Philosophy of cognitive neuroscience

Navigational consciousness theory explores how purposeful movement and dual brain processing streams enable creatures, including humans, to navigate both physical and mental spaces. This framework explains sensory integration, cognitive diversity, and the evolution of creative and autistic minds, while also drawing parallels with other species like jumping spiders.

Are the available conceptual foundations, the statistical techniques, and the empirical data of cognitive neuroscience sufficiently robust to serve as foundations for an overarching neuroreductionist explanation of the mind-brain relationship? There are two main approaches to answering this question that dominate cognitive neuroscience these days. The first is based on accumulated macroneural measurements such as those produced by brain imaging equipment. The alternative is the approach epitomized by the Hebb Conjecture (1949) that asserts that it is most likely that cognitive processes of all kinds are instantiated in the concurrent microneural state of a huge assembly of individual neurons whose coordinated action is the neural equivalent of mental activity. Although there is currently insufficient evidence at the microneural level to robustly support the Hebb conjecture, it is widely accepted that Hebb's approach is probably correct-cognition is a result of the activity of independent, but interacting, neurons that maintain their individual identity. The problem is that both of these approaches are deeply flawed for methodological, conceptual, and empirical reasons. One reason is that simple models composed of a few neurons may simulate behavior but actually be based on completely different neuronal interactions. Therefore, the current best answer to the question asked in the title of this contribution is-probably not.

In the last three decades, cognitive neuroscience has undergone a revolution in substance and available technology. With the invention of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) by Ogawa, Lee, Kay, and Tank (1990), brain images using Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) measures have largely replaced traditional methods involving surgery, trauma, stimulation, and electrophysiological recording and a number of methodological breakthroughs. The earliest application of the fMRI technique to cognitive neuroscience is generally considered to have been published by Belliveau et al (1991) during which attempts were made to map out the visual cortex. Currently, the number of papers that deal specifically with comparisons of cognitive processes and brain images is difficult to determine. Nevertheless, it is obvious that experiments comparing fMRI responses and cognitive processes have gone from virtually nothing in the early 1990's to tens of thousands in the 2000's (e.g., Bandet...

During the last decades of the twentieth century scholars have proposed "neurotheology" as a new subdiscipline of the neurosciences. This article presents a review and discussion of different interpretations placed on neurotheology, and attempts to estimate the extent to which neuroscience is a challenge and/or an opportunity for theology and (for the study of) religion. On the neuroscientific side, neurotheology can be split into a reductionist and a religionist neuroscience of religion. On the theological side, it can be split into apologetic and integrative approaches. The appraisal of these different interpretations and of the relevance of neuroscience for the study of religion is conducted from three points of view: philosophy and theology, cognitive science, psychology of religion and sciences of religions.

Representational mechanisms are responsible for processing information to modify readiness for action. While structural similarity has been proposed as foundational to neural representation, how these mechanisms systematically harness correspondence-based information remains undertheorized. This paper introduces a Correspondence Network Framework that elucidates how representational systems exploit multiple channels of structural similarity concurrently. We demonstrate that structural similarity engenders networks of infocorrespondences between informational structures, allowing representational mechanisms to evaluate information across channels, detect inconsistencies, and establish satisfaction conditions for representational content. Our framework extends beyond singlechannel accounts by explaining how multiple classification systems can operate simultaneously over the same neural vehicles, enabling content-sensitive processing. To illustrate the framework's utility, we analyze representational similarity analysis (RSA) in cognitive neuroscience as detecting correspondence networks. This analysis reveals why taxonomic organization consistently emerges in neural representational spaces and provides principled responses to anti-representationalist critiques. While RSA alone cannot fully characterize representational mechanisms, the Correspondence Network Framework delineates its interpretive constraints and provides valuable heuristics for further empirical inquiry.

Proponents of technical monism argue that artistic functions are technical functions, and that therefore artworks and technical artifacts may be unified under the same theoretical framework. We hold that this view fails because it does not account for the phenomenon of technical malfunction: if artistic functions were technical functions, then artistic malfunctions would be technical malfunctions too. We argue that artistic malfunctions are not technical malfunctions because they cannot meet all the following four criteria: (1) malfunctioning attribution to a technical artifact entails negative evaluation and a reason to avoid use; (2) technical malfunction is caused by a failure of the artifact itself rather than failing circumstances; (3) a malfunctioning technical artifact remains a member of its artifactual kind; (4) malfunctioning technical artifacts are sometimes repaired. Since artistic malfunction cannot meet all these conditions, we claim that artworks and technical artifacts do not share the same type of function and, as such, unification theories based on technical function are untenable. We conclude by suggesting that our account raises broader challenges not only for technical-function-based unification theories, but also for other theories that seek to unify artworks and technical artifacts through a shared notion of function, as well as for accounts of artifact function more broadly.

