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  1. Is human information processing conscious?Max Velmans - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (4):651-69.
    Investigations of the function of consciousness in human information processing have focused mainly on two questions: (1) where does consciousness enter into the information processing sequence and (2) how does conscious processing differ from preconscious and unconscious processing. Input analysis is thought to be initially "preconscious," "pre-attentive," fast, involuntary, and automatic. This is followed by "conscious," "focal-attentive" analysis which is relatively slow, voluntary, and flexible. It is thought that simple, familiar stimuli can be identified preconsciously, but conscious processing is needed (...)
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  2.  77
    (1 other version)Understanding Consciousness.Max Velmans - 2000 - London: Routledge.
    The mysteries of consciousness have gripped the human imagination for over 2,500 years. At the dawn of the new millennium, Understanding Consciousness provides new solutions to some of the deepest puzzles surrounding its nature and function. Drawing on recent scientific discoveries, Max Velmans challenges conventional reductionist thought, providing an understanding of how consciousness relates to the brain and physical world that is neither dualist, nor reductionist. Understanding Consciousness will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned (...)
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  3. Consciousness from a first-person perspective.Max Velmans - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (4):702-726.
    This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...)
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  4. Consciousness, brain, and the physical world.Max Velmans - 1990 - Philosophical Psychology 3 (1):77-99.
    Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world as-perceived is a (...)
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  5.  97
    Is the mind conscious, functional, or both?Max Velmans - 1990 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (4):629-630.
    What, in essence, characterizes the mind? According to Searle, the potential to be conscious provides the only definitive criterion. Thus, conscious states are unquestionably "mental"; "shallow unconscious" states are also "mental" by virtue of their capacity to be conscious (at least in principle); but there are no "deep unconscious mental states" - i.e. those rules and procedures without access to consciousness, inferred by cognitive science to characterize the operations of the unconscious mind are not mental at all. Indeed, according to (...)
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  6.  51
    The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological, and Clinical Reviews.Max Velmans (ed.) - 1996 - New York: Routledge.
    Of all the problems facing science none are more challenging yet fascinating than those posed by consciousness. In The Science of Consciousness leading researchers examine how consciousness is being investigated in the key areas of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and clinical psychology. Within cognitive psychology, special focus is given to the function of consciousness, and to the relation of conscious processing to nonconscious processing in perception, learning, memory and information dissemination. Neuropsychology includes examination of the neural conditions for consciousness and the (...)
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  7. (1 other version)The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness.Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.) - 2007 - New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
    (From the book cover in 2007) The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness is the most thorough and comprehensive survey of contemporary scientific research and philosophical thought on consciousness currently available. Its 55 newly commissioned, peer-reviewed chapters combine state-of-the-art surveys with cutting edge research. Taken as a whole, these essays by leading lights in the philosophy and science of consciousness create an engaging dialog and unparalleled source of information regarding this most fascinating and mysterious subject.
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  8.  51
    Consciousness, causality and complementarity.Max Velmans - 1993 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (2):404-416.
    This reply to five continuing commentaries on my 1991 target article on “Is human information processing conscious” focuses on six related issues: 1) whether focal attentive processing replaces consciousness as a causal agent in third-person viewable human information processing, 2)whether consciousness can be dissociated from human information processing, 3) continuing disputes about definitions of "consciousness" and about what constitutes a “conscious process” , 4) how observer-relativity in psychology relates (and does not relate) to relativity in physics, 5) whether the first-person (...)
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  9.  51
    How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?Max Velmans - 2002 - Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
    In daily life we take it for granted that our minds have conscious control of our actions, at least for most of the time. But many scientists and philosophers deny that this is really the case, because there is no generally accepted theory of how the mind interacts with the body. Max Velmans presents a non-reductive solution to the problem, in which ‘conscious mental control’ includes ‘voluntary’ operations of the preconscious mind. On this account, biological determinism is compatible with experienced (...)
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  10.  49
    An Introduction to the science of consciousness.Max Velmans - 1996 - In The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological, and Clinical Reviews. New York: Routledge. pp. 1-22.
    Abstract. This introductory chapter was written in 1996, for a new book of review articles on the emerging science of consciousness, specifically aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students by experts in the relevant fields. Following on a brief history, the chapter moves on to definitions of consciousness and background philosophical issues, and then introduces a unified, non-reductionist scientific approach. It then summarises major issues for studies of consciousness in cognitive psychology, including studies of attention, memory, the extent of preconscious analysis (...)
