The New Concept of Mind

Templeton Foundation ACT Fellowship (2017-2020)

PI: Prof. Hong Yu Wong (Universität Tübingen)

Executive Summary:

The scientific and manifest images of mind may have never been as far apart as they are today. The conflict urgently calls for a reconciliation. It demands an articulation of a new concept of mind for our time. The Templeton ACT Fellowship provides me with a unique opportunity to acquire cross-training in neuroscience and psychology so that I can contribute to this reconciliation. I am a philosopher of mind and have published on action, perception, and the metaphysics of mind. At 7 years post-PhD, I have published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and have a monograph on Embodied Agency forthcoming with Oxford University Press. My goal is to acquire skills and knowledge in neuroscience and psychology which are vital for starting to develop a new concept of mind that can reconcile the scientific and manifest images of mind. This is not possible without a firm grounding in the sciences of the mind. Thus I am proposing a program of cross-training in all the major areas of psychology and neuroscience that directly impact on our concept of the mind and of ourselves as embodied, self-conscious subjects and agents. My cross-disciplinary mentor is the renowned cognitive neuroscientist, Professor Patrick Haggard (UCL) for at least the duration of the grant. My cross-training program will provide me with foundational training in cognitive and systems neuroscience and training through laboratory rotations in five thematic areas:

1. Action and Embodiment,

2. Motivation and Affect,

3. The Neuroscience of Consciousness,

4. Social Cognition, and

5. Developmental Psychology.

This cross-training will allow me develop my distinctive approach of empirically informed philosophy of mind on which philosophy of mind is an autonomous philosophical enterprise, but not one that is insulated from empirical work. This will lay the grounds for a monograph project attempting to articulate a new concept of mind for our time, one that is both philosophically attractive and empirically sound.