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Centre for Philosophical Psychology
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Members
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Main topics
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The overarching theme of research is the possibility and the limits of a naturalistic explanation of mental activities and properties. How is it possible to reconcile the subjective experience of oneself as the source or centre of one''s acting, perceiving and intending with the scientific image of the human being as a complex biological organism, functioning in a physical world? What is the relation between our spontaneous, unreflected self-image and the scientific account of man and world?
The theme is approached from three complementary philosophical perspectives: the philosophy of cognitive science, analytical philosophy of mind and contemporary phenomenology. The research often has an interdisciplinary orientation, and sometimes leads to collaborations with cognitive scientists, psychologists, neuroscientists and linguists.
Within this general framework, research concerns, with an emphasis on the aspect of embodiment, phenomenal consciousness, perception, commonalities and differences between the sensory modalities, pain, expression and intersubjectivity, pictural representation and the relation between philosophy and neurobiology.
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Website
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http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*WIJSBEG&n=68849
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Projects
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Show the projects of this research team - The Emotions of Rational Agents. 01/10/2012 - 30/09/2013
| Abstract | The project will describe the relation of affective and rational capacities in terms of asymmetrical explanatory relations. This can be done by thinking of agents as embodied subjects, who through complex selfrepresentational and self-regulative abilities structure their actions in the light of rational considerations. This approach to the unity of the subject has historical antecedents in Fichte (1794) and Hegel (1830). | | Duration | 01/10/2012 - 30/09/2013 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Computation Reconsidered. 01/01/2012 - 31/12/2015
| Abstract | The goal of this project is to reconsider the notion of computation, especially in its received interpretation as fundamentally inner. It will be proposed that computation should be construed primarily as referring to external, or world-involving, person-bound
activity. This notion of overt computation will be developed, and its explanatory potential will be investigated. The notion of inner computation, as allegedly carried out inside the brain, will be questioned. | | Duration | 01/01/2012 - 31/12/2015 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- From theory of mind to vicarious perception. 01/11/2011 - 31/10/2015
| Abstract | This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand EU. UA provides EU research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract. | | Duration | 01/11/2011 - 31/10/2015 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Perception, Action and What's in between? 01/10/2011 - 30/09/2016
| Abstract | The aim of this research project is to argue that the vast majority of what goes on in our mind is very similar to the simple mental processes of animals. Our complex, sophisticated, rational and linguistic abilities could be described as the icing on the cake. The right methodology for philosophy of mind is to understand those simple mental capacities that we share with animals fust and then explain those uniquely human, highly intellectual mental capacities that make the human mind so remarkable. | | Duration | 01/10/2011 - 30/09/2016 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Finishing manuscript "Radicalizing Enactivism. 01/09/2011 - 28/02/2012
| Abstract | This is a fundamental research project financed by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). The project was subsidized after selection by the FWO-expert panel. | | Duration | 01/09/2011 - 28/02/2012 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- From Theory of Mind to Vicarious Perception 01/07/2011 - 31/12/2015
| Abstract | I urge a shift of emphasis in the study of social cognition from ''theory of mind'' to a simple perceptual process: the perception of objects as affording a certain action to another agent. This perceptual process, which I call ''vicarious perception'', is different from, and much simpler than, theory of mind as it does not imply the understanding (or representation) of the mental (or even perceptual) states of another agent. I argue that the most convincing experiments that are supposed to show that non-human primates have theory of mind in fact demonstrate that they are capable of vicarious perception. The same is true for the experiments about the theory of mind of less than 12 month old infants. | | Duration | 01/07/2011 - 31/12/2015 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Perception and Action 01/01/2011 - 31/12/2012
| Abstract | The aim of this research project is to argue that the vast majority of what goes on in our mind is very similar to the simple mental processes of animals. Our complex, sophisticated, rational and linguistic abilities could be described as the icing on the cake. The right methodology for philosophy of mind is to understand those simple mental capacities that we share with animals first and then explain those uniquely human, highly intellectual mental capacities that make the human mind so remarkable.
