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Shaun Gallagher

36 papers in the library · 1,422 citations · publishing 1996-2026

Papers

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Active inference, enactivism and the hermeneutics of social cognition.

Synthese 2018 Shaun Gallagher, Micah Allen 221 citations

We distinguish between three philosophical views on the neuroscience of predictive models: predictive coding (associated with internal Bayesian models and prediction error minimization), predictive processing (associated with radical connectionism and 'simple' embodiment) and predictive engagement (associated with enactivist approaches to cognition). We examine the concept of active inference...

Self-defense: Deflecting Deflationary and Eliminativist Critiques of the Sense of Ownership

Frontiers in Psychology September 21, 2017 Shaun Gallagher 59 citations

I defend a phenomenological account of the sense of ownership as part of a minimal sense of self from those critics who propose either a deflationary or eliminativist critique. Specifically, I block the deflationary critique by showing that in fact the phenomenological account is itself a deflationary account insofar as it takes the sense of ownership to be implicit or intrinsic to experience...

Making Enactivism Even More Embodied

Oxford Scholarship Online August 24, 2017 Shaun Gallagher 12 citations

An enactivist approach to understanding the mind, in its fullest sense, is not just a matter of action-oriented processes; enactivism is about more than action and sensory–motor contingencies. To understand cognition as richly embodied this chapter considers factors involving affectivity and intersubjectivity. Empirical studies show that affectivity, in a wide sense that includes hunger,...

Variations on Embodied Cognition

Oxford Scholarship Online August 24, 2017 Shaun Gallagher

This chapter maps out a range of embodied cognition (EC) theories, starting with ‘weak EC’, which focuses on body-formatted representations and the neural reuse hypothesis, and remains close to traditional cognitivist conceptions of the mind. This approach to EC is then contrasted to functionalist proposals for extended mind, to a biological model of EC, and finally to enactivist proposals....

Methodological lessons in neurophenomenology: Review of a baseline study and recommendations for research approaches.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2013 Patricia Bockelman, Lauren Reinerman-Jones, Shaun Gallagher 47 citations

Neurophenomenological (NP) methods integrate objective and subjective data in ways that retain the statistical power of established disciplines (like cognitive science) while embracing the value of first-person reports of experience. The present paper positions neurophenomenology as an approach that pulls from traditions of cognitive science but includes techniques that are challenging for...

Embodiment and Phenomenal Qualities

Philosophical Topics 2011 Shaun Gallagher 5 citations

I argue that an older debate in phenomenology concerning Husserl’s notion of hyletic data can throw some light on contemporary debates about qualia and phenomenal consciousness. Both debates tend to ignore important considerations about bodily experience and how specific kinds of bodily experience can shape one’s consciousness of the world. A revised and fully embodied conception of hyletic...

Defining consciousness

Pragmatics & Cognition December 31, 2010 Shaun Gallagher

I review the problem of how to define consciousness. I suggest that rather than continuing that debate, we should turn to phenomenological description of experience to discover the common aspects of consciousness. In this way we can say that consciousness is characterized by intentionality, phenomenality, and non-reflective self-awareness. I explore this last characteristic in detail and I...

The earliest sense of self and others: Merleau‐Ponty and recent developmental studies

Philosophical Psychology June 1, 1996 Shaun Gallagher, Andrew N. Meltzoff 337 citations

Recent studies in developmental psychology have found evidence to suggest that there exists an innate system that accounts for the possibilities of early infant imitation and the existence of phantom limbs in cases of congenital absence of limbs. These results challenge traditional assumptions about the status and development of the body schema and body image, and about the nature of the...

Phenomenology and embodied cognition

Shaun Gallagher

As this volume makes clear, research on embodied cognition draws from a number of disciplines and is supported by a variety of methodological strategies. In this chapter I focus on what phenomenology has contributed to our understanding of embodied cognition. I take “phenomenology” to mean the philosophical tradition initiated in the twentieth century by Edmund Husserl and developed by a...