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37When Self-Consciousness Breaks: Alien Voices and Inserted Thoughts. By G. Lynn Stephens and George Graham (review)SATS 3 (2): 158-162. 2002.
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37Consciousness. We have come to expect science to be able to explain all sorts of phenomena in the world (global warming, hereditary diseases, life – you name it). Consciousness is an anomaly in the success story of science for there is a real question whether science, in particular neuroscience, can explain much about what consciousness is. A good question to ask is how and to what extent consciousness resists scientific explanation. That might tell us something about what is special about consc…Read more
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860Skull-bound perception and precision optimization through cultureBehavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (3): 222-222. 2013.Clark acknowledges but resists the indirect mind–world relation inherent in prediction error minimization (PEM). But directness should also be resisted. This creates a puzzle, which calls for reconceptualization of the relation. We suggest that a causal conception captures both aspects. With this conception, aspects of situated cognition, social interaction and culture can be understood as emerging through precision optimization
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109Semantic primitivism and normativityRatio 14 (1): 1-17. 2001.Kripke-Wittgenstein meaning skepticism appears as a serious threat to the idea that there could be meaning-constituting facts. Some people argue that the only viable response is to adopt semantic primitivism (SP). SP is the doctrine that meaning-facts are _sui generis and irreducibly semantic. The idea is that by allowing such primitive semantic facts into our ontology Kripke's skeptical paradox cannot arise. I argue that SP is untenable in spite of its apparent resourcefulness. (edited)
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1Peer commentary on Are There Neural Correlates of Consciousness?Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (1): 45-51. 2004.
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795Individual Differences in Moral Behaviour: A Role for Response to Risk and Uncertainty?Neuroethics 6 (1): 97-103. 2012.Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decis…Read more
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200Evidence, Explanation, and ExperienceJournal of Philosophy 101 (5): 242-254. 2004.Creatures that have different physical realizations than human beings may or may not be conscious. Ned Block’s ‘harder problem of consciousness’ is that naturalistic phenomenal realists have no conception of a rational ground for belief that they have or have not discovered consciousness in such a creature. Drawing on the notion of inference to the best explanation, it appears the arguments to these conclusions beg the question and ignore that explanation may be a guide to discovery. Thus, best …Read more
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1477The search for neural correlates of consciousnessPhilosophy Compass 2 (3). 2007.Most consciousness researchers, almost no matter what their views of the metaphysics of consciousness, can agree that the first step in a science of consciousness is the search for the neural correlate of consciousness (the NCC). The reason for this agreement is that the notion of ‘correlation’ doesn’t by itself commit one to any particular metaphysical view about the relation between (neural) matter and consciousness. For example, some might treat the correlates as causally related, while other…Read more
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568A Case for Increased Caution in End of Life Decisions for Disorders of ConsciousnessMonash Bioethics 28 (2). 2009.Disorders of consciousness include coma, the vegetative state and the minimally conscious state. Such patients are often regarded as unconscious. This has consequences for end of life decisions for these patients: it is much easier to justify withdrawing life support for unconscious than conscious patients. Recent brain imaging research has however suggested that some patients may in fact be conscious.
