-
34California PhenomenologyIn Michela Beatrice Ferri & Carlo Ierna (eds.), The Reception of Husserlian Phenomenology in North America, Springer Verlag. pp. 365-387. 2019.We survey the development of “California Phenomenology”, both as a philosophical movement originating with Dagfinn Føllesdal’s formulation of a Fregean, analytic reading of Husserl in the late 1950s and 1960s, and as an evolving network of philosophers working throughout California, who have met under the auspices of several groups in a more or less continuous way since that time. We trace the history of these groups in detail, provide an overview of debates that occurred between “West Coast” ap…Read more
-
61The Phenomenology of Problem SolvingGrazer Philosophische Studien 94 (3): 391-409. 2017._ Source: _Volume 94, Issue 3, pp 391 - 409 The author outlines a provisional phenomenology of problem solving. He begins by reviewing the history of problem-solving psychology, focusing on the Gestalt approach, which emphasizes the influence of prior knowledge and the occurrence of sudden insights. He then describes problem solving as a process unfolding in a field of consciousness against a background of unconscious knowledge, which encodes action patterns, schemata, and affordances. A global …Read more
-
166Supervenience, Dynamical Systems Theory, and Non-Reductive PhysicalismBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2): 373-398. 2012.It is often claimed (1) that levels of nature are related by supervenience, and (2) that processes occurring at particular levels of nature should be studied using dynamical systems theory. However, there has been little consideration of how these claims are related. To address the issue, I show how supervenience relations give rise to ‘supervenience functions’, and use these functions to show how dynamical systems at different levels are related to one another. I then use this analysis to descr…Read more
-
160Supervenience, determination, and dependencePacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (1). 2007.I show how existing concepts of supervenience relate to two more fundamental ontological relations: determination and dependence. Determination says that the supervenient properties of a thing are a function of its base properties, while dependence says that having a supervenient property implies having a base property. I show that most varieties of supervenience are either determination relations or determination relations conjoined with dependence relations. In the process of unpacking these c…Read more
-
204Mathematizing phenomenologyPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (3): 271-291. 2007.Husserl is well known for his critique of the “mathematizing tendencies” of modern science, and is particularly emphatic that mathematics and phenomenology are distinct and in some sense incompatible. But Husserl himself uses mathematical methods in phenomenology. In the first half of the paper I give a detailed analysis of this tension, showing how those Husserlian doctrines which seem to speak against application of mathematics to phenomenology do not in fact do so. In the second half of the p…Read more
-
43Husserlian Phenomenology: A Unifying InterpretationSpringer Verlag. 2016.This chapter presents the main formalism of the book, which is used in subsequent chapters to describe a variety of concepts in Husserlian phenomenology, and thereby unify them. A dynamical systems approach to Husserl is introduced, and several dynamical laws of Husserlian phenomenology are described. The first is an expectation rule according to which expectations are determined by what a person knows, sees, and does. The second is a learning rule according to which background knowledge is upda…Read more
-
121Husserl’s Theory of Belief and the Heideggerean CritiqueHusserl Studies 25 (2): 121-140. 2009.I develop a “two-systems” interpretation of Husserl’s theory of belief. On this interpretation, Husserl accounts for our sense of the world in terms of (1) a system of embodied horizon meanings and passive synthesis, which is involved in any experience of an object, and (2) a system of active synthesis and sedimentation, which comes on line when we attend to an object’s properties. I use this account to defend Husserl against several forms of Heideggerean critique. One line of critique, recently…Read more
-
26Horizons of Phenomenology: Essays on the State of the Field and Its Applications (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2023.This is an open access book which explores phenomenology as both an exceptionally diverse movement in philosophy as well as an active research method that crosses disciplinary boundaries. The volume brings together lively overviews of major areas and schools of phenomenology, as well as the most recent applications across a range of fields. The first part reviews the state-of-the-art in various areas of contemporary phenomenology, including several distinct schools of Husserl and Heidegger schol…Read more
-
42Extending Gurwitsch’s field theory of consciousnessConsciousness and Cognition 34 104-123. 2015.Aron Gurwitsch’s theory of the structure and dynamics of consciousness has much to offer contemporary theorizing about consciousness and its basis in the embodied brain. On Gurwitsch’s account, as we develop it, the field of consciousness has a variable sized focus or "theme" of attention surrounded by a structured periphery of inattentional contents. As the field evolves, its contents change their status, sometimes smoothly, sometimes abruptly. Inner thoughts, a sense of one’s body, and the phy…Read more
-
78The Metaphysical Neutrality of Husserlian PhenomenologyHusserl Studies 31 (1): 1-15. 2015.I argue that Husserlian phenomenology is metaphysically neutral, in the sense of being compatible with multiple metaphysical frameworks. For example, though Husserl dismisses the concept of an unknowable thing in itself as “material nonsense”, I argue that the concept is coherent and that the existence of such things is compatible with Husserl’s phenomenology. I defend this metaphysical neutrality approach against a number of objections and consider some of its implications for Husserl interpret…Read more
-
Mapping the Structure of DebateInformal Logic 23 (1). 2003.Although debate is a richly structured and prevalent form of discourse, it has received little scholarly attention. Logicians have focused on the structure of individual arguments-how they divide into premises and conclusions, which in turn divide into various constituents. In contrast, I focus on the structure of sets of arguments, showing how arguments are themselves constituents in high-level dialectical structures. I represent debates and positions by graphs whose vertices correspond to argu…Read more
-
28Two dynamical themes in HusserlIn Shimon Edelman, Tomer Fekete & Neta Zach (eds.), Being in Time: Dynamical Models of Phenomenal Experience, John Benjamins. 2012.I describe and partially formalize two aspects of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy, in a way that highlights their relevance to cognitive science. First, I describe “constitutive phenomenology”, the study of structures (what I call phenomenological “models”) that constitute a person’s sense of reality. These structures develop incrementally over the course of a person’s life, and serve a variety of functions, e.g. generating expectations relative to actions, and determining the conte…Read more
-
108Mapping the Structure of DebateInformal Logic 24 (1): 1-22. 2004.Although debate is a richly structured and prevalent form of discourse, it has received little scholarly attention. Logicians have focused on the structure of individual arguments—how they divide into premises and conclusions, which in turn divide into various constituents. In contrast, I focus on the structure of sets of arguments, showing how arguments are themselves constituents in high-level dialectical structures. I represent debates and positions by graphs whose vertices correspond …Read more
-
59Husserl on Psycho-Physical LawsNew Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 10 25-42. 2010.