Philosophical anthropology is as old as philosophy: Anaxagoras claimed that man is the most intelligent animal because he has hands, and Aristotle replied that man has hands because he is intelligent (de Partibus Animalium: 687a7-23). It has seen some glorious days; recall the works of Hume, Reid, or Kant in the eighteenth century, and the German school of Cassirer, Scheler, Plessner, Rothacker, Lipps, and Gehlen in the twentieth century. But the sub-discipline is not very active in Anglophone philosophy today, with some exceptions like Pinker's (2002), although Pinker's argument that the latest discoveries about the human brain give us fundamental insights about our nature might be thought to involve a philosophically problematic form of scientistic reductionism. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we find Hacker's recent effort to revive a genuine philosophical anthropology, which, unlike Pinker's, does not make empirical claims about what all human beings happen to have in common, but conceptual ones, about the most general categories we employ to describe, and indeed make possible, the huge variety of phenomena that we call human mind and action. Projected as a trilogy on human nature, the first volume, Human Nature: The Categorial Framework (2007), deals with the most general concepts of substance, causation, power, and agency, employed in the description of the spatiotemporal world, teleological concepts employed with respect to the animate realm, and the more specific anthropological concepts of rationality, mind, body, and person. The second volume, The Intellectual Powers: A Study of Human Nature (2013), investigates concepts grounding human cognition and cogitation, i.e., consciousness, intentionality, language, knowledge and belief, sensation, perception and memory, and thinking and imagination. The first volume contains a propaedeutic chapter sketching the overall project and its method, while the second volume ends with a methodological appendix aimed at refuting [etc.]

Some philosophers have argued that we do not hear sounds as located in the environment. Others have objected that this straightforwardly contradicts the phenomenology of auditory experience. And from this they draw metaphysical conclusions about the nature of soundsthat they are events or properties of vibrating surfaces rather than waves or sensations. I argue that there is a minimal, but recognizable, notion of audition to which this phenomenal objection does not apply. While this notion doesn't correspond to our ordinary notion of auditory experience, it does-in conjunction with our lack of an uncontroversial individuation of the senses and recent interest in distinctively multisensory features of perceptual experiences-raise the possibility of more expansive notions of audition, including some that do plausibly count as corresponding to our everyday notion of audition, that lack the spatial phenomenology cited in the objection. Until this possibility is ruled out, the phenomenal objection and metaphysical conclusions drawn from it remain inconclusive. argued that we do not enjoy spatial audition-that is, we do not hear sounds as located in the environment, even in the bare sense of merely off in a given direction or at some particular distance (Machlachlan [1989]; ; Nudds [2001], [2009]; O'Shaughnessey [2000], [2009]; and, in a qualified form discussed below, ). Call this view 'auditory aspatialism'. In spite of my evening encounters with the Whistler, I hereby submit this as my application for (qualified) membership in the aspatialist club. In the first half of this paper I provide the philosophical background and motivation for my approach to auditory aspatialism. In the second half, I provide empirically-based arguments in its favour. These arguments consider the receptivity of the primary auditory receptor-the basilar membrane-to features of a sound wave impinging upon it and the role of these features in determining spatial features of the sound or its source. I then show how these results undermine metaphysical conclusions about the nature of sounds that the phenomenal objection has been thought to support. Auditory aspatialism confronts an immediate and obvious worry, already evident in my description of the Whistler: We do experience sounds as at a distance in some particular direction. Aspatialism straightforwardly contradicts this phenomenological evidence. Auditory spatialists have argued, from this fact and the assumption that our perceptual experiences don't systematically mislead us, that sounds are events or properties of their sources , [2009]; O'Callaghan [2007], [2010]). Recent aspatialists have responded to the objection by denying that we ever experience sounds as located and offering an error theory that explains away the recalcitrant phenomenology-generally in support of the view that sounds are (instantiated by) pressure waves ; O'Shaughnessy [2000], [2009]). If the wave view is correct, then our auditory experience cannot present sounds as located in some particular direction at a particular distance without systematically misleading us because the sound wave isn't located at a distance when heard. It is located right where the perceiver is. Hence the need for an error theory. 1 Aspatialists can also respond to the objection by restricting their aspatialism to a special notion of audition to which the phenomenal objection does not apply. This is the course taken by ) in his original formulation of auditory aspatialism. Strawson's aspatialism grew out of his project of descriptive metaphysics-an exploration of the relations between the concepts of space and objectivity in our conceptual system-rather than a concern with the metaphysics of sound Aspatialism is about the experience of sounds, not the sounds themselves. Proponents of the wave view don't deny 1 that sounds (waves, according to them) are located. They deny that we experience them as located-but see , Chapter 14) for a defence of a distal wave view). Also note, both spatialists and aspatialists agree that perception does not systematically mislead us -at least not so dramatically as to mis-locate its objects to the degree necessary were one to embrace the wave view and accept that sounds are experienced as reported in the phenomenal objection. ( §2.1). I offer a different motivation for taking the restricted aspatialist approach; namely, that, when properly developed, restricted auditory aspatialism opens a new line of resistance against the phenomenal objection to unrestricted aspatialism-one that denies that the localization phenomenology cited in the objection is due to audition ( §2.2). The rough idea is this: If restricted auditory aspatialism is true, then there is some notion of audition to which the phenomenal objection does not apply, even if it isn't the intended target of the objection. This raises the possibility that there are characterizations of the ordinary (unrestricted) auditory experience to which the objection does not apply. This possibility becomes especially salient given the lack of any generally agreed upon individuation of the senses-or even that there is just one acceptable individuation of the senses-and recent interest in the possibility of features of perceptual experiences that aren't properly associated with any of the five standard senses but are constitutively multisensory. Until the proponent of the phenomenal objection rules out this 2 possibility, the phenomenal objection to unrestricted aspatialism remains inconclusive. (Problems for meeting these burdens will also be discussed in §2.2.) Furthermore, if the localization phenomenology isn't due to audition, and sounds are the objects of audition, then the metaphysical conclusions drawn from the phenomenal objection don't follow. Of course, this all hangs on the truth of restricted auditory aspatialism. To assess restricted aspatialism, we need to clearly characterize the relevant restricted notion of audition. And we need a principled way of assigning features of a perceptual experience to audition. This is done in terms of components of perceptual mechanisms and the features of the stimulus to which they are sensitive ( §2.3). These same tools can, I suggest, be extended in future work assessing the viability of this new line of resistance. I present the argument for the restricted form of auditory aspatialism in §3. I then return to the strategy for defending unrestricted aspatialism and how it undermines the metaphysical conclusions drawn from the phenomenal objection ( §4). This should make the restricted aspatialist approach of interest to those concerned with the debate over the ontology of sounds, as well as more general questions concerning audition and spatial perception, without entangling us in Strawson's descriptive metaphysics. The trick, for the proponent of the restricted aspatialist approach, is to find the right notion of auditory experience-one that escapes the phenomenal objection while still being recognizably auditory. Strawson's restricted aspatialism provides a useful framework here. It is the historical On individuation of the senses, see (Coady

