Shaun Gallagher

In a New York Times article last month, entitled Cells that read minds, the neuroscience reporter, Sandra Blakeslee (January 10, 2006) provided a list of all the things that mirror neurons can explain. As we know, mirror neurons, discovered by Rizzolattis group in Parma, are neurons that are activated when we engage in action, and when we perceive intentional movement in another person. According to Blakeslee and the scientists she interviewed, mirror neurons explain not only how we are capable of understanding another persons actions, but also language, empathy, how children learn, why people respond to certain types of sports, dance, music and art, why watching media violence may be harmful and why many men like pornography. Let me set aside the controversial questions about whether mirror neurons can explain all of these things, and accept that mirror neurons are clearly smart little cells. But let me ask whether Blakeslee and her scientists are expressing things in the right way.

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

On the phenomenological view, a minimal form of self-consciousness is a constant structural feature of conscious experience. Experience happens for the experiencing subject in an immediate way and as part of this immediacy, it is implicitly marked as my experience. For the phenomenologists, this immediate and first-personal givenness of experiential phenomena must be accounted for in terms of a pre-reflective self-consciousness. In the most basic sense of the term, selfconsciousness is not something that comes about the moment one attentively inspects or reflectively introspects one's experiences, or in the instant of self-recognition of one's image in the mirror, or in the proper use of the first-person pronoun, or in the construction of a self-narrative. Rather, these different kinds of self-consciousness are to be distinguished from the pre-reflective self-consciousness which is present whenever I am living through or undergoing an experience, i.e., whenever I am consciously perceiving the world, whenever I am thinking an occurrent thought, whenever I am feeling sad or happy, thirsty or in pain, and so forth

Shaun Gallagher is a philosopher of mind who has made it his business to study and meet with leading neuroscientists, including Michael Gazzaniga, Marc Jeannerod and Chris Frith. The result is this unique introduction to the study of the mind, with topics ranging over consciousness, emotion, language, movement, free will and moral responsibility. The discussion throughout is illustrated by lengthy extracts from the author’s many interviews with his scientist colleagues on the relation between the mind and the brain.

In this paper I offer four distinct but related suggestions: (1) That Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness is an adequate account of the concept of the specious present; (2) That the Querschtfftt o5 momentary phase of consdousness is genuinely only a Querschnittanskht; (3) That retention, primal-impression, and protention are functions of consciousness rather than phases or types o.f coasdousness; (4) That further conceptual clarification and terminological reformulation is needed.

In recent philosophy of mind, informed by ongoing research in the cognitive neurosciences, there has been a tendency to offer deflationary or reductive explanations of self and selfidentity. The background to such accounts includes a complex history of the problem of personal identity from Hume to Parfit. Paul Ricoeur has provided an insightful perspective on this history based on his distinction between ipse identity and idem identity.1 My intention is not to rehearse that history, or even to update it, but rather, assuming that history as background, to engage in a dialogue with the more recent proponents of deflationary, reductive, and internalist accounts of the self, and especially those accounts that put the notion of a narrative self into question. 2 Philosophically there is some question as to whether an account of the narrative self is a sufficient account of the self more generally, that is, whether the whole story about the self is just that it is nothing more than a story about the self. There is, nevertheless, a growing consensus that the concept of the narrative self captures something essential about human existence. In this regard, specifically, there are three issues that I want to address. First, is it possible to defend an account of the narrative self which is consistent with discoveries in cognitive neuroscience, but that remains nonetheless non-reductive? Second, how does such an account relate to an embodied-enactive approach to questions of self-identity? And third, to what extent does such an account involve dimensions of intersubjectivity? The appeal to neuroscience may seem misplaced to some readers. Ricoeur is clear in his insistence that questions of the mind, addressed by phenomenology and hermeneutics, belong to a discourse different from and irreducible to neuroscience.3 To speak of the body from a phenomenological perspective, or from the perspective of lived action, is quite different from speaking of the body from the perspective of natural science.

