Review of The Wonder of Consciousness: Understanding the Mind through Philosophical Reflection, by Harold Langsam. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. H/b £24.95.

Abstract

If the Wonder of Consciousness were a wine, the label would use phrases such as ‘subtle rationalist flavours’ and ‘hints of Kant and Husserl’, as well as ‘fine analytic finish’. Harold Langsam’s work, although neither derivative nor anachronistic, will remind historians of much that is no longer fashionable. Wisely, however, he does not get bogged down in a discussion of antecedents. What makes this an important book is precisely that it is a case for something that is - for no good reason - out of fashion. His main thesis is that we have a priori knowledge of a rather specific class of synthetic truths, namely the necessary relations between certain facts of which we are directly aware. In addition, he shows by example that there is interesting and important philosophy of mind to be done that is largely independent of the mind-body problem, and which should indeed convert ‘puzzlement’ about consciousness into ‘pure, unadulterated wonder’ (p. 10).