Las recientes teorías de la corporización consideran que la cognición está constituida por cuerpo, acción y contexto. La moralidad es una forma de cognición que determina los comportamientos sociales, pero las explicaciones cognitivas clásicas han resultados limitadas. En este trabajo se buscó analizar las características y los principales resultados de los artículos que han abordado la moralidad desde aproximaciones de la cognición corporizada. Se realizó una revisión sistemática exploratoria, a través del método PRISMA, desde la cual se seleccionaron 51 artículos. Se encontró un incremento en las publicaciones sobre la moralidad corporizada durante la última década, en las que el mayor interés ha sido estudiar la relación entre las metáforas sensoriomotoras sobre el asco, la limpieza, la apertura y el peso corporal, y el comportamiento moral. En conclusión, esta área de investigación se encuentra en emergencia, en la que aún existen inconsistencias teóricas y metodológicas, y no está

■ There is an abundance of computational models in cognitive neuroscience. A framework for what is desirable in a model, what justifies the introduction of a new one, or what makes one better than another is lacking, however. In this article, we examine key qualities ("virtues") that are desirable in computational models, and how these are interrelated. To keep the scope of the article manageable, we focus on the field of cognitive control, where we identified six "model virtues": empirical accuracy, empirical scope, functional analysis, causal detail, biological plausibility, and psychological plausibility. We first illustrate their use in published work on Stroop modeling and then discuss what expert modelers in the field of cognitive control said about them in a series of qualitative interviews. We found that virtues are interrelated and that their value depends on the modeler's goals, in ways that are not typically acknowledged in the literature. We recommend that researchers make the reasons for their modeling choices more explicit in published work. Our work is meant as a first step. Although our focus here is on cognitive control, we hope that our findings will spark discussion of virtues in other fields as well.

Neste artigo são integrados os conhecimentos neurofisiológicos com um modelo de processos perceptuais e de memória, baseado no misticismo da linguagem Sufi e judaica, e com a análise do pensamento fundado em textos do Budista Abhidhamma. Os estados místicos promovidos nestas tradições parecem envolver consciência, sugerindo-se que são estes estados de pré-consciência que produzem a consciência de algo mais que William James, Rudolph Otto e outros classicamente associaram no sentido do espiritual, em particular a asserção principal, dos textos místicos Judeus de que o impulso de baixo activa o de cima é comparável com a neurociência da consciência. Neste sentido, o impulso de baixo, compreende o nível mais baixo de análise do input sensorial, e o de cima -em paralelo com o papel dos percursos mencionados -gera o significado do input e a consciência.

