Owen Flanagan, Ph.D. (born ?) is a James B. Duke professor of Philosophy at Duke University. Flanagan has done work in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, ethics, contemporary ethical theory, moral psychology, as well as Buddhist and Hindu conceptions of the self.
Flanagan has written extensively on consciousness. He has been realistic about the difficulty of consciousness as a scientific and philosophical problem, but optimistic about the chance of solving the problem. One of the problems in a study of consciousness is the hidden way in which conscious states are dependent of brain states. Flanagan has proposed that there is a "natural method" to go about understanding consciousness that involves creating a science of mind. Three key elements of this developing science are:
1) paying attention to subjective reports on conscious experiences, 2) incorporating the results from psychology and cognitive science,
and
3) including the results from neuroscience that will reveal how neuronal systems produce consciousness.
Books by Owen Flanagan
- The Science of the Mind
- Consciousness Reconsidered
- The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them
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