•  106
    Existential phenomenology and cognitive science
    with Mark Wrathall
    Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy (4). 1996.
    [1] In _What Computers Can't Do_ (1972), Hubert Dreyfus identified several basic assumptions about the nature of human knowledge which grounded contemporary research in cognitive science. Contemporary artificial intelligence, he argued, relied on an unjustified belief that the mind functions like a digital computer using symbolic manipulations ("the psychological assumption") (Dreyfus 1992: 163ff), or at least that computer programs could be understood as formalizing human thought ("the epistemo…Read more
  •  95
  •  552
    Merleau–ponty on the body
    Ratio 15 (4). 2002.
    The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty claims that there are two distinct ways in which we can understand the place of an object when we are visually apprehending it. The first involves an intentional relation to the object that is essentially cognitive or can serve as the input to cognitive processes; the second irreducibly involves a bodily set or preparation to deal with the object. Because of its essential bodily component, Merleau-Ponty calls this second kind of understanding ‘motor i…Read more
  •  457
    Demonstrative concepts and experience
    Philosophical Review 110 (3): 397-420. 2001.
    A number of authors have argued recently that the content of perceptual experience can, and even must, be characterized in conceptual terms. Their claim, more precisely, is that every perceptual experience is such that, of necessity, its content is constituted entirely by concepts possessed by the subject having the experience. This is a surprising result. For it seems reasonable to think that a subject’s experiences could be richer and more fine-grained than his conceptual repertoire; that a su…Read more
  •  262
    Reference and attention: A difficult connection (review)
    Philosophical Studies 120 (1-3): 277-86. 2004.
    I am very much in sympathy with the overall approach of John Campbell’s paper, “Reference as Attention”. My sympathy extends to a variety of its features. I think he is right to suppose, for instance, that neuropsychological cases provide important clues about how we should treat some traditional philosophical problems concerning perception and reference. I also think he is right to suppose that there are subtle but important relations between the phenomena of perception, action, consciousness, …Read more
  •  196
    I begin by examining a recent debate between John McDowell and Christopher Peacocke over whether the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual. Although I am sympathetic to Peacocke’s claim that perceptual content is non-conceptual, I suggest a number of ways in which his arguments fail to make that case. This failure stems from an over-emphasis on the “fine-grainedness” of perceptual content – a feature that is relatively unimportant to its non-conceptual structure. I go on to describe…Read more
  •  138
    On the demonstration of blindsight in monkeys
    Mind and Language 21 (4): 475-483. 2006.
    The work of Alan Cowey and Petra Stoerig is often taken to have shown that, following lesions analogous to those that cause blindsight in humans, there is blindsight in monkeys. The present paper reveals a problem in Cowey and Stoerig's case for blindsight in monkeys. The problem is that Cowey and Stoerig's results would only provide good evidence for blindsight if there is no difference between their two experimental paradigms with regard to the sorts of stimuli that are likely to come to consc…Read more
  •  341
    The non-conceptual content of perceptual experience: Situation dependence and fineness of grain
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3): 601-608. 2001.
    I begin by examining a recent debate between John McDowell and Christopher Peacocke over whether the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual. Although I am sympathetic to Peacocke’s claim that perceptual content is non-conceptual, I suggest a number of ways in which his arguments fail to make that case. This failure stems from an over-emphasis on the "fine-grainedness" of perceptual content - a feature that is relatively unimportant to its non-conceptual structure. I go on to describe…Read more
  •  94
    Phenomenology, dynamical neural networks and brain function
    with Donald Borrett and Hon Kwan
    Philosophical Psychology 13 (2): 213-228. 2000.
    Current cognitive science models of perception and action assume that the objects that we move toward and perceive are represented as determinate in our experience of them. A proper phenomenology of perception and action, however, shows that we experience objects indeterminately when we are perceiving them or moving toward them. This indeterminacy, as it relates to simple movement and perception, is captured in the proposed phenomenologically based recurrent network models of brain function. The…Read more
  •  361
    What do we see (when we do)?
    In Thomas Baldwin (ed.), Philosophical Topics, Routledge. pp. 107-128. 1999.
    1. The philosophical problem of what we see My topic revolves around what is apparently a very basic question. Stripped of all additions and in its leanest, most economical form, this is the question: "What do we see?" But in this most basic form the question admits of at least three different interpretations. In the first place, one might understand it to be an epistemological question, perhaps one with skeptical overtones. "What do we see?", on this reading, is short for something like "What t…Read more
  •  303
    Seeing things in Merleau-ponty
    In Taylor Carman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty, Cambridge University Press. pp. 74-110. 2005.
