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839Concepts – not just yardsticks, but also heuristics: rebutting Hacker and BennettLanguage Sciences 33 (3): 464-472. 2011.In their response to our article (Keestra and Cowley, 2009), Hacker and Bennett charge us with failing to understand the project of their book Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (PFN; Bennett and Hacker, 2003) and do this by discussing foundationalism, linguistic conservatism and the passivity of perception. In this rebuttal we explore disagreements that explain the alleged errors. First, we reiterate our substantial disagreement with Bennett and Hacker (B&H) regarding their assumption th…Read more
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4Drawing on a Sculpted Space of Actions: Educating for Expertise while Avoiding a Cognitive MonsterIn Christopher Winch & Mark Addis (eds.), Education and Expertise, Wiley. 2018.This chapter argues that gaining expertise can be understood in part as the development of a continuously updated space of adequate knowledge structures or representations that can be defined along different dimensions. It considers the challenge of protecting expertise and harnessing this brittleness from philosophical and cognitive neuroscientific perspectives. The chapter introduces the framework of a Sculpted Space of Actions, in order to explain how the challenge of selecting an adequate op…Read more
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454An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research. 2nd Revised EditionAmsterdam University Press. 2022.[This book replaces the - discontinued - first edition of 'Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research' (2016, by Menken & Keestra)] We are increasingly realizing that, as a result of technological developments and globalization, problems are becoming so complex that they can only be solved through cooperation between scientists from different disciplines. Healthcare, climate change, food security, globalization, and quality of life are just a few examples of issues that require scientists to wor…Read more
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520Transgenerational trauma and worlded brains: an interdisciplinary perspective on ‘post-traumatic slave syndrome’In Stephan Besser & Flora Lysen (eds.), Worlding the Brain. Interdisciplinary Explorations in Cognition and Neuroculture. pp. 63-81. 2023.Trauma and traumatization have arguably always been part of the human experience yet have in the last few decades come to occupy a prominent place in various popular and academic contexts. This chapter offers an interdisciplinary and comparative investigation of trauma and traumatization in different historical contexts. More specifically, my aim is to discuss whether the rich bodies of research in trauma and traumatization in Holocaust survivors and their descendants yield relevant insights for…Read more
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67Foundationalism and neuroscience; silence and languageLanguage Sciences 31 531-552. 2009.Neuroscience offers more than new empirical evidence about the details of cognitive functions such as language, perception and action. Since it also shows many functions to be highly distributed, interconnected and dependent on mechanisms at different levels of processing, it challenges concepts that are traditionally used to describe these functions. The question is how to accommodate these concepts to the recent evidence. A recent proposal, made in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (20…Read more
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267Imagination and Actionability: Refections on the Future of InterdisciplinarityIssues in Interdisciplinary Studies 2 (37): 110-129. 2019.When introduced around 1925, interdisciplinarity, grounded in the notion of the unity of knowledge, was meant to reconnect the fragmented and specialized disciplines of academia. However, interdisciplinary research became more and more challenging as the plurality and heterogeneity of disciplinary perspectives and insights increased. Insisting on this divergence and diversity, Julie Thompson Klein has nonetheless contributed in important ways to convergence in interdisciplinarity with her work o…Read more
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129Interdisciplinary Imagination and Actionability: Reflections on the Future of InterdisciplinarityIssues in Interdisciplinary Studies 2 (37): 110-129. 2019.When introduced around 1925, interdisciplinarity, grounded in the notion of the unity of knowledge, was meant to reconnect the fragmented and specialized disciplines of academia. However, interdisciplinary research became more and more challenging as the plurality and heterogeneity of disciplinary perspectives and insights increased. Insisting on this divergence and diversity, Julie Thompson Klein has nonetheless contributed in important ways to convergence in interdisciplinarity with her work o…Read more
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209Configurations of Pluralisms. Navigating Polyphony and Diversity in Philosophy and Beyond.In Keith Stenning & Martin Stokhof (eds.), Rules, Regularities, Randomness. Festschrift for Michiel van Lambalgen, Institute For Logic, Language and Computation. pp. 87-99. 2022.In western philosophy and beyond, a tension between pluralism and monism has sparked many developments and debates. Pluralism of norms, of forms of knowledge, of aesthetic and moral values, of interests etc. has often been pitted against monism. Monism usually implies a hierarchical order of such norms etc. After having traced the origin of this tension between pluralism and monism in ancient tragedy and philosophy, I’m asking in this article whether a rejection of monism and embrace of pluralis…Read more
