The Illusion of Conscious Will
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The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M Wegner
A new edition of Wegner's classic and controversial work, arguing that conscious will simply reminds of us the authorship of our actions.Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. With the publication of The Illusion of Conscious Will in 2002, Daniel Wegner proposed an innovative and provocative answer: the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain; it helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion (the most compelling illusion), it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Wegner was unable to undertake a second edition of the book before his death in 2013; this new edition adds a foreword by Wegner's friend, the prominent psychologist Daniel Gilbert, and an introduction by Wegner's colleague Thalia Wheatley.Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines cases both when people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing and when they are not willing an act that they in fact are doing in such phenomena as hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, and dissociative identity disorder.Wegner's argument was immediately controversial (called unwarranted impertinence by one scholar) but also compelling. Engagingly written, with wit and clarity, The Illusion of Conscious Will was, as Daniel Gilbert writes in the foreword to this edition, Wegner's magnum opus.
Daniel M. Wegner, PhD, until his death in 2013, was the John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 2000, Dr. Wegner was the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. His research was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the National Institute of Mental Health. A 1996-1997 Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Dr. Wegner was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a recipient of the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Donald T. Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780262232227 |
| ISBN 10 | 0262232227 |
| Title | The Illusion of Conscious Will |
| Author | Daniel M Wegner |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | MIT Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2002-04-15 |
| Number of pages | 419 |
| Prizes | Runner-up for IndieFab awards (Philosophy) 2002, Commended for Independent Publisher Book Awards (Psychology) 2003 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |