Mike Beaton
University of the Basque Country, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Logic and Philosophy of Science, IAS Research Group
University of Sussex, School of Engineering and Informatics, Centre for Research in Cognitive Science, Visiting Research Fellow
I am currently a group member of the IAS Research Group in the Department of Logic and the Philosophy of Science, in the UPV/EHU (University of the Basque Country). I am also a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Engineering and Informatics at the University of Sussex, affiliated to the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science.
I have just completed a paper (under review) arguing that the sensorimotor theory of perception and (a broadly McDowellian) direct realism are very well-matched. I am also currently wondering if there is anything new to say about the problems with the 'justified true belief' analysis of knowledge.
Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the European FP7 eSMCs project (comprising six labs in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). The aim of the project was to extend Noë and O'Regan's Sensori-Motor Contingency theory, both philosophically and practically (e.g. in terms of robot architecture and therapeutic applications).
Immediately after completing my thesis, I worked as a postdoc for Professor Igor Aleksander of Imperial College London on an externalist critique of Tononi's Information Integration Theory of Consciousness. This project enabled me to look in more detail both at Integrated Information theory, and at fundamental issues in the interpretation of probability theory.
In 2009 I was awarded my DPhil (PhD) in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science by the University of Sussex. My external examiner was the philosopher Alva Noë, and my internal examiner was the psychologist Zoltan Dienes.
My thesis itself defended the claim that qualia (phenomenal feels; ‘what it is like’) can be successfully naturalised as subjective, introspectible aspects of mind, with mind analysed in terms of embodied practical rationality.
My doctoral work had three major strands of influence.
The first was Alva Noë and J. Kevin O'Regan's sensorimotor analysis of the nature of perception. I was exposed to this work so early in my PhD research that it is present more as background than as foreground. In more recent work, I'm am trying to bring the connections more to the foreground. But I hope and think that everything I say, including my strong emphasis on rationality, and my endorsement of a version of direct realism, is compatible with the sensorimotor approach.
More overtly present in my thesis, because discovered later on, are McDowell’s conceptualism and direct realism, and Shoemaker’s seminal work on the nature of introspection (though I believe - and argue in my thesis - that Shoemaker’s current and prior accounts of qualia cannot be accepted, and indeed are not truly compatible with his own account of introspection).
I have just completed a paper (under review) arguing that the sensorimotor theory of perception and (a broadly McDowellian) direct realism are very well-matched. I am also currently wondering if there is anything new to say about the problems with the 'justified true belief' analysis of knowledge.
Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the European FP7 eSMCs project (comprising six labs in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). The aim of the project was to extend Noë and O'Regan's Sensori-Motor Contingency theory, both philosophically and practically (e.g. in terms of robot architecture and therapeutic applications).
Immediately after completing my thesis, I worked as a postdoc for Professor Igor Aleksander of Imperial College London on an externalist critique of Tononi's Information Integration Theory of Consciousness. This project enabled me to look in more detail both at Integrated Information theory, and at fundamental issues in the interpretation of probability theory.
In 2009 I was awarded my DPhil (PhD) in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science by the University of Sussex. My external examiner was the philosopher Alva Noë, and my internal examiner was the psychologist Zoltan Dienes.
My thesis itself defended the claim that qualia (phenomenal feels; ‘what it is like’) can be successfully naturalised as subjective, introspectible aspects of mind, with mind analysed in terms of embodied practical rationality.
My doctoral work had three major strands of influence.
The first was Alva Noë and J. Kevin O'Regan's sensorimotor analysis of the nature of perception. I was exposed to this work so early in my PhD research that it is present more as background than as foreground. In more recent work, I'm am trying to bring the connections more to the foreground. But I hope and think that everything I say, including my strong emphasis on rationality, and my endorsement of a version of direct realism, is compatible with the sensorimotor approach.
More overtly present in my thesis, because discovered later on, are McDowell’s conceptualism and direct realism, and Shoemaker’s seminal work on the nature of introspection (though I believe - and argue in my thesis - that Shoemaker’s current and prior accounts of qualia cannot be accepted, and indeed are not truly compatible with his own account of introspection).
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