My claim is that the human mind can be better understood if we consider what I call ''action-guiding perceptual representations'' to be the basic units of our mental capacities. The human mind, like the mind of non-human animals, has been selected for allowing us to perform actions successfully. And the vast majority of our actions, like the actions of non-human animals, could not be performed without perceptual guidance. The mental state that mediates between perception and action is the basic building block of the human mind. I call mental states of this kind action-guiding perceptual representations.
Action-guiding perceptual representations are the immediate mental antecedents of action. And they are also genuine perceptual states. They guide, and often monitor, our ongoing bodily activities and they are also bona fide perceptual states: they provide a direct mediation between perception and action.
If we accept that the basic building blocks of the mind are action-guiding perceptual representations, then most classic questions in philosophy of perception and of action will look very different. The goal of this research project is to trace the various consequences of this way of thinking about the mind in a number of branches of philosophy as well as in other disciplines. | | Duration | 01/01/2011 - 31/12/2012 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Enactivism and extended consciousness. 01/10/2010 - 30/09/2011
| Abstract | My project will examine the link between Enactivism and the idea that consciousness is an extended environmental process. Enactivism is a distinctive contemporary philosophical approach in which it is held that what we experience when perceiving and how we experience when perceiving is determined by what we do. By forging determinative links between action and the quality of experience Enactivism opposes itself to the widely accepted position according to which phenomenal character is ascribed to perceptual states, independent of how those states are embedded in action. Moreover, as action takes place in an environment, Enactivism leads to extended conscious mind (ECM). ECM is the thesis that consciousness extends into the environment. Consciousness then is not a property of brain states or processes, independent of their relation to bodies and environments. Consciousness is an activity of the situated organism. Such a view of consciousness suggests fresh approaches to traditional problems in philosophy of mind. My project will attempt to assess how well Enactivism supports extended conscious mind
(ECM). | | Duration | 01/10/2010 - 30/09/2011 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Emphasis on the similarities between our mind and animal minds. Against over-intellectualizing the mind. 01/09/2010 - 31/08/2015
| Abstract | The project in philosophy of mind, psychology and cognitive science focuses on mental states that represent objects as edible, climbable, reachable. In other words, mental states that represent objects as affording actions for us. I make four claims about these mental states
First, they play a very important role in our mental life, because each time we are performing an intentional action, we must be in a mental state of this kind.
Second, these mental states are in fact perceptual states. It is an important question in the philosophy of perception what properties we perceive objects as having. Shape, size and color are obvious candidates. I argue that we perceive objects as having a property that is less obviously perceptual: the property of affording an action. Hence, I call these mental states action-oriented perceptual states.
Third, I argue that animals and small children can be in action-oriented perceptual states. Even if they cannot have some more complex mental states, such as beliefs or thoughts, they must have action-oriented perceptual states. Thus, these mental states are evolutionarily and developmentally basic.
Finally, I also claim that these mental states are explanatorily basic, in the sense that the way they represent the world can be explained in a relatively simple manner, one that does not apply in the case of more complex mental states. There is no monolithic explanation for how the mind works: different explanatory schemes apply in the case of different mental states.