Narrative is rarely mentioned in philosophical discussions of collective intentionality and group identity despite the fact that narratives are often thought important for the formation of action intentions and self-identity in individuals. We argue that the concept of the ‘we-narrative’ can solve several problems in regard to defining the status of the we. It provides the typical format for the attribution of joint agency; it contributes to the formation of group identity; and it generates group stability.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 539 ls There a Measure on Earth? Foundations for a Nonmetaphysical Ethics. By WERNER MARX. Trans. Thomas J. Nenon and Reginald Lilly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Pp. 172. (Hardcover.) (Originally published as Gibt es au/ Erden ein Mass? Grundbestimmungen einer nichtmetaphysischen Ethik. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983.) Is there a non-metaphysical earthly measure for responsible action? Marx takes his question from Holderlin and directs it at Heidegger, in whom Marx finds no explicit answer. It is not the case that Heidegger simply fails to ask or answer this question, but rather that the corpus of Heidegger's later work itself motivates the question and leaves us searching for the path to an answer which must, on Heideggerian principles, differ from the one embraced by Holderlin, Schelling, and the metaphysical tradition in general. Marx explores.the various possibilities offered in Heidegger's texts but fails to. find a definite answer with respect to a measure for responsible action. In his concise interpretation Marx is led in one inevitable direction--4:owards the concept of death. How does death qualify as a measure for action? Before he addresses this question Marx attempts to understand 1the concept of measure, which, he contends, can be viewed as either a metaphysical or a nonmetaphysical concept. He sets out the metaphysical concept of measure on the basis of his reading of Schelling. Schelling's onto-theological concept of measure is characterized as normative, transcendent, immanently powerful, obligatory, self-same, manifest and univocal (20). This conception is then taken to represent the traditional metaphysical position. Here a number of questions could be raised regarding what Marx himself calls the "not completely satisfactory route" of his own analysis (17). One could certainly agree with his beginning assumption, "ithat our contemporary understanding of measure still contains certain residual traditional meanings" (17). But the stronger and genuinely operative assumption in Marx's analysis is more questionable. Why does Schelling's conception stand as.the representative of an entire metaphysical tradition? Although Schelling's conception of measure nicely facilitates Marx's projecl: vis-a-vis Heidegger, the reader might remain unconvinced that the full metaphysical conception of measure is reflected therein. Consider, for example, Marx's contention ithat 1the traditional measure is univocal and therefore leaves no room for ambiguity (42). On this basis he asserts that we cannot take Heidegger's notion of "the fourfold," which involves an "inner mobility " of play, as a.traditional measure. The ambiguity and "basic 540 BOOK REVIEWS instability inherent in playing and mirroring is irreconcilable with the traditional meaning of a measure" (42). By avoiding the more extensive analysis to which he makes reference, Marx neatly steps around an extremely important problematic involved in the concepts of ambi· guity and univocity. The following question indicates this problem in the simplest way: Does univocity belong to the measure itself or to our perception or predication of the measure? We might say, for example,,that there is no ambiguity in God, but that there is a high degree of ambiguity involved in our perception or predication of God. Certainly in the tradition, whether we take Arisotle's spoudaios, or God's eternal law, or Christian love in the model of Christ as our measure, we do not escape the ambiguity of our own finite interpretations. Thus Aristotle's caution about.the nature of ethics (N. Ethics 1094bl2-15), Aquinas's qualification about knowing the natural law with respect to details (ST 94,, 4), or Kierkegaard's acknowledgment of the paradox of Christ. This problematic is also to be found in Heidegger's writings where he indicates a play of concealedness-unconcealedness involved in Being or "the fourfold," and thus an ambiguity in the measure itself. But would Heidegger say that this concealing-unconcealing play of Being is something that happens in itself, outside of language, or independent· ly of the one who is looking after Being? (See Marx's discussion, 9192, 123). The difference between Heidegger and the tradition on this point is.this: in the tradition the " location " of ambiguity is unambiguous ; it is found in human perception, language, and reason, hut not in the measure itself. In Heidegger, ·the location...

Christopher Frith is a research professor at the Functional Imaging Laboratory of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College, London. He explores, experimentally, using the techniques of functional brain imaging, the relationship between human consciousness and the brain. His research focuses on questions pertaining to perception, attention, control of action, free will, and awareness of our own mental states and those of others. As the following discussion makes clear, Frith investigates brain systems involved in the choice of one action over another and in the understanding of other people. Such investigations are aimed at understanding brain basis of autism and schizophrenia. In his widely cited study of schizophrenia, The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia , Frith argues that many of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as delusions of control, auditory hallucinations, and thought insertion, involve problems of self-monitoring. Patients, in effect, lose track of their own intentions and mistakenly attribute agency for their own actions to someone else. Frith employs models of motor control, involving comparator mechanisms and efference copy, not only to explain delusions that involve movement, but also to develop a neurocognitive explanation of delusional cognition

