To gather (almost) all (reasonable) theories of phenomenal consciousness, describe them neutrally (largely in the words of their authors), and organize them in a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary taxonomy of categories-"Landscape of Consciousness." Perhaps the process can encourage novel ways of thinking among medical (psychiatry/neurology) practitioners and neuroscientists. Landscape organizes...
Abstract Mystical experiences are among the most extraordinary and meaningful experiences one can have. While such experiences have been studied for more than a century, it is still an open question how the brain can produce them. The present paper provides a possible answer by examining mystical experience from the lens of the REBUS hypothesis—a theory that explains the neurocognitive...
Abstract Neil Mehta puts forward a pluralist theory of conscious perception, on which to consciously perceive is to deploy not just one, but two distinct kinds of sensory awareness in concert. Here I present three reservations regarding one of these kinds awareness - deep awareness. First, Mehta introduces deep awareness as a relation whose deployment explains the putative fact that conscious...
We assess St. Paul's account of kenōsis in Philippians 2:5–8 from a neurophenomenological horizon. We argue that kenōsis is not primarily a unique event but belongs to a class of experiences that could be called kenotic and are, at least in principle, to some degree accessible to all human beings. These experiences can be well analyzed, making use of both a phenomenological approach and the...
The cognitive sciences may be understood to contribute to religion‐and‐science as a metadisciplinary discussion in ways that can be organized according to the three persons of narrative, encoding the themes of consciousness, relationality, and healing. First‐person accounts are likely to be important to the understanding of consciousness, the “hard problem” of subjective experience, and...
The thesis of this paper is that, in his first metaphysical work, Whitehead took Berkeley as his model. He stopped perceiving him as a subjective idealist and he leaned to consider him an objective/absolute idealist. He became appreciative of some positive contributions of the Irish philosopher. While continuing to appreciate Berkeley’s critique of the seventeenth century scheme of ideas,...
Abstract This article seeks to mobilize Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of perception—more specifically, his contention that imbrication in a knowledge relationship with the perceived object precedes registration of the percept in consciousness—toward reconceiving some stale debates in Williams studies, namely: what is meant by the famous dictum, “No ideas but in things.” For Williams, this...
The human standpoint and what sets it apart from the standpoint of non-rational animals is discussed. Some distinctions are also drawn between “lower” and “higher" representations of objects in terms of how much they involve of the cognitive apparatus. Additionally, it is discussed briefly how the human standpoint contrasts with the God’s eye viewpoint of traditional metaphysics. This brings us...
The aim of this article is to describe the method of analysis of the microphenomenological interview and to compare this method to other similar methods. Microphenomenological method was proposed by the French phenomenologist Claire Petitmengin. The microphenomenological interview is a qualitative, second-person method of studying experience that responds to problems resulting from the study of...
The aim of this article is to present the microphenomenological interview method as a second-person method in the study of experience. Researchers in the field of cognitive science are beginning to realize that third-person methods of studying experience have their limitations, namely that the researcher does not know what is happening at the level of the subjective consciousness of the person...