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

CFP: Essays in Philosophy issue on “The Philosophy of Memory”

Sarah Robins February 6, 2018 February 6, 2018 Uncategorized

Call for Papers The Philosophy of Memory Essays in Philosophy Volume 19, Number 2 Issue Date: July 2018 Submission Deadline: March 1, 2018 Issue Editors: Ian O’Loughlin (Pacific University) and Sarah Robins (University of Kansas) Memory is a fundamental element of human—and more broadly, animal—intelligence and experience. Given memory’s importance, …

Vision Science Summer School for Undergraduates at York: All Expenses Paid

The Centre for Vision Research (CVR) at York University in Toronto, Canada offers a one-week, all-expenses-paid undergraduate summer school on vision science. This year’s program will be held June 4-8, 2018. This year’s summer school is being held in cooperation with the Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) initiative that will …

Evolving Enactivism: The Natural Origins of Content

Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin January 28, 2018 January 29, 2018 Content / Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin: Evolving Enactivism

In our previous posts, we have so far focused on: (1) clarifying our understanding of Ur-intentionality – REC’s positive proposal for understanding the thesis that basic cognition lacks content; (2) reviewing the problems faced by classic teleosemantic theories that motivate adopting REC’s proposal; and (3) detailing some of the theoretical …

Evolving Enactivism: Neurodynamics sans content

Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin January 25, 2018 January 28, 2018 Content / Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin: Evolving Enactivism / Neuroscience / representation

In a direct challenge to radical, anti-representational proposals about how to conceive of cognition, Aizawa (2015) asks “If the brain does not contribute information processing or symbol manipulation or the transformation of representations … then what does it do?” (2015, 761–762). Given that REC embraces precisely such radicalisms, what alternative …

Evolving Enactivism: Ur-Intentionality – What’s it All About?

Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin January 24, 2018 January 28, 2018 Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin: Evolving Enactivism / Intentionality / Philosophy of Mind

In our previous instalment to this blog series, we alluded to a subtle but pivotal adjustment that our Radically Enactive account of Cognition, REC, recommends making to what, in analytic circles, is the standard conception of minds. The recommendation is that we conceive of the intentional and phenomenal aspects of …

Evolving Enactivism: An Introduction

Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin January 22, 2018 January 28, 2018 Action / Cognition / Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin: Evolving Enactivism / Philosophy of Mind / reduction

Thanks to John Schwenkler for inviting us to guest-blog this week about our new book Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017). It is often said that two minds are better than one. Though ‘mind’ is a count noun, we don’t imagine that people really have …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler January 22, 2018 January 29, 2018 books

Many thanks to Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin for blogging this week on Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content (MIT Press, 2017). To view all their posts on a single page, please click here.