Review of Philosophy and Psychology

neurophilosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, psychology

The new journal Review of Philosophy and Psychology has all its content freely available for download until December 31, 2011

A quarterly journal fostering interdisciplinary research at the intersection of philosophy and the sciences of the mind

The only journal covering the main philosophical and theoretical trends in the field of cognitive science in a format of thematic issues
Offers a platform for debate on recent research trends at the junction between philosophy, psychology and cognitive science
Explores the intersection of philosophy and the sciences of the mind
Includes themed issues with both invited and submitted contributions
Hosted at the Jean Nicod Institute, a research centre of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
The Review of Philosophy and Psychology provides a forum for discussion on topics of mutual interest to philosophers and psychologists, and fosters interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of philosophy and the sciences of the mind, including the neural, behavioural and social sciences.

The Review publishes theoretical works grounded in empirical research as well as empirical articles on issues of philosophical relevance. It also publishes themed issues featuring invited contributions from leading authors, together with submitted articles.

The quarterly Review of Philosophy and Psychology is hosted at the Jean Nicod Institute, a research centre of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Mind & Behavior: Latest Issue

bence nanay, function, modality, Osamu Kiritani, philosophy of mind

The latest issue of JMB is now available. It features an exchange between Bence Nanay and Osamu Kiritani.

Neuroswarm

bees, collaboration, collective intentionality, collective knowledge, complexity, connectionism, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, social connectionism, social epistemology, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, Thomas D. Seeley

This article is really creating a buzz (sorry!!) The idea has some resonance to an aspect of Hayek’s social epistemology (see the article that I just today uploaded).

In much the same way that synapses are strengthened while unused linkages weaken and wither away, so too are paths to salient social knowledge strengthened or weakened – “social connectionism,” if you will.

Hayek and the “Use of Knowledge in Society”

austrian economics, bounded rationality, cognition, cognitive closure, cognitive ecology, cognitive science, cognitive systems, Colin McGinn, collective intentionality, collective knowledge, complex adaptive systems, complexity, connectionism, cybernetics, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, Economics, Embedded, embodied cognition, embodiment, emergence, enactivism, epistemic systems, epistemology, evolutionary psychology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, freedom, individualism, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, self organizing systems, self-referentiality, self-synchronizing systems, situated cognition, social cognition, social connectionism, social epistemology, social networking, social ontology, social psychology, socialism, sociocognition, sociology, spontaneous order, spontaneous orders

Here is a draft of my entry for the SAGE Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences.

Art and the Limits of Neuroscience

Alva Noë, brain, brain science, cognitive science, consciousness, extended mind, externalism, neural correlates, neurobiology, neuromania, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, situated cognition

Alva Noë takes the Opinionator slot.

What is striking about neuroaesthetics is not so much the fact that it has failed to produce interesting or surprising results about art, but rather the fact that no one — not the scientists, and not the artists and art historians — seem to have minded, or even noticed. What stands in the way of success in this new field is, first, the fact that neuroscience has yet to frame anything like an adequate biological or “naturalistic” account of human experience — of thought, perception, or consciousness.

Sex on the Brain

cognitive science, nature-nurture, neurobiology, neuromania, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, social constructivism, social identity, social psychology, sociobiology, sociocognition

Hat-tip to my chum David Livingstone Smith for bringing my attention to this article in Slate.

Machine Head

4E, brain, brain science, complexity, mind body, neural correlates, neural networks, neurophilosophy

Namit Arora in a themed issue of Philosophy Now considers the complexity of consciousness and its implications for artificial intelligence.

But despite the big advances in computing, AI has fallen woefully short of its ambition and hype. Instead, we have ‘expert’ systems that process predetermined inputs in specific domains, perform pattern matching and database lookups, and algorithmically learn to adapt their outputs. Examples include chess software, search engines, speech recognition, industrial and service robots, and traffic and weather forecasting systems. Machines have done well with tasks that we ourselves can pursue algorithmically (ie, in a series of small specifiable steps) – as in searching for the word ‘ersatz’ in an essay, making cappuccino, or restacking books on a library shelf. But so much else that defines our intelligence remains well beyond machines – such as using our creativity and imagination to understand new contexts and their significance, or figuring out how and whynew sensory stimuli are relevant or not. Why is AI in such a brain-dead state? Is there any hope for it? Let’s take a closer look.