Research interests

I am interested in developing better theoretical frameworks for empirical psychologists and neuroscientists to work with. More specifically, I hope my work can assist both empirical researchers and philosophers to see the problems inherent in typical mechanistic assumptions and cognitive frameworks, and also the empirical validity of more dynamic models. I am very sympathetic to enactive and embodied approaches to cognition and the ambition of looking at cognitive processes as temporal and as physically, socially and historically situated, and of grounding higher cognition in more basic sensorimotor functions. However, so far such ambitions have mostly fallen short of actual positive theories. The ideas thus need to be rooted in biological and behavioral detail to more directly provide new paradigms for scientific research. 

Within philosophy my work will normally be categorized as pertaining to philosophy of neuroscience, mind and cognitive science, but often it also touches on issues of scientific methodology, language, aesthetics and education. Omnipresent in my work is the oddly appendixed field of history of philosophy and I can proudly label most of my ideas as having a high percentage of recycled material.

Research topics - Philosophy of Neuroscience & Cognitive Science:   

• Mirror neurons and the broader role of sensorimotor integration in mental representation, intentional action choice & understanding, social perception and interaction. I have proposed a social affordance model to understand these fronto-parietal cognitive processes, including their development and related clinical pathologies (see also PhD Thesis abstracts and Info.)
• Affordances - an attempt to reinterpret the concept in a way the capture the concept's relational, temporal and normative core. (paper in progress...)
  
• Embodied/enactive approaches to cognition & problems of traditional assumptions of computational cognitive science.
• Memory: the nature and role of 'time-travel' abilities in cognition and conscious processes.
• Language: Grounding of language skills in more basic sensorimotor navigation processes and primary forms of social interactions.

Philosophical Interests: 

Philosophy of Mind:

• Social cognition: getting beyond 3rd person mind-reading. 
• Mental representation: Reinterpreting the concept to bridge mind-body dualism and the inner-outer dichotomy while avoid the pitfalls of behaviorism.
• Action Theory: Understanding intention and agency beyond the ‘classical sandwich’. Hereunder interest in Ideomotor theories
• Tacit assumptions of mind and knowledge underlying the mind/body problem and the problem of other minds and the traditional free will/determinism dichotomy.

Philosophy of Science & Epistemology:

• Methodological and epistemological issues of how our favorite rational and not so rational ways of thinking often gets projected on objects of inquiry - be it of physical, biological or psychological order. Understanding the assumptions of mechanistic determinism and physicalism - and their psychological foundation and functionality, but also the epistemological difficulty of understanding and modeling a complex, temporal and dynamical world in flux.
• Philosophy of biology: the neglected role of the cell membrane and other larger 'membranes' as the basis of self-organization. 

Ethics, Aesthetics & Feminist Philosophy:

• Fact-value dichotomy
  
• The aesthetic stance: analysis of artistic framings and how this shapes aesthetic embodied engagements.
  
• Ethics: Ethical theories as representing different levels of action choice and affordances
• Neurofeminism: The multi-frame logic minority perspectives & psychological underpinnings of stereotype perception/judgments.  

History of Philosophy:

• Main philosophical figures of interest and specialization - see next section and my unpublished papers page.

Major figures of philosophical inspiration: 

Ignoring the massive blind heritage, here are some of thinkers who opened my mind:

• Bergson - My main man. I read Matiere et Memoire with both arms over my head, albeit sometimes with an additional grimace of 'why on earth would he contrary to his own wonderful insights jump right in to that very categorical thinking he criticizes!'.
• Merleau-Ponty - a student of Bergson, but without the religion and with the social and cultural dimension. Does not get much better than that.
• Nietzsche - so there is no doubt which dead philosopher I would prefer to dine with - of course Wittgenstein wouldn't be a bad candidate either...
• Kant. Well, he set the whole thing up.  
• James - shares the zeitgeist and so many bergsonian ideas. Wrote The Principles, need one say more. 
• Langer for thinking across categories and reminding us of the centrality of the conative element of the mind. 
• Cartwright because the world is dabbled and she invited philosophers of science out of their dream bubbles to see for themselves.
• Plus psychologists like Vygotski and Laplanche who helped me attempt to understand the social in the subject.
  

The list only very arbitrarily ends here. For a somewhat more coherent story of my main ideas, inspirations and favorite enemies, please click here.