Consciousness and the world

"Brian O'Shaughnessy investigates what consciousness is and how it engages, through perception, with the world." "It is his contention that consciousness consists in a closely knit complex of occurrent mental phenomena and powers with thinking and self-knowledge at the centre - and nothing else. He proceeds to give a philosophical elucidation of its nature, analysing it into its constituent psychological parts. He argues that consciousness has a determinate character as an internal but world-oriented phenomenon, and that there exist logically necessary and sufficient conditions for its presence. Though consciousness is an internal state, perception is its very foundation, being the source of the material with which the mind develops, and essential to the processes whereby it does so."--BOOK JACKET.