Werner Reichardt Centrum für Integrative Neurowissenschaften (CIN)

Philosophy of Mind and Cognition

Research goals

We are concerned with the theoretical foundations of the Cognitive Sciences and investigate central phenomena in the Philosophy of Mind. A comprehenseive theory of mental phenomena calls for an interdisciplinary approach, where the bottom-up methods of the empirical neurosciences are integrated with the top-down approaches and conceptual concerns of Philosophy of Mind. Concrete projects concern

  1. Consciousness, attention and accessibility;
  2. Sensorimotor and cognitive intentionality;
  3. The nature, scope and functions of the imagination;
  4. Second-person approaches to understanding other minds;
  5. Metacognition in humans and non-human primates.

Inaddition to the relevant brain functions, these phenomena demand that we also consider the empodied sensorimotor or dynamics of the whole experiencing organism embedded in its natural environment.