This post ends with a brief discussion about anxiety about the internal. I take that anxiety to arise when we see strong arguments for the idea that theories cannot successfully posit non-reducible mental states that provide distinctive causal explanations. The idea that the causal powers producing our beliefs, actions and …
Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp Call for papers: Conference on intentions, University of Antwerp, December 10-11, 2014. Topic: There are so many kinds of intentions: proximal, distal, immediate, prior, ‘-in-action’, present-directed, future-directed, motor, etc. How are they connected to each other and what role do they play in …
The prediction error minimization theory (PEM) says that the brain continually seeks to minimize its prediction error – minimize the difference between its predictions about the sensory input and the actual sensory input. It is an extremely simple idea but from it arises a surprisingly resourceful conception of brain processing. …
Apologies for a few weeks of vacation-induced silence. Thanks to Philipp et al. for an excellent symposium, and Kristina and Jakob for what promise to be a very stimulating couple of weeks. I’ll continue posting links periodically through the summer. – JS The unanimous selection for the Philosophical Explorations Essay Prize 2014 is …
Below are some links that I thought would be of interest to readers of the Brains blog. I intend to start publishing posts like this with some frequency, but am not a great surfer of the Internet, so feel free to share links in the comments, or pass them along …
As Justin Weinberg noted last week at the always-excellent Daily Nous, my colleague Al Mele has been awarded another grant from the John Templeton Foundation, this time for three years and $4.5 million for work on the philosophy and science of self-control. Here is the project website, and here is a …
Self and Agency: Phenomenological Approaches 8th Annual Research Seminar in Phenomenology 2014 Tuesday, April 22 2014 CET – Friday, April 25 2014 CET University of Liège Liège, Belgium Presentation: This year the topic of the seminar is the relationship between the self and agency.
