Psicopatologia Fenomenológica Contemporânea
August 8, 2026
Lucas Guimarães Bloc, Bruna Soares Picanço, José Waldo Saraiva Neto et al.
This article reflects on the place of Phenomenological Psychopathology (PP) in the contemporary clinical landscape. Inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s notion of ambiguity, it argues that PP does not belong to a single domain, but emerges through the interweaving of philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry. This “in-between” is understood as a critical, ethical, and clinical potential, supporting a...
PsyArXiv
August 8, 2026
preprint
Neuronal criticality as a framework for the computational neurophenomenology of advanced meditation
Elife
August 4, 2026
Christoph Strauch, Casper Leenaars, Romke Rouw
Synesthesia describes cross-over processes that can generate 'extra' conscious percepts, such as seeing additional color when reading numbers. While existing research focuses on the mechanisms and effects of synesthetic associations, it often overlooks its most distinctive feature: unique sensory phenomenology. Here, we introduce pupillometry as an objective physiological measure of synesthetic...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Jon Mallatt
Mather (2019) presents convincing evidence that octopuses have minds, but in the first 85% of the target article, the evidence does not come through very clearly because it is hidden by other information and by problems with the paper’s organization. I propose ways to build a tighter argument in the author’s Response to the Commentaries.
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Bjørn Grinde
Carolyn Ristau has done a fine job summarizing the work and life of the zoologist Donald Griffin. Most scientists now accept the existence of animal sentience, but identifying which species possess consciousness remains controversial. Griffin defined consciousness as "the subjective state of feeling or thinking about objects and events.” Nonconscious processes are faster and more...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Mark Rowlands
Several types of objection have been raised against the arguments I presented in my target article, “Are animals persons?” Among the objections are the following: (1) the claim that animals are persons is of little significance, (2) my use of the Lockean conception of the person is questionable, (3) whether a creature qualifies as a person is a matter of social construction rather than...
AI for Society
August 3, 2026
Joseph D. Kuzma
Contemporary artificial intelligence systems present themselves through the aesthetic of openness: a clean interface, a blinking cursor, an implicit invitation to bring whatever one wishes. This essay argues that this appearance conceals a structural inversion. Drawing on phenomenological philosophy, particularly the work of Simone Weil, Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida, Henri Bergson, and...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Arthur S. Reber
The commentaries by Calvo (2018) and Mallatt & Feinberg (2017) on my 2016 target branch out from a common conceptual node like forks in a road. Calvo criticizes me for not acknowledging that plants too are likely to be sentient and claims I have fallen into the kind of category error of which I accuse others ─ a zoocentric bias that fails to grant consciousness to flora. Mallatt & Feinberg...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Paco Calvo, Miguel Segundo-Ortin
In our target article (Segundo-Ortin & Calvo 2023), we proposed the intriguing possibility of plant sentience, drawing parallels with non-human animal studies. This response aims to sift through the rich thicket of perspectives offered by our commentators. To do so, we assess the risks of employing double standards, as well as the tendencies of anthropomorphizing and zoomorphizing in plant...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Mark Solms
The criteria for determining animal sentience proposed in the target article are sensible but they lack an explicit functional justification for the focus on pain. This commentary provides an abbreviated account of the most basic functional principles that underpin animal sentience and articulates some minimal criteria for determining its presence.
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Riccardo Manzotti
Key (2016) claims that fish do not feel pain because they lack the neural structures that have a contingent causal role in generating and feeling pain in mammals. I counterargue that no conclusive evidence supports the sufficiency of any mammalian neural structure to produce pain. We cannot move from contingent necessity in mammals to necessity in every organism.
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Andrew Y. Lee
This commentary is about whether sentience, or what philosophers call “phenomenal consciousness,” comes in degrees.
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Brian Key
Klein & Barron (2016) propose that subjective experience in humans arises in the midbrain and then argue that insects have the capacity for subjective experience because their nervous system can perform neural processing similar to that of the midbrain. This approach ultimately fails because it is built on the false premise that the midbrain is the source of the awareness of sensory stimuli. I...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Luis H. Favela
Woodruff (2017) argues that teleost fishes are capable of phenomenal consciousness. Central to his argument is the assumption that phenomenal consciousness is representational in nature. I think the commitment to a representational theory of consciousness undermines Woodruff’s case for teleost phenomenal consciousness. The reason is that organisms do not need to perceive the world indirectly...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Irina Mikhalevich
Woodruff (2017) claims to have identified the neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness (“p-consciousness”) in fishes, and argues that these neurological data, along with behavioral evidence, suggest that teleost fishes are in all probability sentient organisms. Woodruff’s case may be strengthened by challenging key assumptions behind a common criticism of accounts such as his: that fishes...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Gordon Burghardt
Jennifer Mather has provided a comprehensive and fascinating overview of the various cognitive accomplishments of cephalopods and their sensory, behavioral, and neurophysiological attributes. The advances in our understanding of a clade that has been separated from vertebrate evolution by well over half a billion years is a testament to advances in both methodology and the questions we now feel...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach
Key (2016) affirms that we do not know how the fish brain processes pain but denies — because fish lack a human-like cortex — that fish can feel pain. He affirms that birds, like fish, have a singly-laminated cortex and that the structure of the bird brain is quite different from that of the human brain, yet he does not deny that birds can feel pain. In this commentary we describe how Key cites...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Donald M Broom
Neither sentience nor moral standing is confined to animals with large or human-like brains. Invertebrates deserve moral consideration. Definition of terms clarifies the relationship between sentience and welfare. All animals have welfare but humans give more protection to sentient animals. Humans should be less human-centred.
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Colin Klein, Andrew B Barron
Our target article, “Insects have the capacity for subjective experience,” has provoked a diverse range of commentaries. In this response we have collated what we see as the major themes of the discussion. It is clear that we differ from some commentators in our commitments to what subjective experience is and what the midbrain is capable of. Here we clarify where we stand on those points and...
Animal Sentience
August 3, 2026
Murray Shanahan
This commentary has two aims: first to clarify the behavioural grounds for the ascription of consciousness to non-human animals (including insects), and second to show how Klein & Barron’s views can be reconciled with the core claims of global workspace theory.