-
42Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (edited book)Cognitive Science Society. 2015.
-
67Active internalism and open dynamical systemsPhilosophical Psychology 25 (1). 2012.The question whether cognition is subserved by internal processes in the brain (internalism) or extends in to the world (active externalism) has been vigorously debated in recent years. I show how internalist and externalist ideas can be pursued in a common framework, using (1) open dynamical systems, which allow for separate analysis of an agent's intrinsic and embodied dynamics, and (2) supervenience functions, which can be used to study how low-level dynamical systems give rise to higher-leve…Read more
-
99The Metaphysical Neutrality of Cognitive ScienceSynthese 201 (2): 63. 2023.Progress in psychology and the cognitive sciences is often taken to vindicate physicalism and cast doubt on such extravagant metaphysical theses as dualism and idealism. The goal of this paper is to argue that cognitive science has no such implications—rather, evidence from cognitive science is largely (but not wholly) irrelevant to the mind-body problem. Our argument begins with the observation that data from cognitive science can be modeled by supervenience relations. We then show that superve…Read more
-
26Two Conceptions of Husserlian Phenomenology: A Review of Walter Hopp’s Phenomenology: A Contemporary Introduction (review)Husserl Studies 38 (1): 87-95. 2021.
-
115Extending Dynamical Systems Theory to Model Embodied CognitionCognitive Science 35 (3): 444-479. 2011.We define a mathematical formalism based on the concept of an ‘‘open dynamical system” and show how it can be used to model embodied cognition. This formalism extends classical dynamical systems theory by distinguishing a ‘‘total system’’ (which models an agent in an environment) and an ‘‘agent system’’ (which models an agent by itself), and it includes tools for analyzing the collections of overlapping paths that occur in an embedded agent's state space. To illustrate the way this formalism can…Read more
-
17Field theories of mind and brainIn Lester Embree (ed.), Gurwitsch's Relevancy for Cognitive Science, Springer. pp. 111--129. 2004.Aron Gurwitsch’s Gestalt-inspired “field theory of consciousness” was introduced in the same period as Wolfgang Köhler’s theory of “electrical brain fields.” I consider parallels between these theories, drawing on results that have emerged in the last five years. First, I consider the claim that fields of consciousness supervene on electromagnetic fields in the brain, then I outline Gurwitsch’s field theory of consciousness, and finally I consider how the structures described by Gurwitsch…Read more
-
6IntroductionIn Patrick Londen, Jeffrey Yoshimi & Philip Walsh (eds.), Horizons of Phenomenology: Essays on the State of the Field and Its Applications, Springer Verlag. pp. 1-13. 2023.This book explores phenomenology as a diverse movement in philosophy and as an active research method that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Bringing together overviews of major areas and schools of phenomenology, as well as the most recent applications of phenomenology across a range of fields, this volume offers a concise introduction to phenomenological research. The first part reviews the state of the art in various areas of contemporary phenomenology, including several distinct schools of Hu…Read more
-
31Metaphor and the Philosophical Implications of Embodied MathematicsFrontiers in Psychology 11. 2020.Embodied approaches to cognition see abstract thought and language as grounded in interactions between mind, body, and world. A particularly important challenge for embodied approaches to cognition is mathematics, perhaps the most abstract domain of human knowledge. Conceptual metaphor theory, a branch of cognitive linguistics, describes how abstract mathematical concepts are grounded in concrete physical representations. In this paper, we consider the implications of this research for the metap…Read more
-
15Pluralist neurophenomenology: a reply to LopesPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1-24. forthcoming.Lopes ( 2021 ) has argued against my use of neural networks and dynamical systems theory in neurophenomenology. Responding to his argument provides an opportunity to articulate a pluralist approach to neurophenomenology, according to which multiple theoretical frameworks—symbolic, dynamical systems, connectionist, etc.—can be used to study consciousness and its relationship to neural activity. Each type of analysis is best suited to specific phenomena, but they are mutually compatible and can in…Read more
-
Philosophy of Mind in the Phenomenological TraditionIn Amy Kind (ed.), Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Volume 6, Routledge. pp. 21-51. 2018.
-
Philosophy of mind in the phenomenological traditionIn Amy Kind (ed.), Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries, Routledge. forthcoming.
-
6Bibliometric Analysis of the Phenomenology LiteratureIn Patrick Londen, Jeffrey Yoshimi & Philip Walsh (eds.), Horizons of Phenomenology: Essays on the State of the Field and Its Applications, Springer Verlag. pp. 17-47. 2023.More has been written about phenomenology than could possibly be read in a single person’s lifetime, or even in several lifetimes. Despite its unwieldy size, this vast “horizon” of literary output has a tractable structure. We leverage the tools of bibliometrics to study the structure of the phenomenology literature, and test several hypotheses about it. We create an author-wise co-citation network, a graph of nodes and connections, where each node corresponds to an author who has written a docu…Read more