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  11. How could conscious experiences affect brains?Max Velmans - 2002 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 9 (11):3-29.
    In everyday life we take it for granted that we have conscious control of some of our actions and that the part of us that exercises control is the conscious mind. Psychosomatic medicine also assumes that the conscious mind can affect body states, and this is supported by evidence that the use of imagery, hypnosis, biofeedback and other ‘mental interventions’ can be therapeutic in a variety of medical conditions. However, there is no accepted theory of mind/body interaction and this has (...)
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  12. Reflexive monism.Max Velmans - 2008 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (2):5-50.
    Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming “out-thereness” of the phenomenal world and to (...)
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  13. (1 other version)Heterophenomenology versus critical phenomenology.Max Velmans - 2007 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1-2):221-230.
    Following an on-line dialogue with Dennett (Velmans, 2001) this paper examines the similarities and differences between heterophenomenology (HP) and critical phenomenology (CP), two competing accounts of the way that conscious phenomenology should be, and normally is incorporated into psychology and related sciences. Dennett’s heterophenomenology includes subjective reports of conscious experiences, but according to Dennett, first person conscious phenomena in the form of “qualia” such as hardness, redness, itchiness etc. have no real existence. Consequently, subjective reports about such qualia should be (...)
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  14. (1 other version)An epistemology for the study of consciousness.Max Velmans - 2007 - In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 711--725.
    This is a prepublication version of the final chapter from the Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. In it I re-examine the basic conditions required for a study of conscious experiences in the light of progress made in recent years in the field of consciousness studies. I argue that neither dualist nor reductionist assumptions about subjectivity versus objectivity and the privacy of experience versus the public nature of scientific observations allow an adequate understanding of how studies of consciousness actually proceed. The chapter (...)
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  15.  97
    Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: New Methodologies and Maps.Max Velmans (ed.) - 2000 - Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
    How can one investigate phenomenal consciousness? As in other areas of science, the investigation of consciousness aims for a more precise knowledge of its phenomena, and the discovery of general truths about their nature. This requires the development of appropriate first-person, second-person and third-person methods. This book introduces some of the creative ways in which these methods can be applied to different purposes, e.g. to understanding the relation of consciousness to brain, to examining or changing consciousness as such, and to (...)
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  16.  74
    (1 other version)A reflexive science of consciousness.Max Velmans - 1993 - In Gregory Bock & Joan Marsh (eds.), Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Consciousness: Ciba Foundation Symposium 174. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 81-99.
    Classical ways of viewing the relation of consciousness to the brain and physical world make it difficult to see how consciousness can be a subject of scientific study. In contrast to physical events, it seems to be private, subjective, and viewable only from a subject's first-person perspective. But much of psychology does investigate human experience, which suggests that classical ways of viewing these relations must be wrong. An alternative, Reflexive model is outlined along with it's consequences for methodology. Within this (...)
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  17. Preconscious free will.Max Velmans - 2003 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 10 (12):42-61.
    This paper responds to continuing commentary on Velmans (2002a) “How could conscious experiences affect brains,” a target article for a special issue of JCS. I focus on the final question dealt with by the target article: how free will relates to preconscious and conscious mental processing, and I develop the case for preconscious free will. Although “preconscious free will” might appear to be a contradiction in terms, it is consistent with the scientific evidence and provides a parsimonious way to reconcile (...)
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  18.  82
    Reflexive Monism Psychophysical Relations among Mind, Matter, and Consciousness.Max Velmans - 2012 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (9-10):143-165.
    This paper provides an initial, multidimensional map of the complex relationships among consciousness, mind, brain, and the external world in a way that both follows the contours of everyday experience and the findings of science. It then demonstrates how this reflexive monist map can be used to evaluate the utility and resolve some of the oppositions of the many other 'isms' that currently populate consciousness studies. While no conventional, one-dimensional 'ism' such as physicalism can do justice to this web of (...)
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  19.  64
    The world as-perceived, the world as-described by physics, and the thing-itself: A reply to Rentoul and Wetherick.Max Velmans - 1992 - Philosophical Psychology 5 (2):167 – 172.
