Thesis Chapters by Costas Picolas
The goal of the present study is to examine the enactive approaches of Susan Hurley and Alva Noë ... more The goal of the present study is to examine the enactive approaches of Susan Hurley and Alva Noë through the prism of Husserlian temporal constitution. In the first part we offer criticism to Hurley’s notion of ‘non-instrumental interdependence of perception and action’. Her grounding of this interdependence on the subpersonal level constitutive sensory input-motor output interdependence will be viewed as necessary but not sufficient for the first-personal level perception-action interdependence. That sufficiency can only be provided through an exposition of their constitutive interdependence at the first-personal level by a phenomenological analysis of perceptual and intentional acts. In the second part we examine Noë’s notion of the ‘virtuality’ of perceptual content. By interpreting his relevant concept of ‘free access’ according to the proposed motif of ‘expectation fulfillment’ we suggest that the problem of the virtuality of content should be interpreted as the problem of the constitution of the temporally enduring perceptual object. We shall work out this issue by appealing to the Husserlian account of perception. By a constructive reading of Husserl’s notions of ‘motivation’ and ‘kinesthesis’ we arrive at the ‘subjective temporal self-relating core’ of perceptual and motor acts. It is this functional temporal self-relatedness, described exclusively on the first-personal descriptive level, that finally offers us the sought after first-personal non-instrumental interdependence of perception and action. We finally suggest that augmented by this notion the sensorimotor approaches can have a better understanding of the neuroscientific explanandum and thus be better informed in their potential epistemological role. Some empirical literature is reviewed at the closure of the study in support of our case.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Conference Presentations by Costas Picolas
Embodied cognition involves a capacity for temporal constitution. I propose that the concept of s... more Embodied cognition involves a capacity for temporal constitution. I propose that the concept of such a capacity is implicitly at work in the theoretical framework of sensorimotor contingencies theory and as such it should be taken up as a specific research interest.
Poster presented at the 2015 ASSC Workshop on Sensorimotor Theory (Paris: July, 2015
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Papers by Costas Picolas
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Frontiers in Psychology, 2020
Patients in a Minimally Conscious State (MCS) constitute a subgroup of awareness impaired patient... more Patients in a Minimally Conscious State (MCS) constitute a subgroup of awareness impaired patients who show minimal signs of awareness as opposed to patients in a Vegetative State who do not exhibit any such signs. While the empirical literature is rich in studies investigating either overt or covert signs of awareness in such patients the question of self-awareness has only scarcely been addressed. Even in the occasion where self-awareness is concerned, it is only higher-order or reflective self-awareness that is the target of such investigations. In the first part of this paper, I briefly review the relevant clinical neuroscience literature to demonstrate that the conception of self-awareness at play in such studies is indeed that of reflective self-awareness. In the second part, I present the philosophical notion of pre-reflective (or minimal) self-awareness. This is shown to primarily refer to the implicit awareness of our embodied subjectivity which essentially permeates all ou...
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Front Psychol., 2020
Patients in a Minimally Conscious State (MCS) constitute a subgroup of awareness impaired patient... more Patients in a Minimally Conscious State (MCS) constitute a subgroup of awareness impaired patients who show minimal signs of awareness as opposed to patients in a Vegetative State who do not exhibit any such signs. While the empirical literature is rich in studies investigating either overt or covert signs of awareness in such patients the question of self-awareness has only scarcely been addressed. Even in the occasion where self-awareness is concerned, it is only higher-order or reflective self-awareness that is the target of such investigations. In the first part of this paper, I briefly review the relevant clinical neuroscience literature to demonstrate that the conception of self-awareness at play in such studies is indeed that of reflective self-awareness. In the second part, I present the philosophical notion of pre-reflective (or minimal) self-awareness. This is shown to primarily refer to the implicit awareness of our embodied subjectivity which essentially permeates all our experiences. As discussed, this minimal self-awareness is not specifically addressed when clinically or experimentally assessing patients in MCS. My suggestion is that neuroimaging studies targeting minimal self-awareness as in First-Person Perspective-taking paradigms could be used with MCS patients to shed light on the question of whether those individuals are minimally self-aware even in the case where they lack self-reflective abilities. Empirical evidence of this kind could have important theoretical implications for the discussion about the notion of self-awareness but also potential medical and social/legal implications for awareness impaired patients' management.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy
The movement for the naturalization of intentionality or of phenomenology is growing. Among other... more The movement for the naturalization of intentionality or of phenomenology is growing. Among other characteristics, the relevant approaches also give special attention to the non-representational and enactive character of experience. Intentionality of the mind and its meaning-giving essence are understood in such a context. Meaningfulness of cognition and behavior, however, presuppose the organization and synthesis of sensory and other elements in a horizon of temporality. But how is the opening-up of this horizon made possible in the living beings? Quite a few ideas have been offered, which attempt to ‘transplant’ Husserl’s account of temporality into the neuronal substructure of the living organisms (Varela 1999, van Gelder 1999, Grush 2006). In our paper we present and develop the novel idea that the opening-up of the temporal horizon is made possible on the basis of the desirative/orectic phenomena of the living organism. After an exposition of the issue concerning the possible natural basis of the temporalization of experience and comportment, we offer a classification of the desirative/orectic phenomena in corresponding different levels of the articulation of the living organisms. Then we maintain that the orectic phenomena properly so-called are not directed toward concrete or specific objects or sensory contents, but toward evolutionarily/survivally significant values. We explicate how, in this orectic directedness to values, the opening-up of the temporal horizon happens. For the deepening of the naturalized understanding of this happening, though, we need to trace relevant neuronal circuits. We appeal to Panksepp’s behavioral neuro-ethological findings regarding the presence of a SEEKING system in collaborating dopaminergic circuits in the subcortical frontal brain. Finally, we interpret this system as orectic and value-directed and show that Panksepp’s results underpin the idea that such a system makes possible the opening-up of the primordial temporal horizon.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Thesis Chapters by Costas Picolas
Conference Presentations by Costas Picolas
Poster presented at the 2015 ASSC Workshop on Sensorimotor Theory (Paris: July, 2015
Papers by Costas Picolas
Poster presented at the 2015 ASSC Workshop on Sensorimotor Theory (Paris: July, 2015