creators_name: Overgaard, Morten type: other datestamp: 2001-12-14 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:51 metadata_visibility: show title: Problems in the "functional" investigations of consciousness ispublished: unpub subjects: cog-psy subjects: phil-mind subjects: phil-sci full_text_status: public keywords: Consciousness; science; functionalism; contrastive analysis; scientific explanation; philosophical explanation; methodology abstract: This article presents the view that the “problem of consciousness” – per definition – can not be seen as a strictly scientific or strictly philosophical problem. The first idea, especially, leads to important difficulties: First of all, the idea has in most cases implied some rather superficial reductionistic or functionalistic a priori assumptions, and, secondly, it can be shown that some of the most commonly used empirical methods in these regards are inadequate. Especially so in the case of contrastive analysis, widely used in cognitive neuroscience. However, this criticism does not lead to the conclusion that scientific methods are inadequate as such, only that they always work on a pre-established background of theory, of which one must be explicit. date: 2000 date_type: published refereed: FALSE referencetext: Baars, B. (1983): Conscious contents provide the nervous system with coherent, global information, in R. Davidson, G. Schwartz and D. Shapiro (eds.): Consciousness and Self-Regulation, vol. 3, Plenum Press Baars, B. (1988): A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness, Cambridge University Press Baars, B. (1997a): A thoroughly empirical approach to consciousness: Contrastive analysis, in N. Block, O. Flanagan and G. Guzeldere (eds.): The Nature of Consciousness, MIT Press Baars, B. (1997b): In the theatre of consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 4, 292-309 Chalmers, D.J. (1995a): Facing up to the problem of consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2, 200-219 Chalmers, D.J. (1995b): Absent qualia, fading qualia, dancing qualia, in: T. Metzinger (ed.): Conscious Experience, Schöningh Chalmers, D.J. (1996): The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press Churchland, P.S. (1986): Neurophilosophy, MIT Press Crick, F. (1994): The Astonishing Hypothesis, Simon & Schuster Crick, F. and Koch, C. (1990): Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness, Seminars in the Neurosciences, 2, 263-275 Crick, F. and Koch, C. (1998): Consciousness and neuroscience, Cerebral Cortex, 8, 97-107 Dennett, D.C. (1988): Quining qualia, in A. Marcel and E. Bisiach (eds.): Consciousness in Contemporary Science, Clarendon Press Düzel, E., Yonelinas, A.P., Mangun, G.R., Heinze, H.J. and Tulving, E. (1997): Event-related brain potential correlates of two states of conscious awareness in memory, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 94, 5973-5978 Frith, C., Perry, R. and Lumer, E. (1999): The neural correlates of conscious experience: An experimental framework, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 3, 105-114 Hardcastle, V.G. (1993): The naturalists versus the skeptics: The debate over a scientific understanding of consciousness, The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 14, 1, 27-50 Jackson, F. (1986): What Mary didn’t know, Journal of Philosophy, 83, 291-295 Kentridge, R.W., Heywood, C.A. and Weiskrantz, L. (1999): Attention without awareness in blindsight, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London - Series B, 266, 1805-1811 Libet, B. (1985): Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action, Brain & Behavioral Sciences, 8, 529-566 Miller, G.A. (1956): The magical number seven plus or minus two: Some limits in our capacity for processing information, Psychological Review, 63, 81-97 Praetorius, N. (2000): Principles of Cognition, Language & Action, Kluwer Academic Press Roy, J.M., Petitot, J., Pachoud, B. & Varela, F.J. (2000): Beyond the gap: And introduction to naturalizing phenomenology, in: J. Petitot, F.J. Varela, B. Pachoud & J.M. Roy (eds.): Naturalizing Phenomenology, Stanford University Press Searle, J.R. (1998): How to study consciousness scientifically, Brain Research Reviews, 26, 379-387 van Gulick, R. (1995): What would count as explaining consciousness?, in T. Metzinger (ed.): Conscious Experience, Schöningh Varela, F.J. (1996): Neurophenomenology, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3, 4, 330-349 Velmans, M. (1991): Is human information processing conscious?, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 14, 651-726 Wilkes, K. (1984): Is consciousness important? British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 35, 223-243 citation: Overgaard, Morten (2000) Problems in the "functional" investigations of consciousness. (Unpublished) document_url: http://cogprints.org/1982/1/Problems_in_the_functional_investigations_of_consciousness.htm