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354Van narratieve tot dialogische identiteit. Identiteit en refiguratie tijdens de Keti Koti TafelFilosofie En Praktijk. forthcoming.How can personal identity be determined in such a way that developments, experiences and other dynamic and context-dependent aspects of that identity can be taken into account? For several decades now, the narrative, the story, has often been referred to in answering this question as a cognitive instrument that can adequately deal with those aspects. The monologue thus appears to present itself as a medium in which personal or autobiographical identity is formed. However, what happens when we pl…Read more
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378Too many cities in the city? Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary city research methods and the challenge of integrationIn Nanke Verloo & Luca Bertolini (eds.), Seeing the City. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Study of the Urban. pp. 226-242. 2020.Introduction: Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and action research of a city in lockdown. As we write this chapter, most cities across the world are subject to a similar set of measures due to the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus, which is now a global pandemic. Independent of city size, location, or history, an observer would note that almost all cities have now ground to a halt, with their citizens being confined to their private dwellings, social and public gatherings being almost entirely …Read more
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438Drawing on a Sculpted Space of Actions: Educating for Expertise while Avoiding a Cognitive MonsterJournal of Philosophy of Education 51 (3): 620-639. 2017.Philosophers and scientists have across the ages been amazed about the fact that development and learning often lead to not just a merely incremental and gradual change in the learner but sometimes to a result that is strikingly different from the learner’s original situation: amazed, but at times also worried. Both philosophical and cognitive neuroscientific insights suggest that experts appear to perform ‘different’ tasks compared to beginners who behave in a similar way. These philosophical a…Read more
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1081Metacognition and Reflection by Interdisciplinary Experts: Insights from Cognitive Science and PhilosophyIssues in Interdisciplinary Studies 35 121-169. 2017.Interdisciplinary understanding requires integration of insights from different perspectives, yet it appears questionable whether disciplinary experts are well prepared for this. Indeed, psychological and cognitive scientific studies suggest that expertise can be disadvantageous because experts are often more biased than non-experts, for example, or fixed on certain approaches, and less flexible in novel situations or situations outside their domain of expertise. An explanation is that experts’ …Read more
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404Introduction to the Special Section: Interdisciplinary Collaboration Multi-Level Perspectives on Interdisciplinary Cognition and Team Collaboration: Challenges and OpportunitiesIssues in Interdisciplinary Studies 35 113-120. 2017.What can insights from psychological science contribute to interdisciplinary research, conducted by individuals or by interdisciplinary teams? Three articles shed light on this by focusing on the micro- (personal), meso- (inter-personal), and macro- (team) level. This Introduction (and Table of Contents) to the 'Special Section on Interdisciplinary Collaborations' offers a brief description of the conference session that was the point of departure for two of the three articles. Frank Kessel and…Read more
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458»Elektra« und Hegels Unterbewertung der Individualität und öffentlichen Gerechtigkeit auf der antiken SzeneHegel-Jahrbuch 1 (1): 116-120. 1999.With the positively ending Elektra, Sophocles wanted to show the audience how political and moral independence, judgment and the courage to act are necessary - to a sometimes extreme extent - for the good of the family and the state. Even in the old democracy, virtue - which for Hegel was a principle of democracy - was not enough on its own. The downfall of democracy was probably due to a lack of individuality rather than the emergence of that individuality. We find the negative result of Hegel'…Read more
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332A ‘Circulation Model’ of Education: A Response to Challenges of Education at the New UniversityKrisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy 2015 (2): 90-98. 2015.The protests at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) that began in November 2014 as a reaction to severe cuts in the department of humanities have sparked a broad debate nationally and even internationally about the future of the university and the values and ideals that should define it. It turned out that dissatisfaction was much more widespread in different parts of the university than some had previously thought, and many turned out to share the concerns first put forward in the humanities d…Read more
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38Utopie, leidraad of valkuil: inleidingWijsgerig Perspectief 39 (4): 97-98. 1999.Zoals bekend is de verhouding tussen filosofie en politiek problematisch. De veroordeling van Socrates door de polis maakte diepe indruk op zijn leerling Plato. Mede om dit soort misstappen te voorkomen ontwierp deze een ideale staat waarin filosofen koningen moesten worden. Vanuit dit idee probeerde hij ook Dionysus, de heerser van Syracus, tot een wijsgerig verantwoorde politiek te brengen. De mislukking van dit Siciliaans avontuur heeft velen na hem ervan overtuigd dat filosofen zich beter n…Read more
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4067An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research: Theory and Practice (edited book)Amsterdam University Press. 2016.A SECOND COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION OF THIS TEXTBOOK ON INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WAS PUBLISHED WITH AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS IN 2022. Check out that version here and a PDF of its ToC and Introduction, as this first edition (AUP 2016) is no longer available. [This book (128 pp.) serves as an introduction and manual to guide students through the interdisciplinary research process. We are becoming increasingly aware that, as a result of technological developments and globalisation, problems ar…Read more