I introduce the practice of somaterapia (somatherapy), an eclectic synthesis of Gestalt therapy, capoeira Angola, anti-psychiatry, collective trust exercises, radical pedagogy, and anarchism developed as an anti-fascist practice aimed at healing the violence of oppressive forms of social organisation as they manifest in bodies. Somaterapia takes an immanent and materialist view on what constitutes a body, eschewing mind-body dualisms and transcendent forms of organisation in lieu of an affective somatic reality. The fascisms somaterapia thus seeks to eliminate are not just the macrofascisms of the political milieu, but also the micro-fascisms that stem from and reciprocally enrich these, forming blockages of libidinal energy or tesaõ that affect everything from our thoughts and our posture to how we treat ourselves and how we treat each other. In this sense somaterapia has much in common with the enactivist view of cognition. Like somaterapia, enactivism sees brains, bodies and environments as complex, reciprocally presupposing imbrications of nested autonomous systems sustaining themselves through the maintenance and exploration of ongoing adaptive tensions between self-production and self-distinction. Viewing somaterapia through the lens of enactivism thus allows us to potentially enrich the anti-fascist potential of this revolutionary practice.

Recent statistical data seem to indicate that mirror neurons have not maintained their early illustrious image in the scientific community. We start our discussion by looking back at the conceptual history of "mirror neuron," paying special attention to the shifting meanings of highly related words in the current scientific landscape. These semantic changes demonstrate that, even if not entirely sufficient on their own, the study of mirror neurons remains central to the scientific revolution unfolding within cognitive sciences, as revealed through the analysis in this paper. Thus, in the later part of this paper, we find that the meanings of three fundamental words related to mirror neurons, "mirror," "action," and "understanding," have begun to shift.

Recovering brain activity from M/EEG measurements is an ill-posed problem and prior constraints need to be introduced in order to obtain unique solution. The majority of the methods use spatial and/or temporal constraints, without taking account of long-range connectivity. In this work, we propose a new connectivity-informed spatio-temporal approach to constrain the inverse problem using supplementary information coming from difusion MRI. We present results based on simulated brain activity obtained with realistic subject anatomy from Human Connectome Project dataset.

Recovering brain activity from M/EEG measurements is an ill-posed problem and prior constraints need to be introduced in order to obtain unique solution. The majority of the methods use spatial and/or temporal constraints, without taking account of long-range connectivity. In this work, we propose a new connectivity-informed spatio-temporal approach to constrain the inverse problem using supplementary information coming from difusion MRI. We present results based on simulated brain activity obtained with realistic subject anatomy from Human Connectome Project dataset.

Marcus's view of belief is applied to the debate that centers on the question, "Are delusions beliefs?" Two consequences of this are that i) the question, "Are delusions beliefs?" needs rephrasing and ii) the answer is, "No, some delusional patients do not believe what they prima facie seem to believe".

I would like to express my gratitude, first and foremost, to my two supervisors, Matt Nudds and Matthew Chrisman. Without their guidance and persistent help this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Julian Kiverstein, who stood in as my secondary supervisor (during the academic year 2010-2011) when Matthew Chrisman was on research leave. I would like to thank Max Coltheart and Robyn Langdon for hosting me during a very productive month in April 2012, at the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, in Sydney. In addition, I would like to thank Dominic Murphy at the University of Sydney, for inviting me as a visiting speaker, and for several fruitful discussions during my month in Australia. Thanks to Elisabeth Pacherie and Jérôme Dokic who hosted me at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris, in November 2010 and March 2011, and who have since been generous with their time and comments. Financial support was provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the first three years, and the Jacobsen Trust, for the fourth. Funding for my trips to Australia and Paris were provided by the George Scott Travel Scholarship and the Oxford Philosophical Fellowship Fund, respectively. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to take these wonderfully productive visits. Finally, I would like to acknowledge all those who have significantly helped me or influenced my thinking over the past four or five years. In alphabetical order; Tim Bayne,

The predictive processing theory refers to a family of theories that take the brain and body of an organism to implement a hierarchically organized predictive model of its environment that works in the service of prediction-error minimization. Several philosophers have wondered how belief-like states of prediction account for the conative role desire plays in motivating a person to act. A compelling response to this challenge has begun to take shape that starts from the idea that certain predictions are prioritized in the predictive processing hierarchy. We use the term “first priors” to refer to such predictions. We will argue that agents use first priors to engage in affective sense-making. What has been missing in the literature that seeks to understand desire in terms of predictive processing is a recognition of the role of affective sense-making in motivating action. We go on to describe how affective sensemaking can play a role in the context-sensitive shifting assignments of precision to predictions. Precision expectations refer to estimates of the reliability of predictions of the sensory states that are the consequences of acting. Given the role of affect in modulating precision-estimation, we argue that agents will tend to experience their environment through the lens of their desires as a field of inviting affordances. We will show how PP provides a neurocomputational framework that can bridge
between first-person phenomenological descriptions of what it is to be a desiring creature, and a third-person, ecological-enactive analysis of desire.

