The Brains Blog — Since 2005, a leading forum for work in the philosophy and science of mind

CFA: Kinds of Intelligence 3 – Cognitive Science Beyond the Human

John Schwenkler February 19, 2020 February 19, 2020 AI / CFPs

The third annual Kinds of Intelligence conference will be held in Cambridge, UK from June 22-25 2020. The conference brings together researchers from philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence to address questions concerning the structure, function and nature of intelligence and cognition, with a particular emphasis on non-human intelligences – …

Embodied Grammars

A large part of our book is thus dedicated to articulating an affect-based bio-semantics, but we also take a run at pre-linguistic syntax or grammar.

Neurofunctional Prudence & Morality

Marcus Arvan February 18, 2020 February 19, 2020 books

I am excited to report that my new book, Neurofunctional Prudence and Morality: A Philosophical Theory, is now available from Routledge ($70 hardback, $12.50+ ebook). Anyone interested can preview the book’s introduction and part of Chapter 1 here at Google Books. Interested readers can also download a pre-published draft of …

Affordances and Motivation

Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel February 18, 2020 February 18, 2020 animal cognition / bodily experience / Emotion / evolution / perception / Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel: "The Emotional Mind"

The study of emotions, the so-called affective turn, allows us to rethink crucial elements in psychology and philosophy of mind. There has been a concurrent surge in creative research and theory in the field of ecological psychology.[1] In our book, we seek to clarify the function of affective sentience in …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler February 17, 2020 February 25, 2020 books

We are pleased to have Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel blogging this week on The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition (Harvard University Press, 2019). To view all their posts on a single page, please click here.

Marcin Miłkowski’s & Piotr Litwin’s livestream of “Testing Predictive Processing”

Nick Byrd February 17, 2020 February 12, 2020 Models / Neural Mechanisms Online / NM Webinar / Philosophy of Science

We are excited about the next Neural Mechanisms webinar this Friday (21st). As always, it is free. You can find information about how and when to join the webinar below or at the Neural Mechanisms website—where you can also join sign up for the mailing list that notifies people about …

The Emotional Mind: The affective roots of culture and cognition

Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel February 16, 2020 February 16, 2020 Emotion / evolution / Intentionality / Psychology / Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel: "The Emotional Mind"

In our new book, we argue that emotional systems are central to understanding the evolution of the human mind (as well as those of our primate cousins).