Theory of mind explanations of how we know other minds are limited in several ways. First, they construe intersubjective relations too narrowly in terms of the specialized cognitive abilities of explaining and predicting another person's mental states and behaviors. Second, they sometimes draw conclusions about secondperson interaction from experiments designed to test third-person observation of another's behavior. As a result, the larger claims that are sometimes made for theory of mind, namely, that theory of mind is our primary and pervasive means for understanding other persons, go beyond both the phenomenological and the scientific evidence. I argue that the interpretation of "primary intersubjectivity" as merely precursory to theory of mind is inadequate. Rather, primary intersubjectivity, understood as a set of embodied practices and capabilities, is not only primary in a developmental sense, but is the primary way we continue to understand others in second-person interactions

Recent significant research in a number of disciplines centers around the concept of the sense of agency. Because many of these studies cut across disciplinary lines there is good reason to seek a clear consensus on what ‘sense of agency’ means. In this paper I indicate some complexities that this consensus might have to deal with. I also highlight an important phenomenological distinction that needs to be considered in any discussion of the sense of agency, regardless of how it gets defined, and I offer some critical comments on some current models tied to the notion that the sense of agency has an ambiguous phenomenology.

Empirical studies of gesture in a subject who has lost proprioception and the sense of touch from the neck down show that specific aspects of gesture remain normal despite abnormal motor processes for instrumental movement. The experiments suggest that gesture, as a linguistic phenomenon, is not reducible to instrumental movement. They also support and extend claims made by Merleau-Ponty concerning the relationship between language and cognition. Gesture, as language, contributes to the accomplishment of thought.

Michael Arbib was born in England, grew up in Australia, and studied at MIT where he received his PhD in Mathematics in 1963. He helped to found the Department of Computer and Information Science and the Center for Systems Neuroscience, the Cognitive Science Program, and the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Today he is Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science, a Professor of Neuroscience and the Director of the USC Brain Project at the University of Southern California. The title of his first book, Brains, Machines and Mathematics , gives a good indication of his scientific interests. For all his extensive research in these areas, however, Arbib has not ignored philosophical, social, and even theological topics . Central to his work in all of these areas is the concept of schema, and this is one of the topics that we discuss here

Diejenigen, die behaupten, der freie Wille sei Illusion, sind im Unrecht. Sie begründen ihre Behauptung auf einem wissenschaftlichen Beweis, der die falsche Ebene der Deskription des intentionalen Handelns testet. Der freie Wille bezieht sich nicht auf subpersonale neuronale Prozesse, Muskelaktivierung oder grundlegende Körperbewegungen, sondern auf kontextualisierte Handlungen in einem System, das größer ist als viele zeitgenössische Geistesphilosophen, Psychologen und Neurowissenschaftler annehmen. In diesem Artikel beschreibe ich die Art von Intentionalität, die mit der Ausübung des freien Willens einhergeht

Origins of neuroscience, Stanley Finger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0–19–506503–4Memory in the cerebral cortex: an empirical approach to neural networks in the human and nonhuman primate, Joaquin M. Fuster. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0–262–06171–6Artificial minds, Stan Franklin Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, A Bradford Book, 1995 ISBN 0–262–06178–8Pride and a daily marathon, Jonathan Cole. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995 ISBN 0–262–53136–4; London: Duckworth, 1991 ISBN: 07157–2385–0Objectivity, simulation and the unity of consciousness: current issues in the philosophy of mind (Proceedings of the British Academy, 83) Christopher Peacocke (Ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 1994 ISBN 0–19–726142–6The creative cognition approach, Steven M. Smith, Thomas B. Ward & Ronald A. Finke, (Eds) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995 ISBN: 0–262–19354‐XMathematics and mind, Alexander George (Ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 $35.00. ISBN 0–19–507929–9.

Clear statements of both extended and enactive conceptions of cognition can be found in John Dewey and other pragmatists. In this paper I'll argue that we can find resources in the pragmatists to address two ongoing debates: in contrast to recent disagreements between proponents of extended vs enactive cognition, pragmatism supports a more integrative view—an enactive conception of extended cognition, and pragmatist views suggest ways to answer the main objections raised against extended and enactive conceptions—specifically objections focused on constitution versus causal factors, and the mark of the mental

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.

This chapter provides a review of theory of mind approaches to explaining certain dysfunctions of intersubjectivity in pathologies such as autism and schizophrenia. ToM approaches such as theory theory and simulation theory focus on mindreading but fail to explain important aspects of online intersubjective interaction. A phenomenological approach, focusing on embodied interaction, offers an alternative account of intersubjective processes and specific dysfunctions in pathology. Further research is needed on second-person, online interaction to develop this approach as a viable explanation of intersubjective problems in psychopathology.