Consciousness and Its Objects

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Colin McGinn presents his latest work on consciousness in ten interlinked essays, four of them previously unpublished. He extends and deepens his controversial solution to the mind-body problem, defending the view that consciousness is both ontologically unproblematic and epistemologically impenetrable. He discusses the status of first-person authority; argues that all intentionality involves non-existent objects; and suggests that atomism about the conscious mind might be true, and that mind-body dualism is more credible the more extreme it is. On all these topics his views are surprising, in line with his belief that what the philosophy of mind needs now is "methodological radicalism"--a willingness to consider new and seemingly extravagant ideas.