Benny Shanon: "The Psychological Study of Human Consciousness"

A presentation of a novel conceptual framework for the study of human consciousness. This framework encompasses both ordinary states of mind and non-ordinary ones and characterizes them as the different manifestations of one, unified psychological system. The analysis deals with the various kinds of mental contents people entertain, selfhood and personal identity, the cognitive agent's relationship with the world, and temporality; it involves distinctions of types and levels of consciousness. In addition to offering new methodological lines for the investigation of consciousness, the present research brings forth a new view of the nature and aims of the science of psychology.

Benny SHANON. Professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel). Studied philosophy and linguistics at Tel Aviv University, and completed his doctorate in psychology at Stanford. Has taught at MIT, Cornell University and Swarthmore College. and was a fellow at The Rockfeller Center in Bellagio, ZiF in Bielefeld, the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, Harvard Princeton and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His current work focuses on human consciousness, both ordinary and not, and the philosophy of psychology. Has also studied the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, the psychology of music, thought processes and creativity. His publications include "The Representational and the Presentational" (Harvester-Wheatsheaf,1993; Academic Imprint, 2008), and "The Antipodes of the Mind" (Oxford University Press, 2002).