Books and audiobooks
Reading
Where to go next. Start with the first group if you are new to the subject; the rest follow the site's sections. Books marked 🎧 are available as audiobooks.
Start here
- Consciousness ExplainedDaniel C. Dennett, 1991 🎧 audiobook
Dennett's full theory: the Cartesian Theatre, multiple drafts, heterophenomenology and colour phi. Long, funny and demanding.
- Consciousness: A Very Short IntroductionSusan Blackmore, 2017
A compact, even-handed tour of the whole field by a psychologist sympathetic to illusionism.
- Being YouAnil Seth, 2021 🎧 audiobook
The most readable recent book on the science of consciousness, from controlled hallucination to the self.
- Galileo's ErrorPhilip Goff, 2019 🎧 audiobook
The case for panpsychism, written for general readers. The best way to meet the other side.
- Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for ThinkingDaniel C. Dennett, 2013 🎧 audiobook
Dennett's toolkit of thought experiments, including his takes on the Chinese room, Mary and zombies.
Dennett
- Illusionism as a Theory of ConsciousnessKeith Frankish (ed.), 2017
Frankish's target article and the replies, including Dennett's "Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness", the essay this site is built around.
- Sweet DreamsDaniel C. Dennett, 2005
Short lectures on the obstacles to a science of consciousness: fame in the brain, and the magic analogy.
- The Intentional StanceDaniel C. Dennett, 1987
The physical, design and intentional stances, and what it is to have beliefs.
- From Bacteria to Bach and BackDaniel C. Dennett, 2017 🎧 audiobook
Competence without comprehension, memes and the user illusion: the evolution of minds.
- I've Been ThinkingDaniel C. Dennett, 2023 🎧 audiobook
His memoir: Oxford with Ryle, Tufts, and fifty years of arguments.
The allies
- Sentience: The Invention of ConsciousnessNicholas Humphrey, 2022
Helen the blindsighted monkey, the ipsundrum, and why only some animals may feel.
- Soul DustNicholas Humphrey, 2011
Consciousness as a magical show the brain stages for itself, and why it was worth evolving.
- Rethinking ConsciousnessMichael S. A. Graziano, 2019
The attention schema theory, clearly told.
- NeurophilosophyPatricia Smith Churchland, 1986
The book that named a field: philosophy of mind must learn neuroscience.
- The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the SoulPaul M. Churchland, 1995
Neural networks, state spaces and colour, for general readers.
- Gödel, Escher, BachDouglas R. Hofstadter, 1979
Gödel, Escher and Bach braided together into a book about how meaning and selves arise from meaningless parts.
- I Am a Strange LoopDouglas R. Hofstadter, 2007
The strange-loop theory of the self, stated directly, and very personal.
- The Mind's IDouglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett (eds), 1981
Stories, essays and thought experiments about the self, with commentary by both editors.
- Principles of Synthetic IntelligenceJoscha Bach, 2009
The MicroPsi model of a motivated, emotional mind, built on Dietrich Dörner's psychology. Technical; his lectures are the gentler way in.
The long history
- De Anima (On the Soul)Aristotle, trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred
The soul as the form of a living body. Short, dense and endlessly discussed.
- Meditations on First PhilosophyRené Descartes, 1641
Doubt, the cogito and the real distinction of mind and body, in six short meditations.
- A Treatise of Human NatureDavid Hume, 1739–40
Book 1, Part 4, Section 6, "Of personal identity", is the bundle theory in a few pages.
- The Concept of MindGilbert Ryle, 1949
The ghost in the machine and the category mistake. Witty and still bracing.
- Alan Turing: The EnigmaAndrew Hodges, 1983 🎧 audiobook
The standard biography of Turing, including the 1950 paper and its background.
- Mortal QuestionsThomas Nagel, 1979
Includes "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
- The Mystery of ConsciousnessJohn R. Searle, 1997
Searle reviews Crick, Penrose, Edelman, Chalmers and Dennett, with the Dennett exchange reprinted.
- There's Something About MaryLudlow, Nagasawa and Stoljar (eds), 2004
The key papers on the knowledge argument, including Jackson changing his mind.
The far side
- The Conscious MindDavid J. Chalmers, 1996
The hard problem, zombies and naturalistic dualism in full.
- Reality+David J. Chalmers, 2022
Virtual worlds and the simulation hypothesis, with chapters on mind.
- Mind and CosmosThomas Nagel, 2012
Why the materialist neo-Darwinian picture of nature is almost certainly false, according to Nagel. Dennett was unpersuaded.
- Consciousness and Fundamental RealityPhilip Goff, 2017
The academic case for Russellian panpsychism.
Popper and Deutsch
- The Beginning of InfinityDavid Deutsch, 2011 🎧 audiobook
People as universal explainers, the jump to universality, and why artificial creativity is the key to AGI.
- The Fabric of RealityDavid Deutsch, 1997
The four strands: quantum physics, computation, evolution and Popper. Also the book behind the sister site.
- Conjectures and RefutationsKarl R. Popper, 1963
The clearest way into critical rationalism: knowledge grows by bold guesses and severe criticism.
- The Self and Its BrainKarl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, 1977
The three worlds and the case for interactionism, by a philosopher and a neuroscientist.
- Unended QuestKarl R. Popper, 1976
His intellectual autobiography: Vienna, New Zealand, London, and how the ideas grew.
Experiments and the science
- The Experience MachineAndy Clark, 2023 🎧 audiobook
Predictive processing, from perception to placebo.
- Other MindsPeter Godfrey-Smith, 2016 🎧 audiobook
The octopus and the evolution of intelligence: multiple realisability in the sea.
- An Immense WorldEd Yong, 2022 🎧 audiobook
How animals sense the world, bats and echolocation included.
- How Emotions Are MadeLisa Feldman Barrett, 2017 🎧 audiobook
Emotions as the brain's predictions about the body.
- The Illusion of Conscious WillDaniel M. Wegner, 2002
Experiments on the feeling of willing, cited in Dennett's 2016 essay.
Links go to plain Amazon and Audible searches; this site earns nothing from them. Free online: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an excellent entry on nearly every topic here.