The Conscious Mind by David J. Chalmers
Published 1996 · 432 pages · 171,589 words · about 13 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science & Nature
How hard is The Conscious Mind to read?
The Conscious Mind scores 64 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Technical philosophical vocabulary throughout. Requires familiarity with analytic philosophy.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- Sustained abstract philosophical argument about the metaphysics of experience.
- Information density: 62 out of 100
- Extremely dense with philosophical arguments, counterarguments, and formal reasoning.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Systematic, thesis-driven. Builds arguments sequentially.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Analytical rather than literary. Qualia and zombies as conceptual tools.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Earnest, rigorous. Chalmers follows arguments wherever they lead.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- Proposes property dualism but acknowledges the theory is speculative.
- Structural complexity: 42 out of 100
- Ten chapters of cumulative philosophical argument requiring sustained concentration.
How The Conscious Mind is regarded
The Conscious Mind holds a literary regard score of 82 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.