Author Archive
The Peripheral Mind (OUP, 2013) now on pre-sale
My debut book, The Peripheral Mind. Philosophy of Mind and the Peripheral Nervous System (OUP, 2013) now on pre-sale. Check out the official FB page of the book for all the relevant links. The cover art by Alex Robciuc, as well as advance praise by Shaun Gallagher are pasted below. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
I. Aranyosi, The Peripheral Mind, forthcoming at OUP
An excerpt from the preface:
My approach in this monograph could easily be classified as part of the currently burgeoning “embodied mind” school or trend in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Where it differs from most other works in this field is, I would say, in that (a) it offers a somewhat more focused view of embodiment via offering a conceptual role to the PNS as such in analyzing mental phenomena rather than keeping the discourse at the level of notions like “body” or “action”, (b) it interprets the idea of the embodied mind not as most other philosophers, namely, representationally, as the body in the mind , but literally, namely, the mind as truly distributed over the body (in this sense, viz. of distinguishing it from most other popular approaches, I would rather call my approach “enminded body” than “embodied mind”), and (c) it relies a lot more on first-personal, phenomenological reflection when evaluating various theories about how things stand with the mind, without ending up in purely a priori conceptual analysis, but taking a lot of inspiration from empirical science (almost exclusively from neuroscience). Although most arguments I offer, and even the problems I raise in the book are, to my knowledge, new, the general points enumerated above, (a) to (c) are not totally absent from the current literature. I would especially like to express my intellectual debt to Shaun Gallagher’s work, whose methodology and general approach to various issues was a great inspiration, even if the particular issues and debates he has been involved with are not present in this work.
(cover design: I. Aranyosi, own body PET scan)
“Oral phenomenology” Special Issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
“Oral phenomenology” Special Issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Guest Editor: István Aranyosi (Bilkent University)
Csontváry, “Old woman peeling apple”, 1894, (detail)
Minds, Bodies, Afterthoughts, and Future Plans
The philosophy of mind conference Minds, Bodies, and Problems, held at Bilkent University on 7 and 8 June this year, is now over, and based on the feedback from speakers, local faculty, and students, we can indubitably call it a big success. The interest was great, we got a large number of excellent submissions that would have been enough for at least two such conferences. And the post-conference trip to Cappadocia, central Turkey, was simply amazing. Here is a group photo taken there, followed by some afterthoughts and future plans connected to this conference, which we plan to organize every year at Bilkent University.
“Minds, Bodies, and Problems” conference, Bilkent University, June 7-8, 2012
After several weeks of processing submissions, comparing the referee reports on them, and negotiating various potential lists of speakers based on various criteria, I have put together the final list of submitted papers that I expect to be presented at the “Minds, Bodies, and Problems” conference, hosted by Bilkent University on 7-8 June, 2012.
Bilkent University
All papers have been anonymously refereed, and I would like to thank the reviewers (Murat Aydede, Sandy Berkovski, David Chalmers, Tim Crane, Hilmi Demir, Katalin Farkas, Shaun Gallagher, Kourken Michaelian, Vincent Müller, Emre Özgen, Erdinc Sayan, Simon Wigley, and Bill Wringe) for their kind help in the selection process. Their input is very much appreciated.
