Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings

The anthology's distinctive feature is its editorial architecture, not merely its contents. Chalmers organizes the material into three major parts—Foundations, Consciousness, and Content—and treats consciousness as a central, autonomous section rather than a subtopic of metaphysics or epistemology. The first edition included 63 selections, three published for the first time and many revised especially for the volume, with each section introduced by Chalmers himself . The 2021 second edition expanded to 79 selections and added sections on perception, self-knowledge, the self, and artificial intelligence, while broadening coverage to include African, Indian, and Islamic philosophy alongside the standard Western canon . Reviewers have called it 'the best anthology on the market' for its comprehensiveness and teachability .

The second edition is substantially expanded and diversified. It contains 79 selections compared to the first edition's 63, and it adds four new major sections: perception, epistemology of mind, the self, and artificial intelligence . The most significant change is the broadening of philosophical traditions represented. Where the first edition drew almost exclusively from the Western analytic canon, the second includes Kwame Gyekye's 'The Akan Concept of a Person,' Avicenna's 'On the Soul: The Floating Man,' and Jonardon Ganeri's 'Emergentisms, Ancient and Modern,' alongside new material from experimental philosophy, feminist philosophy, and phenomenology . The page count increased from 675 to 816 pages, reflecting this expansion .

Chalmers introduces each of the major sections, providing background on the debates and pointers for further reading . These introductions are not neutral summaries but interpretive guides shaped by Chalmers's own philosophical commitments, particularly his view that consciousness poses a 'hard problem' irreducible to functional explanation. The editorial voice is present throughout, making the anthology something more than a collection of reprinted papers: it is an argument about how philosophy of mind should be taught and what its central questions are. This is why reviewers emphasize the volume's pedagogical utility—instructors can rely on the introductions to frame material, and the selections are organized to support a coherent course structure .

The volume includes key texts from both sides of the divide. Chalmers's own 'Consciousness and Its Place in Nature' appears in the consciousness section, laying out his case for the irreducibility of phenomenal experience . Dennett is represented by 'Quining Qualia,' his attack on the notion that qualia are intrinsic, private, and ineffable . This pairing is deliberate: it stages the central disagreement in contemporary philosophy of mind within a single teaching resource. Students encounter Chalmers's hard problem and Dennett's deflationary response side by side, along with the surrounding literature—Nagel's 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,' Jackson's knowledge argument, and responses to it. The anthology thus functions as a map of the debate, with Chalmers as both cartographer and participant.

Criticisms fall into two categories. The first concerns representation: despite the second edition's expanded coverage, some critics argue that the anthology remains centered on the Western analytic tradition, with non-Western and feminist contributions added as supplements rather than integrated into the core structure. The second concerns accessibility and cost. At 816 pages and with a list price typical of academic anthologies, it is expensive for students, and some instructors assign only portions. A more mundane complaint appears in Amazon reviews of certain printings: some buyers report garbled text, page-order errors, and photocopy-quality reproduction, though these complaints target specific print-on-demand versions rather than the Oxford University Press edition itself . The scholarly reception, however, has been overwhelmingly positive, with reviewers praising its breadth and organization .

The anthology can be read as a pedagogical extension of Chalmers's philosophical program. His monographs—The Conscious Mind, The Character of Consciousness, Constructing the World—argue for a specific position: that consciousness is irreducible and that a science of consciousness must take first-person data seriously. The anthology does not argue for this position explicitly, but its architecture reflects it. By placing consciousness at the center and including texts that frame the hard problem as the field's defining challenge, Chalmers presents philosophy of mind as a discipline organized around the question he has spent his career defending. This does not make the anthology polemical—it includes Dennett and other critics—but it does mean that the selection and organization embody a particular vision of what matters in the field.