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132The neuronal platonistJournal of Consciousness Studies 5 (5-6): 706-717. 1998.Psychology is dead. The self is a fiction invented by the brain. Brain plasticity isn?t all it?s cracked up to be. Our conscious learning is an observation post factum, a recollection of something already accomplished by the brain. We don?t learn to speak; speech is generated when the brain is ready to say something. False memories are more prevalent than one might think, and they aren?t all that bad. We think we?re in charge of our lives, but actually we are not. On top of all this, the common …Read more
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78Phenomenology and experimental design: Toward a phenomenologically enlightened experimental scienceJournal of Consciousness Studies 10 (9-10): 85-99. 2003.I review three answers to the question: How can phenomenology contribute to the experimental cognitive neurosciences? The first approach, neurophenomenology, employs phenomenological method and training, and uses first-person reports not just as more data for analysis, but to generate descriptive categories that are intersubjectively and scientifically validated, and are then used to interpret results that correlate with objective measurements of behaviour and brain activity. A second approach, …Read more
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4Brainstorming: Views and Interviews on the MindImprint Academic. 2008.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 th…Read more
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154Hyletic experience and the lived bodyHusserl Studies 3 (2): 131-166. 1986.The theory of hyletic data has been criticized and dismissed a number of times since Edmund Husserl proposed it early in this century. This rejection of Husserl's theory has been part of a larger, wholesale critique of the traditional notion of sensation in which theories of sensation have been displaced by theories of perception.
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349Understanding Interpersonal Problems in AutismPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 11 (3): 199-217. 2004.A BSTRACT: I argue that theory theory approaches to autism offer a wholly inadequate explanation of autistic symptoms because they offer a wholly inadequate account of the non-autistic understanding of others. As an alternative I outline interaction theory, which incorporates evidence from both developmental and phenomenological studies to show that humans are endowed with important capacities for intersubjective understanding from birth or early infancy. As part of a neurophenomenological analy…Read more
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154Experimenting with introspectionTrends in Cognitive Sciences 6 (9): 374-375. 2002.Psychologists’ relationship with introspection is much like that between men and women: it is on again, off again and psychologists often feel they can neither live with introspection nor without it. In their often compelling article, Jack and Roepstorff argue that the fertility of the field depends on psychologists reuniting with the practice of introspection [1]. They suggest that, although reluctant to admit it, psychologists have been carrying on a surreptitious relationship with introspecti…Read more
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51Merleau-Ponty, Hermeneutics, and Postmodernism (edited book)State University of New York Press. 1992.Opens up new dimensions in the philosophical thought of Merleau-Ponty and addresses contemporary issues concerning interpretation theory and postmodernity.
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93Advancing the ‘We’ Through NarrativeTopoi 38 (1): 211-219. 2019.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 grou…Read more
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118Self-reference and schizophrenia: A cognitive model of immunity to error through misidentificationIn Dan Zahavi (ed.), Exploring the Self: Philosophical and Psychopathological Perspectives on Self-experience, John Benjamins. pp. 203--239. 2000.
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16Fenomenologia da intersubjectividade: perspectivas transcendentais e empíricasRevista Filosófica de Coimbra 21 (42): 557-582. 2012.
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592The practice of mind: Theory, simulation or primary interaction?Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (5-7): 83-108. 2001.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, namel…Read more
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308Mental institutionsTopoi 28 (1): 45-51. 2009.We propose to extend Clark and Chalmer’s concept of the extended mind to consider the possibility that social institutions (e.g., legal systems, museums) may operate in ways similar to the hand-held conveniences (notebooks, calculators) that are often used as examples of extended mind. The inspiration for this suggestion can be found in the writings of Hegel on “objective spirit” which involves the mind in a constant process of externalizing and internalizing. For Hegel, social institutions are …Read more
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53Neurophenomenology: an integrated approach to exploring awe and wonderSouth African Journal of Philosophy 32 (4): 295-309. 2013.Astronauts often report experiences of awe and wonder while traveling in space. This paper addresses the question of whether awe and wonder can be scientifically investigated in a simulated space travel scenario using a neurophenomenological method. To answer this question, we created a mixed-reality simulation similar to the environment of the International Space Station. Portals opened to display simulations of Earth or Deep Space. However, the challenge still remained of how to best capture t…Read more
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106Models of the pathological mindJournal of Consciousness Studies 9 (4): 57-80. 2002.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…Read more
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18The Minds, Machines, and Brains of a Passionate Scientist: An interview with Michael ArbibJournal of Consciousness Studies 11 (12): 50-67. 2004.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 Univers…Read more
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287Lived body and environmentResearch in Phenomenology 16 (1): 139-170. 1986.Merleau-Ponty developed a phenomenology of the body that promoted a non-dualistic account of human existence. In this paper I intend to develop Merleau-Ponty's analysis further by questioning his account of the body on the issues of body perception, and the body's relation to its environment. To clarify these issues I draw from both the phenomenological tradition and recent psychological investigations.
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80Gesture following deafferentation: a phenomenologically informed experimental studyPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1 (1): 49-67. 2002.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 accompli…Read more
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49Pathologies in Narrative StructuresRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 60 203-224. 2007.Per Aage Brandt, commenting on a passage from Merlin Donald, suggests that there is ‘a narrative aesthetics built into our mind.’ In Donald, one can find an evolutionary account of this narrative aesthetics. If there is something like an innate narrative disposition, it is also surely the case that there is a process of development involved in narrative practice. In this paper I will assume something closer to the developmental account provided by Jerome Bruner in various works, and Dan Hutto's …Read more
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42Extension and critique: A response to Robert YoungStudies in Philosophy and Education 15 (4): 323-328. 1996.In response to Robert Young's critical comments concerning Hermeneutics and Education I clarify two issues. First, I suggest that a more detailed account of interpretation and learning could be developed in a hermeneutically informed cognitive psychology. This would be an account that escapes the textual model of silent reading construed as private mental experience, and that acknowledges the social and communicative dimensions of understanding. Second, in contrast to Young's view, I contend tha…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
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Phenomenology |
Maurice Merleau-Ponty |
Hermeneutics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Psychiatry |