Explain consciousness

Explaining consciousness – what does that mean and how does it work? The central idea of Wolfgang Prinz, presented in this book, understands consciousness as a social institution based on self-representation. Explaining consciousness therefore means: explaining the mental self. The discussion is directed on the one hand to the justification and elaboration of the idea itself, and on the other hand to the characterization of the social interaction processes that realize it. The focus is on how the interplay of cognitive mechanisms and social practices can produce self-representation and thus consciousness.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Prinz, born in 1942, is director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and honorary professor at the Universities of Munich and Leipzig. He has been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize and the Oswald Külpe Prize, among others.

As part of the International Science Festival – Geist Heidelberg