, one changes the feeling of having acted or thought freely. This is nothing short of 'experimental philosophy' in its application of cognitive scientific principles and methods to previously intractable issues in the philosophy of mind."--John A. Bargh, Department of Psychology, Yale UniversityPlease note: This endorsement arrived too late for the book jacket. Endorser gives permission to excerpt from quote.
Product Description
Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality.Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will -- -those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Daniel M. Wegner's book is a lucid, entertaining exploration of one of the most important issues in philosophy and psychology: the existence of will. Extreme determinists contend that people are mechanisms programmed to do what they do and that any notion of freedom or choice is merely illusory. Their antagonists, the proponents of free will, say that people consciously freely choose to act (at least some of the time). Wegner falls into the former camp. Conscious will, he says, is an illusion. But in a wide-ranging ramble that touches on law and the courts, spirit possession, hypnotism, neuroscience, phantom limbs and Ouija boards among other things, he builds a strong anecdotal case that this illusion is essential to being human. The book is curiously desultory, now citing some experiment on the brain in deadly earnest academic language, and then tossing off a flip remark about a popular stage magician or an apparently very clever horse. We find it both entertaining and elucidating, although it may not always rise to the most demanding standards of philosophical evidence and argument.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Wegner postulates our belief in complete control of our voluntary actions is an illusion. Who, then, is in control of our thoughts and behaviour? In an ideal scientific portrayal of how our minds work all the relevant factors might be analysed in detail and reassembled to duplicate the processes leading to a particular action. That, he argues, isn't a practical solution to understanding. "Free will", debated by religions, science, philosophy and law, is too simplistic a concept in Wegner's view. There are too many forces impinging on our minds, affecting our behaviour and outlook, to endorse our commonly held view of how much we control we actually exercise. In a well written account of how these outside forces are received and acted on, Wegner presents an abundance of examples. His easygoing style makes this book a pleasurable read.
Anyone seeking simple concepts will not find this book fulfilling. There are many facets to examine in determining how our minds work. Simple answers and concepts have no place here. On the surface, his examples of outside forces may seem bizarre to the newcomer to these ideas. The famous horse, Clever Hans, who fooled many for years, may seem out of place in a study of human will. How can animal actions be meaningful in such a treatise? The example points up, however, how subtle the forces affecting our thoughts and actions can be. Human brain malfunctions also show the distinction between what we view as "normal" and "aberrant" behaviour. In examining some of these conditions, Wegner leads us through spirit mediums, Oujia Boards, "channeling", and hypnotism. It seems like a journey through a fantasy land, but each example makes a telling point in supporting his case that the idea that our actions remain within our control is illusory.
None of this is to suggest, he argues finally, that we have no influence on what we do. He merely wants to make us aware of those other forces. Some are easily understood, but easily overlooked - social forces are the chief example. "Have another piece of pie" repeated until we partake, seemingly "against our will". Not telling off the boss when she's been foolish. The examples are common and frequent, Wegner notes, but we don't view them as modifying our concept of "free will" as we should. In conclusion, Wegner urges that the idea of conscious will is a valid ideal. We should aim to achieve it, even if it's not universally attainable. While our knowledge of how conscious of ourselves we truly requires further explanation, Wegner's summary of will gives us another step along that journey.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Other writers discuss the question of free will / determinism as a philosophical question. They ask what is possible on the basis of first principles. Wegener is entirely different. This is an emprical work of expermental science. Wegener goes out and examines what the experience of will is in a series of experiments. If previous writers were like Galen or Aristotle arguing from first principles about natural philosophy, Wegener is like Harvey or Galileo, cutting across all the philosophical speculation with scientific evidence. This work does not hold all the answers, but science never does. It will help you understand the experience of will in a way that other books won't.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
the illusion of conscious will
Wegner is very bad in his first page, but he is done as one of the greatest philosoph in our time.
He says that nowadays Science will be able, not perhaps in a few days, but... Read more
He says that nowadays Science will be able, not perhaps in a few days, but... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Maxime Legrain
Argument at dinner
The experiments of Benjamin Libet established that trivial actions could result from unconscious brain processing. Read more
Published on 2 Nov 2009 by S. G. Raggett
The illusion of a free will solution!
Wegner is a determinist, as was Einstein, who famously sought to disprove quantum mechanics. Indeed, Wegner closes his book with a quote (which I personally consider is rather a... Read more
Published on 3 April 2006 by bobobob5
Brilliant!
Wegner's well articulated and empirically sound exposition of the illusion of conscious will and the experience of (apparent) mental causation of our actions makes excellent... Read more
Published on 15 July 2005 by "rools_ster"
Challenging work
A fascinating empirical account of how the conscious will works. Psychological theories are rarely based on so much experimental evidence. Read more
Published on 27 Oct 2003
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
