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556Consciousness and cognitive accessProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3): 289-317. 2008.This article concerns the interplay between two issues that involve both philosophy and neuroscience: whether the content of phenomenal consciousness is 'rich' or 'sparse', whether phenomenal consciousness goes beyond cognitive access, and how it would be possible for there to be evidence one way or the other.
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1564Sexism, racism, ageism and the nature of consciousnessIn Richard Moran, Alan Sidelle & Jennifer E. Whiting (eds.), Philosophical Topics, University of Arkansas Press. pp. 71--88. 2000.Everyone would agree that the American flag is red, white and blue. Everyone should also agree that it looks red, white and blue to people with normal color vision in appropriate circumstances. If a philosophical theory led to the conclusion that the red stripes cannot look red to both men and women, both blacks and whites, both young and old, we would be reluctant (to say the least) to accept that philosophical theory. But there is a widespread philosophical view about the nature of conscious …Read more
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Anti-reductionism slaps back: Mental causation, reduction and superveniencePhilosophical Perspectives 11 107-132. 1997.
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290How heritability misleads about raceIn Bernard Boxill (ed.), Boston Review, Oxford University Press. pp. 99-128. 1996.According to The Bell Curve, Black Americans are genetically inferior to Whites. That's not the only point in Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's book. They also argue that there is something called "general intelligence" which is measured by IQ tests, socially important, and 60 percent "heritable" within whites. (I'll explain heritability below.) But the claim about genetic inferiority is my target here. It has been subject to wide-ranging criticism since the book was first published last y…Read more
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608Attention and mental paint1Philosophical Issues 20 (1): 23-63. 2010.Much of recent philosophy of perception is oriented towards accounting for the phenomenal character of perception—what it is like to perceive—in a non-mentalistic way—that is, without appealing to mental objects or mental qualities. In opposition to such views, I claim that the phenomenal character of perception of a red round object cannot be explained by or reduced to direct awareness of the object, its redness and roundness—or representation of such objects and qualities. Qualities of percept…Read more
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391Review of Alva Noe, Action in Perception (review)Journal of Philosophy 102 (5): 259-272. 2005.This is a charming and engaging book that combines careful attention to the phenomenology of experience with an appreciation of the psychology and neuroscience of perception. In some of its aimsfor example, to show problems with a rigid version of a view of visual perception as an inverse optics process of constructing a static 3-D representation from static 2-D information on the retina--it succeeds admirably. As No points out, vision is a process that depends on interactions between the percei…Read more
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4071Perceptual consciousness overflows cognitive accessTrends in Cognitive Sciences 15 (12): 567-575. 2011.One of the most important issues concerning the foundations ofconscious perception centerson thequestion of whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse. The overflow argument uses a form of ‘iconic memory’ toarguethatperceptual consciousnessisricher (i.e.,has a higher capacity) than cognitive access: when observing a complex scene we are conscious of more than we can report or think about. Recently, the overflow argumenthas been challenged both empirically and conceptually. This paper rev…Read more
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188Troubles with FunctionalismIn Alvin Goldman (ed.), Readings in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Mit Press. pp. 231. 1978.
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1The Mind as Software in the BrainIn John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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308Consciousness, Function, and Representation: Collected PapersBradford. 2007.This volume of Ned Block's writings collects his papers on consciousness, functionalism, and representationism. A number of these papers treat the significance of the multiple realizability of mental states for the mind-body problem -- a theme that has concerned Block since the 1960s. One paper on this topic considers the upshot for the mind-body problem of the possibility of a robot that is functionally like us but physically different -- as is Commander Data of _Star Trek's_ second generation.…Read more
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128Overflow, access, and attentionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (5-6): 530-548. 2007.In this response to 32 commentators, I start by clarifying the overflow argument. I explain why the distinction between generic and specific phenomenology is important and why we are justified in acknowledging specific phenomenology in the overflow experiments. Other issues discussed are the relations among report, cognitive access, and attention; panpsychic disaster; the mesh between psychology and neuroscience; and whether consciousness exists.
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605The Defective Armchair: A Reply to TyeThought: A Journal of Philosophy 3 (2): 159-165. 2014.Michael Tye's response to my “Grain” (Block ) and “Windows” (Block ) raises general metaphilosophical issues about the value of intuitions and judgments about one's perceptions and the relations of those intuitions and judgments to empirical research, as well as specific philosophical issues about the relation between seeing, attention and de re thought. I will argue that Tye's appeal to what is (§. 2) “intuitively obvious, once we reflect upon these cases” (“intuition”) is problematic. I will a…Read more
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92Biology versus computation in the study of consciousnessBehavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (1): 159-165. 1997.The distinction between phenomenal (P) and access (A) consciousness arises from the battle between biological and computational approaches to the mind. If P = A, the computationalists are right; but if not, the biological nature of P yields its scientific nature.
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81Imagery (edited book)MIT Press. 1981.The "great debate" in cognitive science today is about the nature of mental images. One side says images are basically pictures in the head. The other side says they are like the symbol structures in computers. If the picture-in-the-head theorists are right, then computers will never be able to think like people.This book contains the most intelligible and incisive articles in the debate, articles by cognitive psychologists, computer scientists and philosophers. The most exciting imagery phenome…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Perception |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Neuroscience |
Philosophy of Mind |