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433Mirrors of the soul and mirrors of the brain? The expression of emotions as the subject of art and scienceIn Gary Schwartz (ed.), Emotions. Pain and pleasure in Dutch painting of the Golden Age, Nai010 Publishers. pp. 81-92. 2014.Is it not surprising that we look with so much pleasure and emotion at works of art that were made thousands of years ago? Works depicting people we do not know, people whose backgrounds are usually a mystery to us, who lived in a very different society and time and who, moreover, have been ‘frozen’ by the artist in a very deliberate pose. It was the Classical Greek philosopher Aristotle who observed in his Poetics that people could apparently be moved even by the imitation of a person or an act…Read more
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306Conflict & Compassie: een hedendaagse blik op Wagner en een wagneriaanse blik op onszelf.In Rutger Helmers & Philip Westbroek (eds.), Conflict en compassie. 200 jaar Richard Wagner, Nationale Opera & Ballet. pp. 157-166. 2014.(text in Dutch) Mediated by the so-called Dream-organ ('Traumorgan') which opera composer Richard Wagner mentions in his writings, the author engages in a fictitious dialogue with Wagner. Their dialogue focuses on a few topics related to the conference theme 'Conflict and compassion' that were of concern to Wagner in his days and which have undergone some serious changes since his death. The author discusses with Wagner the 'death of tragedy', sexuality and desire after the sexual revolution, th…Read more
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420Bounded Mirroring. Joint action and group membership in political theory and cognitive neuroscienceIn Frank Vandervalk (ed.), Thinking About the Body Politic: Essays on Neuroscience and Political Theory, Routledge. pp. 222--249. 2012.A crucial socio-political challenge for our age is how to rede!ne or extend group membership in such a way that it adequately responds to phenomena related to globalization like the prevalence of migration, the transformation of family and social networks, and changes in the position of the nation state. Two centuries ago Immanuel Kant assumed that international connectedness between humans would inevitably lead to the realization of world citizen rights. Nonetheless, globalization does not just…Read more
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1109The diverging force of imitation. Integrating cognitive science and hermeneuticsReview of General Psychology 12 (2): 127-136. 2008.Recent research on infant and animal imitation and on mirror neuron systems has
brought imitation back in focus in psychology and cognitive science. This topic has
always been important for philosophical hermeneutics as well, focusing on theory and
method of understanding. Unfortunately, relations between the scientific and the
hermeneutic approaches to imitation and understanding have scarcely been investigated,
to the loss of both disciplines. In contrast to the cognitive scientific emphasis on
shar…Read more -
624Introduction: the neuroscientific turn in political science The observation that brains and political orders are interdependent is almost trivial. Obviously, political orders require brain processes in order to emerge and to remain in place, as these processes enable action and cognition. Conversely, every since Aristotle coined man as “by nature a political animal” (Aristotle, Pol.: 1252a 3; cf. Eth. Nic.: 1097b 11), this also suggests that the political engagements of this animal has likely co…Read more
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199Recensie van: Christoph Menke, Tmgodie im Sittlichen. Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit nach Hegel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1996. Paul Cobben, Postdialectische zedelijkheid. Ontwerp voor een Hegeliaans antwoord op Heidegger, Habermas, Derrida en Levinas. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1996. Hegels rechtsfilosofie speelt in de hedendaagse discussie tussen communitaristen en liberalen een belangrijke rol. Hij wordt door sommigen beschouwd als iemand die de vrijheid van het individu het primaat geeft - een echte liberaa…Read more
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1042Understanding human action: integrating meanings, mechanisms, causes, and contextsIn Repko Allen, Szostak Rick & Newell William (eds.), Interdisciplinary Research: Case Studies of Integrative Understandings of Complex Problems, Sage Publications. pp. 201-235. 2011.Humans are capable of understanding an incredible variety of actions performed by other humans. Even though these range from primary biological actions, like eating and fleeing, to acts in parliament or in poetry, humans generally can make sense of each other’s actions. Understanding other people’s actions is called action understanding, and it can transcend differences in race, gender, culture, age, and social and historical circumstances. Action understanding is the cognitive ability to make s…Read more
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1396Sculpting the space of actions. Explaining human action by integrating intentions and mechanismsDissertation, University of Amsterdam. 2014.How can we explain the intentional nature of an expert’s actions, performed without immediate and conscious control, relying instead on automatic cognitive processes? How can we account for the differences and similarities with a novice’s performance of the same actions? Can a naturalist explanation of intentional expert action be in line with a philosophical concept of intentional action? Answering these and related questions in a positive sense, this dissertation develops a three-step argument…Read more
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University of AmsterdamOther (Part-time)
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Affirmative Action, Misc |