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187Capacities, 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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180Unusual experiences, reality testing and delusions of alien controlMind and Language 20 (2): 141-162. 2005.Some monothematic types of delusions may arise because subjects have unusual experiences. The role of this experiential component in the pathogenesis of delusion is still not understood. Focussing on delusions of alien control, we outline a model for reality testing competence on unusual experiences. We propose that nascent delusions arise when there are local failures of reality testing performance, and that monothematic delusions arise as normal responses to these. In the course of this we add…Read more
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165Can neuroscience explain consciousness?Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (7-8): 180-198. 2004.Cognitive neuroscience aspires to explain how the brain produces conscious states. Many people think this aspiration is threatened by the subjective nature of introspective reports, as well as by certain philosophical arguments. We propose that good neuroscientific explanations of conscious states can consolidate an interpretation of introspective reports, in spite of their subjective nature. This is because the relative quality of explanations can be evaluated on independent, methodological gro…Read more
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150Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2008.There are few more unsettling philosophical questions than this: What happens in attempts to reduce some properties to some other more fundamental properties?
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133A Reductio of Kripke-Wittgenstein's Objections to Dispositionalism about MeaningMinds and Machines 13 (2): 257-268. 2003.A central part of Kripke's influential interpretation of Wittgenstein's sceptical argument about meaning is the rejection of dispositional analyses of what it is for a word to mean what it does. In this paper I show that Kripke's arguments prove too much: if they were right, they would preclude not only the idea that dispositional properties can make statements about the meanings of words true, but also the idea that dispositional properties can make true statements about paradigmatic dispositio…Read more
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126Rationality and schizophrenic delusionMind and Language 15 (1): 146-167. 2000.The theory of rationality has traditionally been concerned with the investigation of the norms of rational thought and behaviour, and with the reasoning pro‐cedures that satisfy them. As a consequence, the investigation of irrationality has largely been restricted to the behaviour or thought that violates these norms. There are, how‐ever, other forms of irrationality. Here we propose that the delusions that occur in schizophrenia constitute a paradigm of irrationality. We examine a leading theor…Read more
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117Internalized meaning factualismPhilosophia 34 (3). 2006.The normative character of meaning creates deep problems for the attempt to give a reductive explanation of the constitution of meaning. I identify and critically examine an increasingly popular Carnap-style position, which I call Internalized Meaning Factualism (versions of which I argue are defended by, e.g., Robert Brandom, Paul Horwich and Huw Price), that promises to solve the problems. According to this position, the problem of meaning can be solved by prohibiting an external perspective o…Read more
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113Distrusting 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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111Semantic 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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108Predictive processing as a systematic basis for identifying the neural correlates of consciousnessPhilosophy and the Mind Sciences 1 (II). 2020.The search for the neural correlates of consciousness is in need of a systematic, principled foundation that can endow putative neural correlates with greater predictive and explanatory value. Here, we propose the predictive processing framework for brain function as a promising candidate for providing this systematic foundation. The proposal is motivated by that framework’s ability to address three general challenges to identifying the neural correlates of consciousness, and to satisfy two cons…Read more
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92The felt presence of other minds: Predictive processing, counterfactual predictions, and mentalising in autismConsciousness and Cognition 36 376-389. 2015.
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91Reflections on predictive processing and the mind. An InterviewAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies (3): 145-152. 2014.