There exist potential threats to the relevance of universities in the future. Space and methods for discussing and responding to these threats are needed. We recommend engaging the Una Europa community in creative methods of thought to tackle the threats.

There are numerous views about the concept of consciousness, and no consensus exists regarding its meaning. However, the latest neuroscientific developments have eliminated the misleading obstacles related to consciousness. Over the last few decades, neuroscientific efforts in determining the function of the brain and merging these findings with philosophical theories have brought a more comprehensive perception of the notion of consciousness. In addition to metaphysical or ontological views of consciousness, e.g. higher-order theories, reflexive theories, and representationalist theories, there are some brain-directed topics in this matter, which include but are not limited to neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), brain loop connectivity, and lateralization. This narrative review sheds light on cultural and historical aspects of consciousness in the old and middle ages and introduces some prominent philosophical discussions about mind and body. Also, it illustrates the correlation of brain function with states of consciousness with a focus on the roles of function and connectivity.

We defend a new, neurocognitive version of the view that knowing that is a form of knowing how and its manifestation. Specifically, we argue that knowing that P is knowing how to represent the fact that P, ground such a representation in the fact that P, use such a representation to guide action with respect to P when needed, store traces of such representations, and exercising the relevant know-how. More precisely, agents acquire Thus, both implicit and explicit knowing that P are forms of knowing how to represent that P, ground such a representation in P, use such a representation to guide action with respect to P when needed, store traces of such representations, and exercising the relevant know-how.

There are two leading theories about the ontology of dreams. One holds that dreams involve hallucinations and beliefs. The other holds that dreaming involves sensory and propositional imagining. I highlight two features of dreams which are more eas- ily explained by the imagination theory. One is that certain things seem to be true in our dreams, even though they are not represented sensorily; this is easily explained if dreams involve propositional imagining. The other is that dream narratives can be temporally segmented, involving events which take place across long spans of time; this makes sense if dreams involve sensory imagining, for we often sensorily imagine narratives during wakefulness in the same way. The two considerations are uni ed by the fact that both highlight forms of content determination characteristic of imagining.

"The Modern Implementation of Synchronous Microcolumn Triggering" introduces a revolutionary approach to designing information processing systems inspired by biological mechanisms observed in the brain's cortex. At the core of this concept is the synchronous triggering of microcolumns, based on dynamic interactions between the brain cortex and subcortical structures. In this work, the author explores how the biological foundations of microcolumn operation can be translated into the field of computer science, aiming to create an efficient and flexible information processing system. The concept involves representing microcolumn subnetworks as dynamic processing units capable of adaptation and learning. Highlighting the modernity of the implementation, the paper analyzes how synchronous microcolumn triggering can revolutionize practical aspects of information processing, including speed, energy efficiency, and the ability to adapt to changing conditions. The author also presents perspectives for further development and challenges that may accompany the implementation of this innovative concept. As a result, "The Modern Implementation of Synchronous Microcolumn Triggering" constitutes a significant contribution to the field of artificial intelligence, bridging the gap between brain biology and advanced computer solutions. This work opens doors to new possibilities in designing information processing systems, inspired by the remarkable effectiveness of biological neural mechanisms.

The article "Innovative Concept of Thalamocortical Microcolumn Subnetwork." presents an innovative perspective on the functioning of the brain, suggesting the existence of a local processing unit called the "Thalamocortical Microcolumn Subnetwork". This structure, encompassing connections between a neuron in the intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus and microcolumns in the brain cortex, plays a crucial role in parallel processing and integration of sensory information. The article analyzes the process of quantizing sensory signals and explains the role of phase synchronization in organizing sensory processing. The "Thalamocortical Microcolumn Subnetwork" concept opens new perspectives in understanding brain function and may serve as inspiration for research in the development of computer technologies, providing a new model for explaining neural computations that could be applied in designing next-generation neural networks.

