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AMHERST, Mass. - Colin McGinn, professor of philosophy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, will speak on the topic "Can We Explain Consciousness?" in the Cole Assembly Room in Converse Hall at Amherst College on Thursday, Oct. 12, at 4:30 p.m. McGinn's talk, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at Amherst College and the Forry Fund in Philosophy and Science as part of a series on "Science and the Limits of Explanation," is free and open to the public. A reception in Converse Hall will follow.
Colin McGinn has explored the philosophy of mind, problems of consciousness, and moral philosophy in The Character of Mind (1982), The Problem of Consciousness (1991) and Problems in Philosophy: The Limits of Inquiry (1993), among many other works. His latest book, The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World, published last year, asks if the human mind is capable of explaining its own consciousness.
McGinn, who holds degrees from Oxford and Manchester Universities, has also taught at Oxford and University College, London, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, the University of Bielefeld (Germany), the City University of New York and Princeton University.
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