19 papers in the library · 121 citations · publishing 2006-2026
Philosophy Compass September 1, 2026 Ege Yumuşak
ABSTRACT Phenomenal salience is the experiential contribution of attention to how things seem; namely, the character of perceptual experience. Two aspects of phenomenal salience have been of interest to philosophers. The first is about the uniformity of the phenomenology of perceptual salience. This aspect concerns how salience organizes objects of experience. The second is about the...
Philosophy Compass December 1, 2025 Mona‐Marie Wandrey, Marta Halina
ABSTRACT The evolution of phenomenal consciousness remains a central challenge in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Although many argue that consciousness can be understood as a biological phenomenon, there is considerable disagreement about its origins. Competing theories range from early evolution views, which trace consciousness back to the Cambrian period around 540 million...
Philosophy Compass September 1, 2025 Daniel Villiger
ABSTRACT The reemergence of serotonergic psychedelics in clinical research and practice has sparked numerous debates within bioethics. This paper aims to provide an overview of the key issues discussed in the emerging field of psychedelic ethics. It organizes these issues into four (partly overlapping) categories: (1) the implementation and execution of psychedelic research and practice, (2)...
Philosophy Compass May 28, 2023 S. Clarke, Jacob Beck 11 citations
The distinction between perception and cognition frames countless debates in philosophy and cognitive science. But what, if anything, does this distinction actually amount to? In this introductory article, we summarize recent work on this question. We first briefly consider the possibility that a perception-cognition border should be eliminated from our scientific ontology, and then introduce...
Philosophy Compass April 1, 2020 Jennifer Windt
Abstract Sleep is phenomenologically rich, teeming with different kinds of conscious thought and experience. Dreaming is the most prominent example, but there is more to conscious experience in sleep than dreaming. Especially in non‐rapid eye movement sleep, conscious experience, sometimes dreamful, sometimes dreamless, also alternates with a loss of consciousness. Yet while dreaming has become...
Philosophy Compass November 1, 2013 Melanie G. Rosen, John Sutton 32 citations
Abstract Integrative and naturalistic philosophy of mind can both learn from and contribute to the contemporary cognitive sciences of dreaming. Two related phenomena concerning self‐representation in dreams demonstrate the need to bring disparate fields together. In most dreams, the protagonist or dream self who experiences and actively participates in dream events is or represents the dreamer:...
Philosophy Compass November 1, 2013 John Spackman
Abstract There has in recent years been a significant surge of interest in non‐materialist accounts of the mind. Property dualists hold that all substances (concrete particulars that persist over time) are material, but mental properties are distinct from physical properties. Substance dualists maintain that the mind or person is a non‐material substance. This article considers the prospects...
Philosophy Compass July 1, 2013 Dustin Stokes
Abstract Perception is typically distinguished from cognition. For example, seeing is importantly different from believing. And while what one sees clearly influences what one thinks, it is debatable whether what one believes and otherwise thinks can influence, in some direct and non‐trivial way, what one sees. The latter possible relation is the cognitive penetration of perception . Cognitive...
Philosophy Compass October 1, 2012 John Spackman 5 citations
Abstract Recent years have seen a growing interest in Buddhist thought as a potential source of alternative conceptions of the nature of the mind and the relation between the mental and the physical. This article considers and assesses three different models of what contemporary philosophy of mind can learn from Buddhist thought. One model, advocated by Alan Wallace, holds that we can learn...
Philosophy Compass 2011 Corey W. Dyck
Abstract In attempts to come to grips with Kant’s thought, the influence of the philosophy of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) is often neglected. In this paper, I consider three topics related to Kant’s philosophy of mind, broadly construed, where Wolff’s influence is particularly visible, namely, consciousness, self‐consciousness, and the doctrine of the soul or psychology. I argue that within...
Philosophy Compass December 1, 2010 Clare Batty 34 citations
Abstract The philosophy of perception has been dominated by vision, with very little discussion of the chemical senses – olfaction and gustation. In this second entry of a pair on olfactory experience, I consider what olfaction has to tell us about two issues: (i) the nature of perceptual objects and (ii) the nature of perceptual properties and, in particular, the secondary qualities. Given the...
Philosophy Compass October 1, 2010 Amy Kind
Abstract Over the past few decades, as philosophers of mind have begun to rethink the sharp divide that was traditionally drawn between the phenomenal character of an experience (what it’s like to have that experience) and its intentional content (what it represents), representationalist theories of consciousness have become increasingly popular. On this view, phenomenal character is reduced to...
Philosophy Compass July 20, 2010 Justin Sytsma 39 citations
Abstract In studying folk psychology, cognitive and developmental psychologists have mainly focused on how people conceive of non‐experiential states, such as beliefs and desires. As a result, we know very little about how the non‐philosophers (or the folk) understand the mental states that philosophers typically classify as being phenomenally conscious. In particular, it is not known whether...
Philosophy Compass July 1, 2009 Taylor Carman
Abstract This article offers an overview of the structure and significance of Merleau‐Ponty's phenomenology. Neither a psychological nor an epistemological theory, Merleau‐Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception is instead an attempt to describe perceptual experience as we experience it. Although he was influenced heavily by Husserl, Heidegger, and Gestalt psychology, his work departs significantly...
Philosophy Compass March 1, 2009 William Uzgalis
Abstract The correspondence between Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins of 1706–8, while not well known, is a spectacularly good debate between a dualist and a materialist over the possibility of giving a materialist account of consciousness and personal identity. This article puts the Clarke Collins Correspondence in a broader context in which it can be better appreciated, noting that it is...
Philosophy Compass May 1, 2007 Jakob Hohwy
Abstract The science of consciousness begins with the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. I explain this notion and give examples of research in the field. I then discuss how different conceptions of consciousness may influence the search for the neural correlates. This includes the distinctions between access and phenomenal consciousness, and between conscious states and unified...
Philosophy Compass March 1, 2007 Larry Shapiro
Abstract Embodied Cognition is an approach to cognition that departs from traditional cognitive science in its reluctance to conceive of cognition as computational and in its emphasis on the significance of an organism's body in how and what the organism thinks. Three lines of embodied cognition research are described and some thoughts on the future of embodied cognition offered.
Philosophy Compass May 1, 2006 Rebecca Copenhaver
Abstract Thomas Reid’s epistemological ambitions are decisively at the center of his work. However, if we take such ambitions to be the whole story, we are apt to overlook the theory of mind that Reid develops and deploys against the theory of ideas. Reid’s philosophy of mind is sophisticated and strikingly contemporary, and has, until recently, been lost in the shadow of his other...
Philosophy Compass 2006 Uriah Kriegel
Abstract Phenomenal consciousness is the property mental states, events, and processes have when, and only when, there is something it is like for their subject to undergo them, or be in them. What it is like to have a conscious experience is customarily referred to as the experience's phenomenal character . Theories of consciousness attempt to account for this phenomenal character. This...