U radu nastojimo da pokažemo kako se ono, što mi danas nazivamo materijalizam, pojavljuje upravo kod Platona i na koji način je njegova ontološko-prirodnjačka postavka presudno uticala na konstituisanje ovog filozofskog koncepta, kao onog drugog u odnosu na idealizam. U nameri da ovo sprovedemo, osim izvornog i interpretativnog analiziranja Platonove filozofije, koristili smo i analogije sa najsavremenijim naučnim otkrićima iz oblasti neuronauke i savremene fizike. U okviru Platonovih dijaloga Sofist i Timaj pronašli smo ključna mesta na kojima Platon, u prvom dijalogu negativnim putem, a u drugom pozitivnim, dolazi do određenja onoga što smo mi postavili kao Platonov „koncept materije“. Zaključili smo da su „metodo(onto)loške drugosti“ prevashodno u izvođenju „koncepta materije“ u Timaju presudno uticale na mogućnost razdvajanja idealizma i materijalizma i postavili pitanje iz perspektive sadašnjosti, da li nam je povrh svega ontološko-prirodnjačkog u Platonovoj filozofiji, trenutno fundamentalan njen etičko-antropološki smisao?

Abstract: A Kuhnian reformulation of the recent debate in psychiatric nosography suggested that the current psychiatric classification system (the DSM) is in crisis and that a sort of paradigm shift is awaited (Aragona, 2009). Among possible revolutionary alternatives, the ...

Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure Résumé (français) Une question controversée est de savoir si, grâce en particulier aux techniques d'imagerie cérébrale fonctionnelle, une nouvelle science du cerveau occupe désormais, sous le nom de « neurosciences cognitives », le coeur des sciences cognitives. Quels sont les fondements de cette nouvelle spécialité? Comment s'articuleront, demain, les neurosciences cognitives et la psychologie ? On replacera les techniques d'imagerie dans le contexte théorique des neurosciences fondamentales, et on montrera que les neurosciences cognitives en sont tributaires, comme elles le sont de l'ensemble des sciences cognitives, au sein desquelles elles constituent aujourd'hui un programme de recherche parmi d'autres. S'il venait à constituer, dans un avenir lointain, une science achevée des fonctionnalités du cerveau, il ne remplacerait sans doute pas la psychologie cognitive, appuyée sur les autres sciences de l'esprit, mais entrerait avec elle dans un rapport de complémentarité en un sens fort, très éloigné de toute forme de réduction.

Sažetak: Za razliku od osnivača fenomenologije Edmunda Huserla prema kojem Platonovo mišljenje treba priznati kao paradigmu celokupne racionalnosti i kao obrazac za istinsku socijalnu etiku, Levinas u Platonovoj ontologiji prepoznaje suspenziju istinske ljudskosti. Levinasova interpretacija antičkog ontologa kulminira u uvidu da Huserl, kao i veliki deo Platonovih interpretatora nakon Hegela previđa pagansko naličje konstituisanja ontologije. Ukoliko prihvatimo da je pojam bivstvovanja duboko platonizovan, kao što je tvrdio Levinasov učitelj u fi lozofi ji Rozencvajg, da li to onda znači da istinska ontologija može biti moguća tek nakon raskida sa paganskim nasleđem? Težište Levinasove kritike sastoji se u ukazivanju da racionalnost ontologije izvorno počiva u izlasku iz sebe radi učestvovanja u identitetu sa večnim formama, čime se ne stabilizuje samo ono mišljeno, nego i ono misleće. Iz te perspektive, Platon se ispostavlja kao mislilac čija ontologija nije ništa drugo, nego konstitucija cikličnog mišljenja. Drugi deo članka razmatra granice Levinasove kritike imajući u vidu njegovu ideju o mogućnostima pomirenja »Atine« i »Jerusalima«.

A common kind of explanation in cognitive science might be called function-theoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function contributes to the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called “new mechanist” approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms—as many function-theoretic models do—fails to be explanatory. I argue that a function-theoretic characterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware.

Recent developments from 4E approaches to cognition argue for variously distributed forms of life and cognition. But while these accounts assert the existence and predominance of distributed forms of organization, what is less clear is: what role does distributed organization play for life and cognition? This thesis seeks to explore, explain, and apply the active role that spatiotemporally distributed forms of organization play in facilitating the cognitive capacities of living systems. It will employ a broadly interdisciplinary synthetic philosophy in dialogue with 4E approaches to cognition. The thesis will thus address the material and organizational substrates of cognition while raising critical issues related to individualistic assumptions within cognitive science and psychiatry. The overall questions that this thesis seeks to address are: What are the organizational principles through which cognitive systems individuate themselves from their environment, and how do their cognitive capacities emerge? This thesis offers an answer to these questions by focusing on and exploring the active role of spatiotemporally distributed organization. The goal is thus to support and expand the theoretical and empirical resources for a cognitive science based within the concrete material and relational organization of living systems.

