The varieties of consciousness /

Research director at France's Institut Jean Nicod, a unit of the French National Center for Scientific Research, Kriegel presents a number of closely related theses in this important book. He argues that there are unique "primitive phenomenologies" that work in concert in everyday experiences: cognitive phenomenology, conative phenomenology, emotional phenomenology, and moral phenomenology. He devotes a chapter to each and includes a useful introduction and a fascinating appendix on the phenomenology of freedom. The book is extremely technical, and describing Kriegel's conclusions would be difficult without first describing the scholarly literature he is responding to, literature ranging from contemporary cognitive science to French existentialism. But one can summarize the book by saying that it offers readers--in particular philosophers working on the philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, phenomenology, and agency theory--the resources required to develop a richly textured account of humans' phenomenal experiences. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Researchers. --Brian T. Harding, Texas Woman's University