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892The hypothesis testing brain: Some philosophical applicationsProceedings of the Australian Society for Cognitive Science Conference. 2010.According to one theory, the brain is a sophisticated hypothesis tester: perception is Bayesian unconscious inference where the brain actively uses predictions to test, and then refine, models about what the causes of its sensory input might be. The brain’s task is simply continually to minimise prediction error. This theory, which is getting increasingly popular, holds great explanatory promise for a number of central areas of research at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive neuroscienc…Read more
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789Social cognition as causal inference: implications for common knowledge and autismIn John Michael & Mattia Gallotti (eds.), Social Objects and Social Cognition, Springer. forthcoming.This chapter explores the idea that the need to establish common knowledge is one feature that makes social cognition stand apart in important ways from cognition in general. We develop this idea on the background of the claim that social cognition is nothing but a type of causal inference. We focus on autism as our test-case, and propose that a specific type of problem with common knowledge processing is implicated in challenges to social cognition in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This proble…Read more
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37Quietism and cognitive commandPhilosophical Quarterly 47 (189): 495-500. 1997.Crispin Wright has sought to establish the possibility of ‘significant metaphysics’ in the shape of a common metric with which to measure the realism or robustness of various discourses. One means by which to place discourses in the metric is via the ‘cognitive command constraint’. Importantly, this constraint must be a priori. Richard Rorty has argued against this, that, given content is a function of standards of representationality, the a priori requirement cannot be satisfied. I show that th…Read more
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9Can you tickle yourself if you swap bodies with someone else?Consciousness and Cognition 22 (4): 1-11. 2013.The effect of the body transfer illusion on the perceived strength of self- and externally-generated “tickle” sensations was investigated. As expected, externally generated movement produced significantly higher ratings of tickliness than those associated with self-generated movements. Surprisingly, the body transfer illusion had no influence on the ratings of tickliness, suggesting that highly surprising, and therefore hard to predict, experiences of body image and first-person perspective do n…Read more
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25Neural correlates and causal mechanismsConsciousness and Cognition 21 (2): 691-692. 2012.What Joseph Neisser calls for is exactly right: more philosophy of science will help us better understand and refine the idea of neural correlates of consciousness . But the key bit of philosophy of science Neisser appeals to is itself in need of clarification; the orthodox NCC definition is more resourceful than Neisser allows, and it is possible to resist the phenomenological conception of conscious experience that fuels some of Neisser’s argument
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106Distrusting the presentPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 15 (3): 315-335. 2016.We use the hierarchical nature of Bayesian perceptual inference to explain a fundamental aspect of the temporality of experience, namely the phenomenology of temporal flow. The explanation says that the sense of temporal flow in conscious perception stems from probabilistic inference that the present cannot be trusted. The account begins by describing hierarchical inference under the notion of prediction error minimization, and exemplifies distrust of the present within bistable visual perceptio…Read more
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66Variability, convergence, and dimensions of consciousnessIn Morten Overgaard (ed.), Behavioral Methods in Consciousness Research, Oxford University Press. 2015.15 page
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185Capacities, explanation and the possibility of disunityInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (2). 2003.Nancy Cartwright argues that so-called capacities, not universal laws of nature, best explain the often complex way events actually unfold. On this view, science would represent a world that is fundamentally "dappled", or disunified, and not, as orthodoxy would perhaps have it, a world unified by universal laws of nature. I argue, first, that the problem Cartwright raises for laws of nature seems to arise for capacities too, so why reject laws of nature? Second, that in so far as there is a prob…Read more
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2047The Rubber Hand Illusion Reveals Proprioceptive and Sensorimotor Differences in Autism Spectrum DisordersJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 2011.Autism spectrum disorder is characterised by differences in unimodal and multimodal sensory and proprioceptive processing, with complex biases towards local over global processing. Many of these elements are implicated in versions of the rubber hand illusion, which were therefore studied in high-functioning individuals with ASD and a typically developing control group. Both groups experienced the illusion. A number of differences were found, related to proprioception and sensorimotor processes. …Read more
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346Top-down and bottom-up in delusion formationPhilosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 11 (1): 65-70. 2004.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.1 (2004) 65-70 [Access article in PDF] Top-Down and Bottom-Up in Delusion Formation Jakob Hohwy Keywords delusions, top-down, bottom-up, predictive coding Some delusions may arise as responses to unusual experiences (Davies et al. 2001; Maher 1974;). The implication is that delusion formation in some cases involves some kind of bottom-up mechanism—roughly, from perception to belief. Delusion fo…Read more
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Monash UniversityDepartment of Philosophy
Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative StudiesProfessor
Clayton, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Mind |