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Alva Noe on Consciousness

4 June 20154 June 2015 llwilmoth2 Comments

There’s an interesting conversation taking place at the interface between philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience. One of this conversation’s recurring talking points is the hypothesis of the “extended mind.” Some of the key concerns raised speak to whether the human mind is to be identified with the brain, whether the mind’s powers are analogous to the powers of computers, and what difference it might make to the philosophical and scientific study of the mind if greater consideration is paid to the mind’s character as “embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended.” Alva Noë is one proponent of “extended mind” research, and you can get some sense of the flavor of his contribution to the conversation in the following video.

More from Alva Noë:

Action in Perception (Bradford, 2006)
Out of our Heads: Why You are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciouness (Hill and Weng, 2010)
Varieties of Presence (Harvard UnivPr, 2012)

For some further orienting to related discussions in Philosophy of Mind and Embodied Cognitive Science, consider the following for serviceable introductions:

Joseph Schear, Ed., Mind, Reason, and Being in the World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate (Routledge, 2013)
Lawrence Shapiro, Embodied Cognition (Routledge, 2012)

Alister McGrath on Incarnation

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Alister McGrath on the difference between space and time and place and history The doctrine of the incarnation [in T. F. Torrance’s Space, Time and Incarnation] was framed in terms of how God could enter a world of space and time. At times, Torrance’s analysis seemed to concern how a transcendent God could be positioned using […]

Peter Kreeft on the primacy of love over knowledge

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Elizabeth Phillips on theological ethnography

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Elizabeth Phillips on theological ethnography Theologians, and I would argue theological ethicists in particular, should intentionally and carefully attend to the complex realities of the actual people involved in the compelling theological and social issues of our day. Genuine attentiveness to people and genuine engagement with the complexities of their lives are only possible through […]

Kerr on Ernst and McCabe as readers of Wittgenstein

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Fergus Kerr on Cornelius Ernst and Herbert McCabe as readers of Wittgenstein How, as theologians, did Cornelius Ernst and Herbert McCabe read Wittgenstein’s Investigations? Neither held the standard view that the Investigations is intended as a contribution to something called “philosophy of language.” That (Ernst would have thought) is [a] kind of “trivialization” of Wittgenstein … . […]