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58Buddhist Philosophy and Scientific NaturalismSophia 62 (1): 71-86. 2023.This paper is a response to Christian Coseru, ‘The Middle Way to Reality: On Why I Am Not a Buddhist and Other Philosophical Curiosities.’ I address Coseru’s critical comments about naturalism, evolutionary psychology, scientific realism, and Madhyamaka philosophy. I argue that scientific naturalism is not the right framework for relating Buddhism to science; rather, the proper framework is the ethics of knowledge. I argue that Coseru’s defence of evolutionary psychology is unconvincing and rest…Read more
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56Seeing beyond the modules toward the subject of perceptionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (3): 386-387. 1999.Pylyshyn's model of visual perception leads to problems in understanding the nature of perceptual experience. The cause of the problems is an underlying lack of clarity about the relation between the operation of the subpersonal vision module and visual perception at the level of the subject or person.
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50Ways of coloring: Comparative color vision as a case study for cognitive scienceBehavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1): 1-26. 1992.
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48What’s in a Concept? Conceptualizing the Nonconceptual in Buddhist Philosophy and Cognitive ScienceIn Christian Coseru (ed.), Reasons and Empty Persons: Mind, Metaphysics, and Morality: Essays in Honor of Mark Siderits, Springer. pp. 165-210. 2023.A recurrent problem in the philosophical debates over whether there is or can be nonconceptual experience or whether all experience is conceptually structured, mediated, or dependent is the lack of a generally accepted account of what concepts are. Without a precise specification of what a concept is, the notion of nonconceptuality is equally ill defined. This problem cuts across contemporary philosophy and cognitive science as well as classical Indian philosophy, and it affects how we go about …Read more
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48Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and PhilosophyCambridge University Press. 2014.A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of the mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined …Read more
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44Symbol grounding: A bridge from artificial life to artificial intelligenceBrain and Cognition 34 (1): 48-71. 1997.This paper develops a bridge from AL issues about the symbol–matter relation to AI issues about symbol-grounding by focusing on the concepts of formality and syntactic interpretability. Using the DNA triplet-amino acid specification relation as a paradigm, it is argued that syntactic properties can be grounded as high-level features of the non-syntactic interactions in a physical dynamical system. This argu- ment provides the basis for a rebuttal of John Searle’s recent assertion that syntax is o…Read more
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44Neurophenomenology and the Spontaneity of ConsciousnessCanadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (sup1): 133-162. 2003.Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. My reading of the situation is that our inability to come up with an intelligible conception of the relation between mind and body is a sign of the inadequacy of our present concepts, and that some development is needed. Mind itself is a spatiotemporal pattern that molds the metastable dynamic patterns of the brain.
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42Jonardon Ganeri’s Transcultural Philosophy of AttentionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2): 489-494. 2020.
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40Spontaniczność świadomościAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 1 (1). 2010.It is now conventional wisdom that conscious experience — or in Nagel’s canonical characterization, “what it is like to be” for an organism — is what makes the mind-body problem so intractable. By the same token, our current conceptions of the mind-body relation are inadequate and some conceptual development is urgently needed. Our overall aim in this paper is to make some progress towards that conceptual development. We first examine a currently neglected, yet fundamental aspect of consciousnes…Read more
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39Umysł w życiu. Streszczenie „Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind”Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 2 (T): 83-95. 2011.[Précis of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind] The theme of this book is the deep continuity of life and mind. Where there is life there is mind, and mind in its most articulated forms belongs to life. Life and mind share a core set of formal or organizational properties, and the formal or organizational properties distinctive of mind are an enriched version of those fundamental to life.
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37Précis of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and PhilosophyPhilosophy East and West 66 (3): 927-933. 2016.The central idea of Waking, Dreaming, Being is that the self is a process, not a thing or an entity.1 The self isn’t something outside experience, hidden either in the brain or in some immaterial realm. It is an experiential process that is subject to constant change. We enact a self in the process of awareness, and this self comes and goes depending on how we are aware.When we’re awake and occupied with some manual task, we enact a bodily self geared to our immediate environment. Yet this bodil…Read more
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35Żywe sposoby nadawania sensuAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 3 (T): 38-56. 2012.Evan Thompson’s paper has four parts. First, he says more about what he means when he asks, “what is living?” Second, he presents his way of answering this question, which is that living is sense-making in precarious conditions. Third, he responds to Welton’s considerations about what he calls the “affective entrainment” of the living being by the environment. Finally, he addresses Protevi’s remarks about panpsychism.
