This from ABC in OZ In the early 90s an Italian team of neuroscientists reported a new class of brain cells in the macaque monkey. These mirror neurons responded just as well during the monkey’s own actions as when the monkey watched someone else performing similar actions. The mirror neuron theory took off and has…
Here is a handy summary of Vittorio Gallese’s highly influential work. Mirror neurons (MNs) and embodied simulation (ES) Intersubjectivity can be profitably understood if framedwithin a phylogenetic perspective. The discovery of MNs enabled establishing a relation between human intersubjectivity, the inter-individual relations of other animal species and their underpinning neural mechanisms. MNs are motor neurons first…
Kristin Andrews and Robert Lurz discuss animals and mindreading. CognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive sciencephilosophical psychology
Here is the Introduction to Chiara Chelini’s paper, the full version available here. Humans are social creatures and they deeply rely on mentalizing, which aims at understanding other people behaviours and formulating expectations about their future actions. The existence of inner mental states has been postulated in order to give an explanatory account of the…
It is wonderful at last to see the Adam Smith of The theory of moral sentiments rather than The wealth of nations finally getting some attention. Smith’s moral psychology is amazingly presient. Here is one of the better articles by the very talented Nicolas Baumard making the connection.
Here is the table of contents for my forthcoming (in press) edited volume focusing on The Sensory Order – this is the first salvo of shameless promotion. CONTENTS “SOCIALIZING” THE MIND AND “COGNITIVIZING” SOCIALITY Leslie Marsh “MARGINAL MEN”: WEIMER ON HAYEK Walter Weimer PART I: NEUROSCIENCE HAYEK IN TODAY’S COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Joaquín Fuster THE NON-CARTESIAN…
Via Pete Mandik at Brain Hammer here is a rather snippy review by Raymond Tallis in the WSJ on V. S. Ramachandran’s latest which just yesterday I was leafing through. Is this the opening salvo of a slanging match akin to the APA Eastern Division meeting a few years back with Dennett vs. Bennett and Hacker? The…
I’ve just completed reading Evan Thompson’s Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, a work which I heartily endorse as the best statement yet of the enactivist theory of mind. I especially like his taking on the philosopher’s zombie and his chapter on Empathy and Enculturation. Last, but by no means least,…
Look out for what might be best considered the results from a symposium on Alvin Goldman in his distinctive guise as epistemologist – distinctive in the sense that he’s been at the heart of “analytical” epistemology for the past 40+ years and has recently lead the charge to make social epistemology acceptable to analytical epistemologists.…
I’m pleased to have discovered a superb website that accompanies the PBS series Closer to Truth. The definitive series on the latest advances in brain, mind, free will, personal identity, alien intelligence, parapsychology, afterlife, and brain-mind critical thinking. Interviewer Robert Lawrence Kuhn does a super job of guiding the discussion for a lay audience and pretty…
manwithoutqualities 