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83In rubber hand illusions and full body illusions, touch sensations are projected to non-body objects such as rubber hands, dolls or virtual bodies. The robustness, limits and further perceptual consequences of such illusions are not yet fully explored or understood. A number of experiments are reported that test the limits of a variant of the rubber hand illusion. Methodology/Principal Findings A variant of the rubber hand illusion is explored, in which the real and foreign hands are aligned in …Read more
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82The experience of mental causationBehavior and Philosophy 32 (2): 377-400. 2004.subjects mean when they report their mental states it is useful to be guided by a sound grasp of their concepts for mental events. <sup>3</sup> Though this is often ignored in favor of libertarian notions of free will, in which free action is seen as completely undetermined by the subject
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71Explanation in the science of consciousness: From the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) to the difference makers of consciousnessPhilosophy and the Mind Sciences 1 (II). 2020.At present, the science of consciousness is structured around the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. One of the alleged advantages of the NCCs framework is its metaphysical neutrality—the fact that it begs no contested questions with respect to debates about the fundamental nature of consciousness. Here, we argue that even if the NCC framework is metaphysically neutral, it is structurally committed, for it presupposes a certain model—what we call the Lite-Brite model—of conscious…Read more
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70Cognitive neuropsychiatry: Conceptual, methodological and philosophical perspectivesWorld Journal of Biological Psychiatry 6 (3): 192-197. 2005.Cognitive neuropsychiatry attempts to understand psychiatric disorders as disturbances to the normal function of human cognitive organisation, and it attempts to link this functional framework to relevant brain structures and their pathology. This recent scientific discipline is the natural extension of cognitive neuroscience into the domain of psychiatry. We present two examples of recent research in cognitive neuropsychiatry: delusions of control in schizophrenia, and affective disorders. The …Read more
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68Self-supervision, normativity and the free energy principleSynthese 199 (1-2): 29-53. 2020.The free energy principle says that any self-organising system that is at nonequilibrium steady-state with its environment must minimize its free energy. It is proposed as a grand unifying principle for cognitive science and biology. The principle can appear cryptic, esoteric, too ambitious, and unfalsifiable—suggesting it would be best to suspend any belief in the principle, and instead focus on individual, more concrete and falsifiable ‘process theories’ for particular biological processes and…Read more
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67Variability, convergence, and dimensions of consciousnessIn Morten Overgaard (ed.), Behavioral Methods in Consciousness Research, Oxford University Press. 2015.15 page
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67Can the free energy principle be used to generate a theory of consciousness?Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9. 2015.
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66Privileged self-knowledge and externalism: A contextualist approachPacific Philosophical Quarterly 83 (3): 235-52. 2002.Many people argue that privileged self–knowledge is incompatible with semantic externalism. I develop a contextualist approach to self–knowledge, and examine what this approach should lead us to say about the apparent incompatibility. Though such contextualism compels us to re–think the notion of privilege associated with self–knowledge, it can contain the damage wreaked by the externalist doctrine.
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59Bayes, time perception, and relativity: The central role of hopelessnessConsciousness and Cognition 69 70-80. 2019.
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57From allostatic agents to counterfactual cognisers: active inference, biological regulation, and the origins of cognitionBiology and Philosophy 35 (3): 1-45. 2020.What is the function of cognition? On one influential account, cognition evolved to co-ordinate behaviour with environmental change or complexity. Liberal interpretations of this view ascribe cognition to an extraordinarily broad set of biological systems—even bacteria, which modulate their activity in response to salient external cues, would seem to qualify as cognitive agents. However, equating cognition with adaptive flexibility per se glosses over important distinctions in the way biological…Read more
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53Events, Event Prediction, and Predictive ProcessingTopics in Cognitive Science 13 (1): 252-255. 2021.Events and event prediction are pivotal concepts across much of cognitive science, as demonstrated by the papers in this special issue. We first discuss how the study of events and the predictive processing framework may fruitfully inform each other. We then briefly point to some links to broader philosophical questions about events.
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51Attenuated self-tickle sensation even under trajectory perturbationConsciousness and Cognition 36 147-153. 2015.
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47Priors in perception: Top-down modulation, Bayesian perceptual learning rate, and prediction error minimizationConsciousness and Cognition 47 75-85. 2017.
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45Preserved Aspects of Consciousness in Disorders of Consciousness A Review and Conceptual AnalysisJournal of Consciousness Studies 19 (3-4): 3-4. 2012.The last decade has seen impressive and intriguing advances in the exploration of vestiges of consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness . Consciousness is an extremely complex area of research so it is difficult to provide unequivocal interpretations of these new findings from DOC-studies. This review therefore provides a conceptual analysis of a series of key studies in this area of research. The main upshot is that different studies of preserved consciousness in DOC are best se…Read more
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44Events and Machine LearningTopics in Cognitive Science 13 (1): 243-247. 2021.Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 13, Issue 1, Page 243-247, January 2021.
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42The Intermediate Scope of Consciousness in the Predictive MindErkenntnis 87 (2): 891-912. 2020.There is a view on consciousness that has strong intuitive appeal and empirical support: the intermediate-level theory of consciousness, proposed mainly by Ray Jackendoff and by Jesse Prinz. This theory identifies a specific “intermediate” level of representation as the basis of human phenomenal consciousness, which sits between high-level non-perspectival thought processes and low-level disjointed feature-detection processes in the perceptual and cognitive processing hierarchy. In this article,…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 |