books — The Brains Blog

1. The Boundaries of the Conscious Mind

Julian Kiverstein and Michael Kirchhoff June 15, 2019 June 16, 2019 Michael Kirchhoff and Julian Kiverstein: Extended Consciousness and Predictive Processing

Thanks to John Schwenkler for the invitation to guest-blog this week about our book Extended Consciousness and Predictive Processing: A Third-Wave View (Routledge, 2019). Suppose a science of the mind of the future fully explains what it is that makes an animal a conscious subject, capable of enjoying and enduring …

4. Common Knowledge and Experience in Social Space

Axel Seemann June 13, 2019 June 14, 2019 Axel Seemann: The Shared World

We act in an environment in which much is in public view, and you might very well think that perceptual facts that cannot be known in common cannot be known at all. For any account that aims to explain the public character of our perceptual surroundings, the notion of common …

3. Demonstration and Communication

Axel Seemann June 12, 2019 June 13, 2019 Axel Seemann: The Shared World

“One cannot not communicate”: this slightly unsettling axiom of Watzlawick’s (1967) is necessarily true of creatures operating in social space. The social spatial framework is not simply given to but achieved by us through activities in which demonstrative gestures play a vital role. We point, nudge, and direct others’ gaze towards …

2. Acting in Social Space

Axel Seemann June 11, 2019 June 11, 2019 Axel Seemann: The Shared World

Consider the spatial arrangement that has to be in place if a creature is to act in its environment. One requirement is that the creature operate with an egocentric spatial framework – that it be able to determine the location of objects relative to its own position in space (Evans 1982). …

1. Living in the Shared World

Axel Seemann June 10, 2019 June 11, 2019 Axel Seemann: The Shared World

Many thanks to John Schwenkler for giving me the opportunity to write about The Shared World (MIT Press 2019). A question that has long fascinated me is how perceivers and agents can be operating in an environment that is public or, as I also say, shared; a world in which …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler June 10, 2019 June 16, 2019 books

We are pleased to have Axel Seeman blogging this week on The Shared World: Perceptual Common Knowledge, Demonstrative Communication, and Social Space, recently published by The MIT Press. To view all his posts on a single page, please click here.