Introductionclaim that we can and ought to experience “passing away.” He aims to demonstrate by example
how engaging with a line of thought from a specific meditative tradition can help to advance
debates in the analytic philosophy of consciousness. Adina L. Roskies (Chapter 33) discusses
scientific and ethical questions about the diagnosis, treatment, and end of life issues of patients
with disorders of consciousness. In Chapter 34, Chad Gonnerman reviews recent research in
experimental philosophy of consciousness. He first addresses recent debates about just how to
characterize “experimental philosophy,” and then examines two strands of subsequent research:
the folk psychology of group phenomenal minds and the cognitive systems responsible for ordi-
nary attributions of phenomenal states to others.
I hope you enjoy the journey through these fascinating topics. Debate and discussion is of
course ongoing.
Notes1 Other anthologies on consciousness are Block, Flanagan, and Güzeldere (1997), Baars, Banks, and
Newman (2003), Zelazo, Moscovitch, and Thompson (2007), Velmans and Schneider (2007), Bayne,
Cleeremans, and Wilken (2009), and Alter and Howell (2012). For a sample of single author intro-
ductions, see Revonsuo (2010), Blackmore (2012), P.M. Churchland (2013), Weisberg (2014), Seager
(2016), and Gennaro (2017). There are also many useful overview articles with expansive references in
the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/) and the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/). Annual interdisciplinary conferences such as “The Science of
Consciousness,” and the “Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness,” as well as the journals
Philosophical Psychology, Journal of Consciousness Studies, and Consciousness and Cognition have offered
quality places for disseminating work in the field. The same is true for the wonderful database and
bibliography PhilPapers (http://philpapers.org/).
2 The main exceptions in this volume being C. Coseru’s “Consciousness and the Mind-Body Problem
in Indian Philosophy” and J.H. Davis’s “Meditation and Consciousness.”
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