The scientific study of consciousness has been boosted in the last two decades, especially from philosophical and neuroscientific realms. Before that, the topic was neglected, particularly in psychiatry in which, either out-of-consciousness experiences were emphasized (as in psychoanalysis) or consciousness was viewed as epiphenomenic to the underlying organic disorders that had to be studied. This situation has hardly improved in modern psychiatry, perhaps due to the persistence of two competing metaphors of consciousness and of psychiatric constructs (such as kraepelinian dementia praecox) from which consciousness disorders were originally excluded. Accordingly, the role of a disordered consciousness in schizophrenia, which nevertheless was contemplated by Continental psychiatry, has hardly been considered by recent psychopathology research. However, there is growing data showing that certain functions that modern science considers to be part of consciousness (sense of agency, self, episodic and autobiographic memory, executive functions, insight, monitoring) could be impaired in certain schizophrenics and that this may account for symptoms such as thought insertion, depersonalisation, auditory hallucinations, self fragmentation, disorders of episodic and working memory, passive experiences and delusions of control. In this paper the conceptual history of consciousness in psychology, neurology and psychiatry is outlined, and the most prominent recent approaches to the study of its role in schizophrenia are reviewed.

The current article explores the meaning of neuroscientific evidence in the legal domain. It takes a social-psychological perspective to discuss how group-based stereotypes affect legal decision-making critically. Examining how any interpretation is anchored and objectified is interesting as evidence is interpreted in the context. Dominantly, with the ubiquity of neuroscience in different domains, the brain is positioned as an authentic source of nurturing authenticity. It is observed that sometimes unquestionable scientific knowledge may surpass the rationality and intuition of judges. In one way, it is a boon; in another, it is shaping the whole framework of our knowledge system, where knowledge from brain studies reifies our understanding of human actions and thinking.

We situate the debate on intentionality within the rise of cognitive neuroscience and argue that cognitive neuroscience can explain intentionality. We discuss the explanatory significance of ascribing intentionality to representations. At first, we focus on views that attempt to render such ascriptions naturalistic by construing them in a deflationary or merely pragmatic way. We then contrast these views with staunchly realist views that attempt to naturalize intentionality by developing theories of content for representations in terms of information and biological function. We echo several other philosophers by arguing that these theories over-generalize unless they are constrained by a theory of the functional role of representational vehicles. This leads to a discussion of the functional roles of representations, and how representations might be realized in the brain. We argue that there's work to be done to identify a distinctively mental kind of representation. We close by sketching a way forward for the project of naturalizing intentionality. This will not be achieved simply by ascribing the content of mental states to generic neural representations, but by identifying specific neural representations that explain the puzzling intentional properties of mental states.

Cognitive neuroscientists explain cognitive capacities in terms of neural computations over neural representations (e.g., Bechtel 2008). By many measures, their explanations are successful. They are so successful that mainstream cognitive psychology and cognitive science are being absorbed within cognitive neuroscience (Boone and Piccinini 2016). If successful scientific explanation is the measure of what's real, then cognition involves neural computation over neural representations. Some philosophers beg to differ. On one hand, some insist that computational and representational explanations-or, at any rate, computational and representational explanations of a non-neural sort-are distinct and autonomous from neuroscientific ones (Fodor 1997; Burge 2010). Knoll (this issue) updates this autonomist view for the era of cognitive neuroscience. He concedes that neuroscientific evidence can inform psychological explanation. Nevertheless, he defends the classic autonomist view that some representations and computations have causal powers that their neural realizers lack. On the other hand, antirealists about computation and representation promote non-computational or non-representational explanations of cognition. According to antirealism, computation and representation are at best helpful glosses and at worst misleading metaphors. Cognition is best explained without positing computation and representation. The impetus for the papers collected here came from a session on Computation and Representation in Cognitive Neuroscience that was held in Ferrara, Italy as part of IACAP 16, Meeting of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy. All the papers in this special issue were submitted in response to a public call for papers. Thanks to Vivian De La Cruz, Alex Morgan, and Eric Thomson for comments on a previous draft. Many thanks to Mariarosaria Taddeo for inviting me to guest edit this special issue and for arranging the blind refereeing of papers when I was a co-author.

Situated approaches to cognition maintain that cognition is embodied, embedded, enactive, and affective (and extended, but that is not relevant here). Situated approaches are often pitched as alternatives to computational and representational approaches, according to which cognition is computation over representations. I argue that, far from being opposites, situatedness and neural representation are more deeply intertwined than anyone suspected. To show this, I introduce a neurocomputational account of cognition that relies on neural representations. I argue not only that this account is compatible with (non-question-begging) situated approaches, but also that it requires embodiment, embeddedness, enaction, and affect at its very core. That is, constructing neural representations and their semantic content, and learning computational processes appropriate for their content, requires a tight dynamic interaction between nervous system, body, and environment. Most importantly, I argue...

According to the Veridicality Thesis, information requires truth. On this view, smoke carries information about there being a fire only if there is a fire, the proposition that the earth has two moons carries information about the earth having two moons only if the earth has two moons, and so on. We reject this Veridicality Thesis. We argue that the main notions of information used in cognitive science and computer science allow A to have information about the obtaining of p even when p is false.

