•  35
    Żywe sposoby nadawania sensu
    Avant: 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.
  •  239
    The question has long confounded philosophers and scientists, and it is this so-called explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness that Evan ...
  •  185
    It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.
  •  4
    A Dream Inside a Locked Room
    In Tom Sparrow & Jacob Graham (eds.), True Detective and Philosophy, Wiley. 2017.
    In the third episode of season one of True Detective, "The Locked Room", detective Rust Cohle explains the life. This predicament makes him not just a "pessimist" also a "nihilist"‐someone who denies that life has meaning. The idea that life might be a dream is one of humanity's oldest and most enduring philosophical thoughts. The oldest versions of these ideas come from Indian philosophy. In Western philosophy, the thought that life could be a dream is linked not so much to reflections on life,…Read more
  •  389
    Introduzione Lo studio delle emozioni è stato caratterizzato per molti anni da una netta separazione fra mente e corpo. Negli anni Sessanta e Settanta – l’epoca aurea del cognitivismo – le teorie delle emozioni si occupavano soprattutto degli antecedenti cognitivi dell’emozione, le cosiddette “valutazioni”. I processi corporei erano visti essenzialmente come sottoprodotti della cognizione, e come troppo poco specifici per poter contribuire alla varietà dell’esperienza emotiva. La cognizione e...
  •  553
    From Protest to Survival: The Bertrand Russell Peace Lectures
    Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 6 (2). 1987.
  •  116
    Ways of coloring
    with A. Palacios and F. J. Varela
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1): 1-26. 1992.
    Different explanations of color vision favor different philosophical positions: Computational vision is more compatible with objectivism (the color is in the object), psychophysics and neurophysiology with subjectivism (the color is in the head). Comparative research suggests that an explanation of color must be both experientialist (unlike objectivism) and ecological (unlike subjectivism). Computational vision's emphasis on optimally prespecified features of the environment (i.e., distal proper…Read more
  •  39
    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
  • Own-body perception
    In Mohan Matthen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
  • Francisco J. Varela. A Tribute
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (8): 66-69. 2001.
  •  2
    Introduction
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 29. 2003.
  •  14
    (Toward) a Phenomenology of Acting
    with Phillip Zarrilli
    Routledge. 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
  •  9
    Qigong Training Positively Impacts Both Posture and Mood in Breast Cancer Survivors With Persistent Post-surgical Pain: Support for an Embodied Cognition Paradigm
    with Ana Paula Quixadá, Jose G. V. Miranda, Kamila Osypiuk, Paolo Bonato, Gloria Vergara-Diaz, Jennifer A. Ligibel, Wolf Mehling, and Peter M. Wayne
    Frontiers in Psychology 13. 2022.
    Theories of embodied cognition hypothesize interdependencies between psychological well-being and physical posture. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of objectively measuring posture, and to explore the relationship between posture and affect and other patient centered outcomes in breast cancer survivors with persistent postsurgical pain over a 12-week course of therapeutic Qigong mind-body training. Twenty-one BCS with PPSP attended group Qigong training. Clinical outcomes…Read more
  •  51
    Several authors have made claims about the compatibility between the Free Energy Principle and theories of autopoiesis and enaction. Many see these theories as natural partners or as making similar statements about the nature of biological and cognitive systems. We critically examine these claims and identify a series of misreadings and misinterpretations of key enactive concepts. In particular, we notice a tendency to disregard the operational definition of autopoiesis and the distinction betwe…Read more
  •  193
    Could All Life Be Sentient?
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 29 (3-4): 229-265. 2022.
    This paper concerns biopsychism, the position that feeling is a vital activity of all organisms or living beings. It evaluates biopsychism specifically from the perspective of the enactive conception of life and life-mind continuity. Does the enactive conception of life as fundamentally a value-constituting and value-driven process imply a conception of life as sentient of value? Although a plausible case can be made, there remains a conceptual and inferential gap between differential responsive…Read more
  • Affective neuroscience of self-generated thought
    with Kieran C. R. Fox, Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna, Caitlin Mills, Matthew L. Dixon, Jelena Markovic, and Kalina Christoff
    Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1426 (1): 25-51. 2018.
    Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought-mental content largely independent of the immediate environment-there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought-normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in sleep. In synthesizing existing literature on this topic,…Read more
  •  1
    A necessary first step in collaboration between hypnosis research and meditation research is clarification of key concepts. The authors propose that such clarification is best advanced by neurophenomenological investigations that integrate neuroscience methods with phenomenological models based
on first-person reports of hypnotic versus meditative experiences. Focusing 
on absorption, the authors argue that previous treatments of hypnosis
and meditation as equivalent are incorrect, but that they…Read more
  •  19
    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.
  •  70
    Affect-biased attention and predictive processing
    with Madeleine Ransom, Sina Fazelpour, Jelena Markovic, James Kryklywy, and Rebecca M. Todd
    Cognition 203 (C): 104370. 2020.
    In this paper we argue that predictive processing (PP) theory cannot account for the phenomenon of affect-biased attention prioritized attention to stimuli that are affectively salient because of their associations with reward or punishment. Specifically, the PP hypothesis that selective attention can be analyzed in terms of the optimization of precision expectations cannot accommodate affect-biased attention; affectively salient stimuli can capture our attention even when precision expectations…Read more
  •  49
    Buddhist Philosophy and Scientific Naturalism
    Sophia 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
  •  75
    Obituary
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 28 (3-4): 220-222. 2021.
  •  12
    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
  •  34
    Jonardon Ganeri’s Transcultural Philosophy of Attention
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2): 489-494. 2020.
  •  94
    Living Ways of Sense Making
    Philosophy Today 55 (Supplement): 114-123. 2011.
    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
  •  35
    Ways of coloring: Comparative color vision as a case study for cognitive science
    with Adrian Palacios and Francisco J. Varela
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1): 1-26. 1992.
  •  206
    In visual science the term filling-inis used in different ways, which often leads to confusion. This target article presents a taxonomy of perceptual completion phenomena to organize and clarify theoretical and empirical discussion. Examples of boundary completion (illusory contours) and featural completion (color, brightness, motion, texture, and depth) are examined, and single-cell studies relevant to filling-in are reviewed and assessed. Filling-in issues must be understood in relation to the…Read more
  •  23
    Why I Am Not a Buddhist
    Yale 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