General Introduction to Volumes 1 to 4: A psychological view of the long history of thought about consciousness

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Velmans, Max. 2018. General Introduction to Volumes 1 to 4: A psychological view of the long history of thought about consciousness. In: M Velmans, ed. Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology) Volume 1: The Origins of Psychology and the Study of Consciousness. 1 Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1-30. ISBN 9781138848641 [Book Section]

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Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology), is a 4-volume collection of Major Works on Consciousness commissioned by Routledge, London. This general introduction to Volume 1 sets the stage for the entire, printed collection. As the collection forms part of a Critical Concepts in Psychology series, this selection of major works focuses mainly on works that have a direct psychological relevance. From the mid 19th Century onwards, psychology began to separate itself from philosophy, and the development of psychological thought about consciousness links intimately to the development of psychology itself. In order to trace this development, the four volumes of this collection follow a rough, historical sequence. Volume 1 deals with The Origins of Psychology and the Study of Consciousness. Volumes 2 and 3 deal with contemporary Cognitive and Neuropsychological Approaches to the Study of Consciousness. And Volume 4 focuses mainly on New Directions: Psychogenesis, Transformations of Consciousness and Non-reductive, Integrative Theories, which deal with issues likely to expand current, mainstream thought in potentially novel, and, sometimes, challenging directions. The printed, 4-volume collection presents 89 major readings (or salient extracts from major readings) drawn from the entire field of Consciousness Studies, along with introductions to each volume and an extensive index. It also introduces 5 additional readings that were selected for inclusion but could not be reprinted for the reason that reprint permissions were prohibitively expensive. Online Companions for each of the Volumes are also available that provide a wealth of additional resources in the form of online links to supplementary readings and to the readings themselves. This introduction to Volume 1 focuses on the selection criteria for the collection, the problems presented by consciousness and how to organize these into groups, the ancient history of thought about consciousness, mind and soul, the emergence of psychology as the empirical study of consciousness and mind, the emergence of behaviorism, cognitive psychology and the re-emergence of the study of mind, initial ideas about the role of consciousness in human information processing, the strengths of functionalist accounts of mind, the weaknesses of functionalist accounts of consciousness, competing psychological theories about the nature and function of consciousness, interdisciplinary influences, and the formation of Consciousness Studies.

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Book Section

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This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology) Volume 1: The Origins of Psychology and the Study of Consciousness on 30 April 2018, available online: https://www.routledge.com/Consciousness/Velmans/p/book/9781138848634