According to the Veridicality Thesis, information requires truth. On this view, smoke carries information about there being a fire only if there is a fire, the proposition that the earth has two moons carries information about the earth having two moons only if the earth has two moons, and so on. We reject this Veridicality Thesis. We argue that the main notions of information used in cognitive science and computer science allow A to have information about the obtaining of p even when p is false.

God on the Brain: Part Two From about the nineteenth century on, mapping brain areas to specific behaviors, or 'localization,' became the predominant frame for the study of the brain and the focus of neuroscientific research as it emerged. Despite the fact that the localization research effort is "based on assumptions […] that cannot be validated either in principle or in practice," it remains one of the main underlying premises to the natural scientific study of religion. It is also the basis for research to find God in the brain. While religion was historically being subjectified and 'placed' in the mind, individual thought and behaviors were being 'located' in the brain.

Since its development, social media has grown as a source of information and has a significant impact on opinion formation. Individuals interact with others and content via social media platforms in a variety of ways, but it remains unclear how decision-making and associated neural processes are impacted by the online sharing of informational content, from factual to fabricated. Here, we use EEG to estimate dynamic reconfigurations of brain networks and probe the neural changes underlying opinion change (or formation) within individuals interacting with a simulated social media platform. Our findings indicate that the individuals who changed their opinions are characterized by less frequent network reconfigurations while those who did not change their opinions tend to have more flexible brain networks with frequent reconfigurations. The nature of these frequent network configurations suggests a fundamentally different thought process between intervals in which individuals are easily...

The goal of the paper is to describe the role and structure of nonfoundational reasoning, i.e. a kind of argumentation that meets the revisability, the feedback, the background stability and the disputability conditions. I begin by observing that any nonfoundational reasoning has two components: the deductive and the hermeneutic. Next, against the background of Gadamer's insightful, although somewhat vague, observations I attempt to uncover aspects of the hermeneutic component. I then proceed to reconstruct nonfoundational argumentation with the help of formal theory of belief revision, defeasible logic, and logical conception of coherence. Finally, 1 The paper is based on my previous work: B.

Human freedom is best understood as self-determination. Free
action consists of deliberation, decision, and action. The free
human person deserves dignity, that is, we each deserve to be
treated as a moral end and not merely as a means to someone
else’s end. Neurocentrist philosophy-a form of eliminative
materialism-based on neuroscience, however, threatens the
extinction of the human self and, thereby, threatens to turn our
experience of freedom and dignity into a mere delusion. This
evacuates the moral agenda of every activist liberation theology.
One task of today’s public theologian is to protect Cognitive
Liberty, because it conceptually undergirds political, economic,
and social liberation.

Most experts hold that visual experience is remarkably sparse and its apparent richness is illusory. Indeed, we fail to notice the vast majority of what we think we see, and seem to rely instead on a high-level summary of a visual scene. However, we argue here that seeing is much more than noticing, and is in fact unfathomably rich. We distinguish among three levels of visual phenomenology: a high-level description of a scene based on the categorization of "objects," an intermediate level composed of "groupings" of simple visual features such as colors, and a baselevel visual field composed of "spots" and their spatial relations. We illustrate that it is impossible to see the objects that underlie a high-level description without seeing the groupings that compose them, and we cannot see the groupings without seeing the visual field to which they are bound. We then argue that the way the visual field feels-its spatial extendedness-can only be accounted for by a phenomenal structure composed of innumerable distinctions and relations. It follows that most of what we see has no functional counterpart-it cannot be used, reported, or remembered. And yet we see it.

This chapter aims to get away from the ‘psychological attitude’ approach framing current philosophical discussion of delusion. We ask not what kind of attitude a delusion is – a belief or an imagination? Something else? – as if it were already clear what the ‘content’ of a delusion could be. We aim instead to shift attention to the question of the ‘object’ of delusions. What is delusion of? What is the object of this form of thinking? This focus on a delusion’s object, over its attitudinal nature, is partly motivated by a desire properly to connect delusory thought with ordinary forms of fantastical thinking that are ubiquitous in the experiences faced by reflective humans in everyday life. We aim at securing a continuity, in a way that much extant discussion of delusion fails to, between delusory thought with more ordinary forms of thinking present in, for example, fantastical or magical thinking. Exploring familiar expressions of such thinking, especially those involved in love and loss, enables us to bring out the way in which such expressions convey forms of affective self-consciousness – that have the subject and her relations as an object – that are not naturally taken as reports liable to investigation as true or false. This raises the question about what how to think about what someone is doing when they give expression to a delusion should we think of them as expressing an attitude towards a truth or false content, or may they be doing something rather different?