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There is a real difficulty in talking about the new version of psychology which has become possible over the past two or three decades. It is that one is required to know too much, and to speak too many different ‘languages’. We have to be able to understand hard science (neuroscience, genetics), manipulate the intangible concepts of ‘soft’ science (cognitive and developmental psychology), be in sympathetic touch with emotion and phantasy (psychoanalysis and the psychology of groups) - and, at the same time, try to preserve some common sense as we move about among all these demanding systems of thought.
Perhaps this new territory should properly be called anthropology rather than psychology. For the first time, we have the prospect of a science which truly does justice to the complexity of human beings; but to get it into manageable form we will need to think about its many constituents with a freedom from prejudice that is still rare. In particular, the prejudice against philosophy that many scientists permit themselves will have to be abandoned.
Max Velmans's Understanding Consciousness is an excellent example of what can be achieved when these difficult requirements are met. Its title, both modest in form and huge in ambition, is a fair guide to his approach.
He begins with a very thorough and thoughtful review of the existing accounts of consciousness, particularly those by neuroscientists and cognitive and behavioural psychologists, and maps them onto the age-old philosophical discussion of the nature of mind. He shows very clearly how many modern debates are re-workings of traditional issues, and he usefully distinguishes the different sorts of dualist theory - substance and property dualism - and the different sorts of monism - idealism, physicalism, functionalism and dual-aspect monism. His careful sorting-out of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these positions is a model of clarity, and shows convincingly why the theories of, say, Francis Crick and Dani