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34Response to Commentators on Waking, Dreaming, BeingPhilosophy East and West 66 (3): 982-1000. 2016.Let me begin by thanking my commentators for taking the time to read my book and to write such constructive commentaries. I would also like to thank Christian Coseru for organizing and chairing the panel at the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy at the 2015 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, at which three of the commentaries were originally presented together with my response. Finally, I am grateful to Philosophy East and West for publishing th…Read more
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32Color vision: A case study in the Foundations of Cognitive ScienceRevue de Synthèse 111 (1-2): 129-138. 1990.
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27One of the outstanding problems in the cognitive sciences is to understand how ongoing conscious experience is related to the workings of the brain and nervous system. Neurodynamics offers a powerful approach to this problem because it provides a coherent framework for investigating change, variability, complex spatiotemporal patterns of activity, and multiscale processes (among others). In this chapter, we advocate a neurodynamical approach to consciousness that integrates mathematical tools of…Read more
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27The Problem of Consciousness: New Essays in Phenomenological Philosophy of Mind (edited book)Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume. 2003.Contributors to the latest Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume, _The Problem of Consciousness_, make connections regarding what is consciousness and how it is related to the natural world. The essays in this volume address this question from the perspective of phenomenological philosophy of mind, a new trend that integrates phenomenology, analytic philosophy, and cognitive science. The guiding principle of this new thinking is that precise and detailed phenomenological accounts o…Read more
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26Why I Am Not a BuddhistYale University Press. 2020._A provocative essay challenging the idea of Buddhist exceptionalism, from one of the world’s most widely respected philosophers and writers on Buddhism and science_ Buddhism has become a uniquely favored religion in our modern age. A burgeoning number of books extol the scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness for everything ranging from business to romance. There are conferences, courses, and celebrities promoting the notion that Buddhism is spirituality for the rational, c…Read more
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25Contemplative neuroscience as an approach to volitional consciousnessIn Nancey Murphy, George Ellis, O. ’Connor F. R. & Timothy (eds.), Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will, Springer Verlag. pp. 187--197. 2009.
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25Language, thought and consciousness in the modern mindBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (4): 770-771. 1993.
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24Creolizing Modern Buddhism: A Reply to Yarran Hominh & A. Minh NguyenComparative Philosophy 13 (1). 2021.In reply to Hominh and Nguyen, I argue that “creolizing” methods in the study and practice of Buddhism should not be opposed to historicist and contextualist modes of investigation and understanding. Rather, historicism and contextualism can and should inform creolizing approaches.
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24This chapter examines Indian views of the mind and consciousness, with particular focus on the Indian Buddhist tradition. To contextualize Buddhist views of the mind, we first provide a brief presentation of some of the most important Hindu views, particularly those of the S¯am . khya school. Whereas..
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20(Toward) a Phenomenology of ActingRoutledge. 2019.In a phenomenology of acting, Phillip Zarrilliconsiders acting as a 'question' to be explored in the studio, and then reflected upon. This book is a vital response to Jerzy Grotowski's essential question: "How does the actor 'touch that which is untouchable?'" Phenomenology invites us to listen to "the things themselves", to be attentive to how we sensorially, kinaesthetically, and affectively engage with acting as a phenomenon and process. Using detailed first-person accounts of acting across a…Read more
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19Enaction Without Hagiography (review)Constructivist Foundations 13 (1): 41-44. 2017.Vörös and Bitbol provide a helpful account of the depths of enaction but their hagiographic rhetoric and neglect of important historical facts and recent developments work at cross-purposes to their account.
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18The Spontaneity of ConsciousnessAvant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 1 (1): 125-166. 2010.It is now conventional wisdom that conscious experience — or in Nagel’s canonical characterization, “what it is like to be” for an organism — is what makes the mind-body problem so intractable. By the same token, our current conceptions of the mind-body relation are inadequate and some conceptual development is urgently needed. Our overall aim in this paper is to make some progress towards that conceptual development. We first examine a currently neglected, yet fundamental aspect of consciousnes…Read more
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15Introduction to Symposium: Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy, by Christian CoseruJournal of Consciousness Studies 22 (9-10): 7-8. 2015.This symposium devoted to Christian Coseru's book, Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy, stems from an invited 'Author Meets Critics' session that I organized and chaired at the annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, which was held in Vancouver, 1-5 April 2015. Coseru began the session with a précis of his book; this was followed by critical commentaries from Laura Guerrero, Matt MacKenzie, and Anand Ja…Read more
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