Imperfect Cognitions

In this blog post, Lisa Bortolotti presents a special issue of Philosophical Psychology on Daniel Dennett's philosophy. Daniel Dennett It is difficult to think of a philosopher whose influence has been so pervasive as Daniel Dennett's. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that the terms he coined, the metaphors he created, and the thought experiments he devised have become instant classics, are part of everyone’s philosophical vocabulary, and still attract controversy and inspire new work. I have an enormous intellectual debt to Dennett. He was one of the main characters in my PhD dissertation, at the same time a villain (as I was arguing against a system's rationality being a constraint on the application of the intentional stance to the prediction of the system's behaviour) and a superhero (as I blindingly accepted his methodological rejection of philosophical exceptionalism).  It is a privilege, then, to be the editor of an issue of Philosophical Psychology dedica...

On the occasion of  #PhiloFortnight2025 , a period of two weeks in the UK dedicated to promoting philosophy, a webinar took place to address multiple ways in which philosophy can be brought to the general public. Poster of the event Panelists included: Paul Knights has a background in philosophy where he researched the relationship between philosophy and nature. Currently, he organises guides walks in the Pennine landscape, has interests in photography and environmental education, and participates in community projects. You can learn more about Paul's activities at the Landscape Story website . Bonny Astor has a background in psychology and a long-standing interest in philosophy as a means to connect deeply with people from different backgrounds and with different views. Currently, she leads the initiatives of Thought Experiments in Pubs and you can find more information about the events at the All Together One website . Helen Beebee is professor of philosophy of science at the ...

This post is by Anna Ichino, University of Milan. Have you ever visited a Philosophy Museum? I bet not. Apparently, indeed, there aren’t any Philosophy Museums in the world. Or better: there aren’t any yet… But together with my colleagues at the Philosophy Department of the University of Milan we have decided that it is time to build the first one. In this post, I’ll tell you about this exciting project. What we had in mind was not an historically-minded museum collecting relics about the lives and works of important philosophers; but something more dynamic and interactive – built on the model of the best science museums – where philosophical problems and theories become intuitively accessible through a variety of games, activities, experiments, aesthetic experiences, and other such things. Easier to say than to do, no doubt. It’s an ambitious project, and to put it into action we had to proceed gradually. We started with a temporary exhibition, which took place in ...

Edouard Machery is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh , the Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh , and a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (University of Pittsburgh-Carnegie Mellon University).  His research focuses on the philosophical issues raised by psychology and cognitive neuroscience with a special interest in concepts, moral psychology, the relevance of evolutionary biology for understanding cognition, modularity, the nature, origins, and ethical significance of prejudiced cognition, the foundation of statistics, and the methods of psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He also works in metaphilosophy, and he has been involved in the development of experimental philosophy. Here, he introduces his new book on philosophical methodology. Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds has four main goals. The first three are negative: ...

In this post Federico Bongiorno (PhD student at the University of Birmingham) interviews Peter Carruthers , Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Peter’s research has focused predominantly on philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and cognitive science. Here, Federico and Peter (pictured below) discuss Peter's position on the debate over cognitive phenomenology. FB : Your recent work has focussed, among other things, on the question of cognitive phenomenology. Roughly, the question amounts to asking whether cognition has its own phenomenal character. Can you tell us more about this issue and its significance? PC : The first thing that I ought to mention is that this is joint work done with Bénédicte Viellet. The issue is essentially whether thought has a phenomenal character that is not reducible to other kinds of phenomenal character. Thought is often associated with phenomenal states. As you listen to me speaking now, you are...