The underlying motivation for focusing on these action-oriented perceptual states is to emphasize the similarities between our mind and animal minds. A big chunk of what goes on in our mind is very similar to the simple mental processes of animals. Our complex linguistic and reasoning abilities could be described as the icing on the cake. | | Duration | 01/09/2010 - 31/08/2015 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Visual imagery as perceptual activity. 01/07/2009 - 31/12/2013
| Abstract | In this project, a theory of imagery will be defended which conceives it as a form of perceptual activity. Grounded on the so-called ''enactive'' approach to perception, which conceives of perception as an active exploration of the environment, the idea will be developed that imagery is a process of ''re-enactment'', with which no internal images or representations are being generated in the head. | | Duration | 01/07/2009 - 31/12/2013 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- The Philosophy of Gesture: an investigation of bodily expression inspired by Mead, Vygotsky and Merleau-Ponty. 01/02/2009 - 31/12/2010
| Abstract | The project will result in a publication co-authored by David McNeill (University of Chicago) and Liesbet Quaeghebeur about some theoretical aspects of multimodal language use, i.e. the human capacity for expression viewed as an embodied process rather than as a purely linguistic one. | | Duration | 01/02/2009 - 31/12/2010 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Senses as tools. A philosophy of the sensory modalities. 01/01/2009 - 31/12/2012
| Abstract | Perception has an objective and a subjective aspect. We perceive events and objects, but at the same time these appear to us in a certain manner. An important role in the determination of ''how objects appear to us'' is played by the sensory modalities. Philosophers from Aristotle to Paul Grice have considered the question what precisely distinguishes the senses: What makes hearing into hearing, and seeing into seeing? But also the question of what connects the sensory modalities has strongly attracted the philosophical attention. This is what is at issue in the famous Molyneux Question: What would happen if a blind person, capable of tactile recognition of a sphere or a cube, suddenly gained the capacity of sight? Would he be able to distinguish by looking the sphere from the cube? In the proposed project the two questions regarding what distinguishes and connects the senses will be reconsidered from the combined perspective of the sensorimotor contingency theory for perception and perceptual awareness and of the ideas of Andy Clark about the ''Extended Mind'' and his hypothesis that humans are Natural-Born Cyborgs: Creatures which integrate external tools into their behaviour in such a way that these become literally part of themselves. On the basis of the conception of the senses constructed from this perspective, an account will be given of what distinguishes and connects the senses, and it will be investigated how this conception allows for relieving the tension between how objects appear to us, and how they are. The proposed theory of the senses has important implications regarding the debate between internalists and externalists about whether the mind is ''in the head'', or extends into the environment. | | Duration | 01/01/2009 - 31/12/2012 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Radical enactivism. 01/01/2009 - 31/12/2011
| Abstract | The goal of this project is to finish the manuscript for a book, under contract with MIT Press, Titled ''''Enactivism Explicated. Consciousness Clarified'', written by Dan Hutto (University of Hertfordshire) and Erik Myin. In the book a particular, radically noncognitivist, enactive approach to awareness will be elaborated and defended. | | Duration | 01/01/2009 - 31/12/2011 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Consciousness clarified: book project of Erik Myin and Dan Hutto. 01/01/2007 - 31/12/2008
| Abstract | The project is submitted in order to obtain support for the joint writing of a book titled ''Consciousness Clarified'', by the promotor and Dan Hutto. In the book a novel position with respect to the relation between the mental and the physical will be elaborated. It will be shown that the position can be fruitfully applied to both philosophy and the sciences, as they wrestle to get a grip on the relation between experience and objective scientific data. | | Duration | 01/01/2007 - 31/12/2008 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- The body-subject as transcendental condition for language use. Merleau-Ponty and the embodiment debate in linguistic pragmatics. 01/10/2006 - 30/09/2010
| Abstract | Because of the recent introduction of ''embodiment'' in linguistic pragmatics, the obvious comparison with Merleau-Ponty''s philosophy of embodied language should be made. This way, two scientific domains which both deal with language use, but which in practice know little about each other''s work, can come to a fertile mutual influence. | | Duration | 01/10/2006 - 30/09/2010 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Philosophical implications of the sensorimotor approach to perception: color, space and sensory substitution. 01/10/2006 - 31/12/2008
| Abstract | This project is aimed at the exploration of the philosophical implications of the sensorimotor contingency theory about percetion and perceptual awareness. Three domains that will be focused on are: colour, space and sensory substitution. | | Duration | 01/10/2006 - 31/12/2008 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Reconsidering Visual Experience and Pictorial Representation: An Enactive Approach. 01/01/2006 - 31/12/2009
