Jesse J. Prinz, “The Conscious Brain: How Attention Engenders Experience” (Oxford UP, 2012)
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What is the overall premise of Jesse Prinz’s AIR theory of consciousness?
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Hello
and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel in the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor of the University of Iowa, and I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talise of Vanderbilt. In our bi monthly podcasts we interview philosophers about their new books in aesthetics and ethics, metaphysics and epistemology, social and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and many other areas. Today's interview is with Jesse Prinz, distinguished professor of philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His new book, The Conscious Brain, is just out from Oxford University Press. For decades now, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and neuroscientists have been working to understand the nature of the hard to describe but very familiar conscious experiences we have while we're awake.
Some have thought consciousness can't be explained scientifically, and others have argued that it will always remain a mystery beyond our epistemic grasp. But most consider some sort of explanation in physical and specifically neural terms to be possible. In this deftly written book, Prince synthesizes scientific data and hypothesis with philosophical theory and insight to argue for what he calls the AIR or air theory of According to which consciousness is attention to intermediate level sensory representations realized by neural activity or vector waves. Attention is availability to working memory. And availability to working memory is identified with synchronized neural or vector wave activity in the gamma frequency range.
Along the way he provides novel arguments against competitor theories, presents new data that any adequate theory of consciousness must explain, and And proposes a mind body metaphysics that draws on insights from both non reductive and reductive physicalism. Let's turn to the interview.
How does the book’s cover art reflect the ideas inside the book?
I'm here with Jesse Prinz, the author of Con The Conscious Brain How Attention Engenders Experience. Hello, Jesse.
Hi Carrie, great to be here.
Hi, thanks. Thanks for agreeing to an interview. Um this is a a terrific book. It's it's deftly written as as usual. Um it's also empirically synthetic and and it's just comprehensive in all kinds of ways and at lots of different levels. Um And I guess the best way to get at the book, um, would be to uh, you know, look at your your background interest, how you came to this book, um, and then get into the particular details of your of your um uh theory of consciousness. But um actually before we get to that, um one of the you know, they they say that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and um in this particular case I'm just wondering how to judge the cover of the book.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the overall premise of Jesse Prinz’s AIR theory of consciousness?
0:00–3:14
2
How does the book’s cover art reflect the ideas inside the book?
3:14–6:33
3
What led Prinz to develop his philosophical view on consciousness?
6:33–12:29
4
How does the AIR theory break down consciousness into Attention, Intermediate‑level representations, and Availability?
12:29–26:04
5
Why does Prinz argue that attention, not just perception, marks the difference between conscious and unconscious states?
26:04–40:49
6
What role do gamma‑frequency neural synchrony and working‑memory availability play in the theory?
40:49–1:05:01
7
How does Prinz address the notion of a phenomenal self and the unity of consciousness?
1:05:01–1:08:25
Speakers
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