Alexander Klein, "Consciousness is Motor: William James on Mind and Action" (Oxford UP, 2025)
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What is the central thesis of Consciousness is Motor and why does it matter?
Welcome to the New Books Network.
Hello and welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Finkdor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co host of the channel along with Sarah Tyson and Blaine Newfeld. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books in a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Alexander Klein, Canada Research Chair and Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University. His new book, Consciousness is Motor, William James on Mind and Action, is just out from Oxford University Press. When it comes to consciousness, William James is well known for his descriptions of it rather than his theory of it and its relation to the body.
In his new book, Klein elaborates James's theory of the evolutionary function of consciousness and how conscious states are always linked to the body and always trigger bodily motion, from physiological changes to purpose of behavior. Klein describes the vivisection experiments with headless frogs that led theorists to deny that consciousness was necessary for purpose of act purpose of action or to affirm that consciousness depended on the whole nervous system and not just the brain. James instead propo proposed an essential link between consciousness and purpose of action, in which the latter required an ability to entertain absent or future represent sensations. His book situates James in relation to contemporary debates regarding the functional role of consciousness, the search for neural con correlative and behavioral markers of consciousness, and the embodiment of mind.
Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Alexander Klein. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Thank
you for having me.
Um, this should be a really interesting conversation. You know, William James uh is uh, you know, very major figure in both philosophy and psychology. Um, and as you note in in in your book, uh, you know, his most famous phrase, you know, for most of us philosophers is the the quote about the blueing buzzing confusion of consciousness. And um as I take it, the main one of the main goals of the book is to kind of dissuade us that that really is all he had to say about consciousness, that there's a lot more and it's a lot more of contemporary relevance, actually. Um so before we get into the book, um maybe you could tell us a word a bit about yourself, how you got to philosophy and how you came to write the
Yeah, thanks. Um so Well, how did I come to philosophy? Why don't I start there? Um, I was a late bloomer in academics, and it really wasn't until like the second year of my undergraduate that I started. You know, paying attention. doing the things that you should do in school. Um and I I sort of I don't know, I found myself um taking a lot of different classes, but realizing that
How did Alexander Klein’s own academic journey lead him to write about William James?
You know, I hadn't necessarily done the legwork to be on top of uh, you know, the details and science and math and history. Philosophy for me at the time was something that you could do without a ton of background preparation. You walk into philosophy class, it's about analyzing arguments and and there is much less emphasis on like. I mean a firm grasp of like literary history or something. Um, I always look back on that and think it's sort of ironic because I think I've become the kind of philosophy professor that. wants my students to know things about other things. So like philosophy of science. I tend to teach in a way that you need to know some science to you you can't just sort of Speculate about what science might be like.
Um, I teach a lot of history of philosophy, and it's the same thing. I think you need to know. some actual history about the periods that you're looking at to do responsible history of philosophy. So it's sort of ironic, I kind of came into philosophy, attracted to it. by this feeling that, you know, it's all about, you know, analyzing arguments and and logic and that's sort of about it. But I don't know, somewhere along the line I turned into uh maybe a very different kind of philosopher.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central thesis of Consciousness is Motor and why does it matter?
0:01–3:20
2
How did Alexander Klein’s own academic journey lead him to write about William James?
3:20–12:08
3
What were the historic head‑less‑frog (pithed‑frog) experiments and why are they philosophically controversial?
12:08–22:47
4
How does James distinguish between mere reflexes and ‘prudent’ action in these experiments?
22:47–32:04
5
Why does Klein argue that means‑ends choosing is an unreliable marker of consciousness?
32:04–42:23
6
What functional‑evolutionary framework does James propose for the role of consciousness?
42:23–51:55
7
How does James’s view of ‘trying’ differ from contemporary theories of action?
51:55–1:01:14
8
What are Klein’s current research projects and how do they extend the ideas in the book?
1:01:14–1:03:51
Speakers
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