| Abstract | The proposed project will study the topic of pictorial representation as a part of the larger inquiry into the nature of visual consciousness. The main aim is to reconsider pictorial representation in the light of recent advances in our understanding of visual perception. Drawing upon the available theories, it will be examined what an adequate theory of depiction should look like. It will be argued that none of the current proposals succeed in adequately explaining depiction, and that this is mainly due to some major misunderstandings about the nature and phenomenology of visual perception quite generally. Some deeply entrenched but erroneous conceptions of both pictures and visual perception are intimately related, so it will be argued. Unravelling this relationship might be illuminating for a better understanding of the nature of pictorial representation as well as the phenomenology of perception. An alternative model of pictorial representation will be proposed, inspired by an enactive approach to visual experience. | | Duration | 01/01/2006 - 31/12/2009 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Philosophical implications of sensory substitution. 01/01/2006 - 31/12/2006
| Abstract | The goal is to further develop, in breath and depth, the sensorimotor approach to perception and consciousness. Specifically the phenomenon of sensory substitution will be investigated. Sensory substitution refers to the substitution of one sensory modality for another, for example hearing for seeing. Results obtained from studying sensory substitution have important philosophical implications, among others concerning the role of the ''body-scheme''. | | Duration | 01/01/2006 - 31/12/2006 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- The hard problem of consciousness: an epistemologic approach. An interdisciplinary inquiry into the conceptual limitations of reasoning about consciousness. 01/10/2005 - 30/09/2007
| Abstract | The core of the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers) is the question how the essentially physical processes in our nervous system can give rise to the essentially non-physical, qualitative experiences (qualia) that constitute our phenomenal consciousness. Both philosophers and scientists have tried to answer this question. | | Duration | 01/10/2005 - 30/09/2007 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- An interactive approach to color and space: a further exploration of the philosophical potential of the sensorimotor contingency theory. 01/05/2005 - 31/12/2006
| Abstract | The aim is to further explore the philosophical consequences of the so called ''sensorimotor contingency theory'' of perception and perceptual experience. Besides further elaborating it as a theory of consciousness, the goal is to draw further philosophical conclusions from recent developments within the theory on color and space. This should lead to an externalist account of color and space, which goes substantially beyond existing philosophical theories which share the recognition of the active and external nature of perception and cognition. | | Duration | 01/05/2005 - 31/12/2006 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Congres : "8th Annual Congress of the Association for the Scientific Study fo Consciousness" 01/04/2004 - 31/12/2004
| Abstract | No abstract found | | Duration | 01/04/2004 - 31/12/2004 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- The hard problem of consciousness: an epistemologic approach - An inquiry into the conceptual limitations of interdisciplinary reasoning about consciousness. 01/10/2003 - 30/09/2005
| Abstract | The core of the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers) is the question how the essentially physical processes in our nervous system can give rise to the essentially non-physical, qualitative experiences (qualia) that constitute our phenomenal consciousness. Both philosophers and scientists have tried to answer this question. | | Duration | 01/10/2003 - 30/09/2005 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
- Theories of phenomenal consciousness:a search for an adequate non-reductionistic framework. 01/10/2003 - 31/12/2005
| Abstract | The main objective of the project is to give a systematic overview of contemporary naturalistic theories of phenomenal consciousness (qualia). The focus is on the following problem: all contemporary reductionist theories of phenomenal consciousness are based on the assumption that cognition can be studied without the mention of consciousness. Consciousness is then characterized in causal-functional terms, independent of a phenomenal characterization. Our diagnosis is that reductionism is an untenable position, because it renders phenomenal consciousness into an epiphenomenon: there emerges an unsolvable mind-bodyproblem then, because of the unbridgeable explanatory gap between phenomenal consciousness and the causal/functional notions that are associated with consciousness. The bridging of the gap requires a reframing of the problem. | | Duration | 01/10/2003 - 31/12/2005 | | Researcher(s) | | | Research Team(s) | |
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Expertise
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Show the team expertise
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