    The passage above comes from the opening pages of Merleau-Ponty’s essay on Edmund Husserl. It proposes a risky interpretive principle. The main feature of this principle is that the seminal aspects of a thinker’s work are so close to him that he is incapable of articulating them himself. Nevertheless, these aspects pervade the work, give it its style, its sense and its direction, and therefore belong to it essentially. As Martin Heidegger writes, in a passage quoted by Merleau-Ponty: " The great…Read more
  •  85
    & How does neuronal activity bring about the interpretation of visual space in terms of objects or complex perceptual events? If they group, simple visual features can bring about the integration of spikes from neurons responding to different features to within a few milliseconds. Considered as a potential solution to the ‘‘binding problem,’’ it is suggested that neuronal synchronization is the glue for binding together different features of the same object. This idea receives some support from …Read more
  •  360
    The puzzle of temporal experience
    In Andrew Brook (ed.), Cognition and the Brain: The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement, Cambridge University Press. pp. 208--238. 2005.
    There you are at the opera house. The soprano has just hit her high note – a glassshattering high C that fills the hall – and she holds it. She holds it. She holds it. She holds it. She holds it. She holds the note for such a long time that after a while a funny thing happens: you no longer seem only to hear it, the note as it is currently sounding, that glass-shattering high C that is loud and high and pure. In addition, you also seem to hear something more. It is difficult to express precisely…Read more
  •  267
    Heterophenomenology: Heavy-handed Sleight-of-hand (review)
    with Hubert Dreyfus
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1-2): 45-55. 2007.
    We argue that heterophenomenology both over- and under-populates the intentional realm. For example, when one is involved in coping, one’s mind does not contain beliefs. Since the heterophenomenologist interprets all intentional commitment as belief, he necessarily overgenerates the belief contents of the mind. Since beliefs cannot capture the normative aspect of coping and perceiving, any method, such as heterophenomenology, that allows for only beliefs is guaranteed not only to overgenerate be…Read more
  •  2
    What makes perceptual content non-conceptual?
    Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy. 2002.
    the world. <sup>1</sup> Whereas the content of our beliefs, thoughts, and judgements necessarily involves "conceptualization" or "concept application", the content of our perceptual experiences is, according to Evans, "non-conceptual". Because Evans takes it for granted that we are often able to entertain thoughts about an object in virtue of having perceived it, a central problem in
  •  126
    Temporal awareness
    In David Woodruff Smith & Amie L. Thomasson (eds.), Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2005.
  •  13
    En este artículo se critica la forma en quePeacocke defiende la tesis de que laexperiencia tiene un contenido noconceptual.En particular, se argumentaquela apelación de Peacocke a la idea dequeel contenido no-conceptual de laexperienciaes mucho más fino que elcontenidoconceptual, no funciona.Finalmente,se sostiene que ladependenciade un objeto percibido conrespectoal contexto perceptual en el cualsepercibe, y la dependencia de unapropiedadpercibida con respecto alobjetoen el cual es percibida so…Read more
  •  104
    I would like to begin by talking about General Education in America. General Education plays a very particular and interesting role in American Higher Education. A typical undergraduate at one of our colleges or universities is expected to satisfy a range of requirements in his or her major area of study (mathematics, economics, philosophy, etc.); and they will also take a range of electives – courses that are not required for graduation but in which the student might want to explore a developin…Read more
  • On time and truth
    In Kurt J. Pritzl (ed.), Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, Catholic University of America Press. forthcoming.
  •  36
    Activating event knowledge
    with Mary Hare, Michael Jones, Caroline Thomson, and Ken McRae
    Cognition 111 (2): 151-167. 2009.
  •  3
  •  3
    Time and experience
    In A. Brooks & Kathleen Akins (eds.), Philosophy and the Neurosciences, Cambridge University Press. forthcoming.
  •  160
    Bridging embodied cognition and brain function: The role of phenomenology
    with Donald Borrett and Hon Kwan
    Philosophical Psychology 13 (2): 261-266. 2000.
    Both cognitive science and phenomenology accept the primacy of the organism-environment system and recognize that cognition should be understood in terms of an embodied agent situated in its environment. How embodiment is seen to shape our world, however, is fundamentally different in these two disciplines. Embodiment, as understood in cognitive science, reduces to a discussion of the consequences of having a body like ours interacting with our environment and the relationship is one of continge…Read more
  •  431
    This work discusses philosophical problems of perceptual content, the content of deomonstrative thoughts, and the unity of proposition. By demonstrating a connection between phenomenology and analysis, Kelly suggests ways in which they can be fruitfully pursued