Shaun Gallagher

e argue that phenomenology can be of central and positive importance to the cognitive sciences, and that it can also learn from the empirical research conducted in those sciences. We discuss the project of naturalizing phenomenology and how this can be best accomplished. We provide several examples of how phenomenology and the cognitive sciences can integrate their research. Specifically, we consider issues related to embodied cognition and intersubjectivity. We provide a detailed analysis of issues related to time-consciousness, with reference to understanding schizophrenia and the loss of the sense of agency. We offer a positive proposal to address these issues based on a neurobiological dynamic-systems model

Ceux qui affirment que le libre arbitre est une illusion n’ont pas raison. Ils fondent leur affirmation sur une preuve scientifique établie à un niveau impropre de description de l’activité intentionnelle. Le libre arbitre ne s’exerce pas sur les processus neuronaux sub-personnels, l’activation musculaire ou les mouvements élémentaires du corps, mais sur des activités contextualisées au sein d’un système qui est nettement plus grand que ne le pensent bon nombre de philosophes de l’esprit, de psychologues et de neuroscientifiques contemporains. Dan cet article, je décrit ce genre d’intentionnalité qui va avec l’exercice du libre arbitre

Is it possible to develop a discourse that describes human experience but avoids theoretical concepts such as consciousness and qualia, and do so in such a way that the difficult problems are resolved? It strikes me that Gordon Globus is attempting to do something like this. It seems an honorable project from the perspectives of both the analytic philosophy of mind and the postmodern celebration of multiple discourses. I want to suggest, however, that in his account the problems of qualia and consciousness are not really dissipated, but simply dressed up in different garb.

This paper, in opposition to the standard theories of social cognition found in psychology and cognitive science, defends the idea that direct perception plays an important role in social cognition. The two dominant theories, theory theory and simulation theory , both posit something more than a perceptual element as necessary for our ability to understand others, i.e., to “mindread” or “mentalize.” In contrast, certain phenomenological approaches depend heavily on the concept of perception and the idea that we have a direct perceptual grasp of the other person’s intentions, feelings, etc. This paper explains precisely what the notion of direct perception means, offers evidence from developmental studies, and proposes a non-simulationist interpretation of the neuroscience of mirror systems

This special issue of Janus Head explores a number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary dimensions of the theme, the situated body. The body, of course, is always situated in so far as it is a living and experiencing body. Being situated in this sense is different from simply being located someplace in the way a non-living, non-experiencing object is located. That the body is always situated involves certain kinds of physical and social interactions, and it means that experience is always both physically and socially situated. The interesting question is not only how this works (what precisely it means to be situated), but whether and how the answer to that question changes from one situation to another. It seems reasonable to say that the body is situated differently in different situations, and that this difference may not be simply a difference in the situational content but a difference in how the body processes being situated precisely because the circumstances are so different. The question is not just about differences in situations, but differences in situatedness. Is it possible that the body is X-situated (in terms of its situatedness) in the task of solving a mathematical problem, but is Y-situated when it is engaged in dancing with another person? And if, as seems obvious, there are significant physiological and experiential differences involved in being in these different situations, are some of these differences due to being X-situated, for example, rather than Y-situated? This collection of essays gathers together investigations of the situated body that address such variations in what it means to be situated. These investigations cross theory and practice, expression and performance and interweave disciplines and practices such as philosophical anthropology, cognitive science, phenomenology, architecture and painting, and artistic performances like dance and music. They describe the body as an experiencing enactive agent embedded in various pragmatic and social circumstances, the body as rigidly circumscribed in art and science, and the body as extended into its environment through the high technology that is more and more defining our experiences and our relationships..

I review the problem of how to define consciousness. I suggest that rather than continuing that debate, we should turn to phenomenological description of experience to discover the common aspects of consciousness. In this way we can say that consciousness is characterized by intentionality, phenomenality, and non-reflective self-awareness. I explore this last characteristic in detail and I argue against higher-order representational theories of consciousness, with reference to blindsight and motor control processes.

I present arguments against both explicit and implicit versions of the simulation theory for intersubjective understanding. Logical, developmental, and phenomenological evidence counts against the concept of explicit simulation if this is to be understood as the pervasive or default way that we understand others. The concept of implicit (subpersonal) simulation, identified with neural resonance systems (mirror systems or shared representations), fails to be the kind of simulation required by simulation theory, because it fails to explain how neuronal processes meet constraints that involve instrumentality and pretense. Implicit simulation theory also fails to explain how I can attribute a mental or emotion state that is different from my own to another person. I also provide a brief indication of an alternative interpretation of neural resonance systems

Those who argue that free will is an illusion are wrong. They base their argument on scientific evidence that tests the wrong level of description for intentional action. Free will is not about subpersonal neuronal processes, muscular activation, or basic bodily movements, but about contextualized actions in a system that is larger than many contemporary philosophers of mind, psychologists, and neuroscientists consider. In this paper, I describe the kind of intentionality that goes with the exercise of free will.

This new introduction by Shaun Gallagher gives students and philosophers not only an excellent concise overview of the state of the field and contemporary debates, but a novel way of addressing the subject by looking at the ways in which phenomenology is useful to the disciplines it applies to. Gallagher retrieves the central insights made by the classic phenomenological philosophers (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and others), updates some of these insights in innovative ways, and shows how they directly relate to ongoing debates in philosophy and psychology. Accounts of phenomenological methods, and the concepts of intentionality, temporality, embodiment, action, self, and our ability to understand other people are integrated into a coherent contemporary statement that shows why phenomenology is still an active and vital philosophical approach. Each chapter begins with a discussion of the classic analyses and then goes on to show their relevance to contemporary debates in philosophy about embodied, enactive and extended approaches to our understanding of human experience. Along the way Gallagher introduces some novel interpretations that suggest how phenomenology can both inform and be informed by the terms of these debates