    This paper summarised the main arguments presented in "Consciousness, brain and the physical world" Philosophical Psychology (1990) to introduce a symposium on that paper. This was the first symposium on Velmans' Reflexive Model of Perception (the departure point for Reflexive Monism). This summary of the 1990 paper was followed by three critiques (by Robert Rentoul, Norman Wetherick, and Grant Gillett) followed by two replies. At the time of this upload (25 years later) many of the points in the 1991 paper (...)
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  20.  91
    Consciousness and the "causal paradox".Max Velmans - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (3):538-542.
    Viewed from a first-person perspective consciousness appears to be necessary for complex, novel human activity - but viewed from a third-person perspective consciousness appears to play no role in the activity of brains, producing a "causal paradox". To resolve this paradox one needs to distinguish consciousness of processing from consciousness accompanying processing or causing processing. Accounts of consciousness/brain causal interactions switch between first- and third-person perspectives. However, epistemically, the differences between first- and third-person access are fundamental. First- and third-person accounts (...)
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  21.  34
    Intersubjective science.Max Velmans - 1999 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (2-3):299-306.
    The study of consciousness in modern science is hampered by deeply ingrained, dualist presuppositions about the nature of consciousness. In particular, conscious experiences are thought to be private and subjective, contrasting with physical phenomena which are public and objective. In the present article, I argue that all observed phenomena are, in a sense, private to a given observer, although there are some events to which there is public access. Phenomena can be objective in the sense of intersubjective, investigators can be (...)
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  22. Where experiences are: Dualist, physicalist, enactive and reflexive accounts of phenomenal consciousness.Max Velmans - 2007 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (4):547-563.
    Dualists believe that experiences have neither location nor extension, while reductive and ‘non-reductive’ physicalists (biological naturalists) believe that experiences are really in the brain, producing an apparent impasse in current theories of mind. Enactive and reflexive models of perception try to resolve this impasse with a form of “externalism” that challenges the assumption that experiences must either be nowhere or in the brain. However, they are externalist in very different ways. Insofar as they locate experiences anywhere, enactive models locate conscious (...)
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  23.  35
    Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2.Max Velmans - 2009 - Routledge/Psychology Press.
    A current, comprehensive summary of Velmans' theoretical work that updates and deepens the analysis given in Edition 1. Part 1 reviews the strengths and weaknesses of all currently dominant theories of consciousness in a form suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers focusing mainly on dualism, physicalism, functionalism and consciousness in machines. Part 2 gives a new analysis of consciousness, grounded in its everyday phenomenology, which undermines the basis of the dualism versus reductionist debate. It also examines the consequences for realism (...)
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  24.  64
    (1 other version)Dualism, reductionism, and reflexive monism.Max Velmans - 2007 - In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 346-358.
    (added for 2013 upload): This chapter compares classical dualist and reductionist views of phenomenal consciousness with an alternative, reflexive way of viewing the relations amongst consciousness, brain and the external physical world. It argues that dualism splits the universe in two fundamental ways: in viewing phenomenal consciousness as having neither location nor extension it splits consciousness from the material world, and subject from object. Materialist reductionism views consciousness as a brain state or function (located and extended in the brain) which (...)
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  25.  87
    The relation of consciousness to the material world.Max Velmans - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):255-265.
    Within psychology and the brain sciences, the study of consciousness and its relation to human information processing is once more a focus for productive research. However, some ancient puzzles about the nature of consciousness appear to be resistant to current empirical investigations, suggesting the need for a fundamentally different approach. In Velmans I have argued that functional accounts of the mind do not `contain' consciousness within their workings. Investigations of information processing are not investigations of consciousness as such. Given this, (...)
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  26.  46
    Synopsis of 'consciousness, brain and the physical world'.Max Velmans - 1992 - Philosophical Psychology 5 (2):153-157.
    (1992). Synopsis of ‘consciousness, brain and the physical world’. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 153-157. doi: 10.1080/09515089208573049.
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  27.  99
    Making sense of causal interactions between consciousness and brain.Max Velmans - 2002 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 9 (11):69-95.
    My target article (henceforth referred to as TA) presents evidence for causal interactions between consciousness and brain and some standard ways of accounting for this evidence in clinical practice and neuropsychological theory. I also point out some of the problems of understanding such causal interactions that are not addressed by standard explanations. Most of the residual problems have to do with how to cross the “explanatory gap” from consciousness to brain. I then list some of the reasons why the route (...)
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  28.  50
    ERP evidence for successful voluntary avoidance of conscious recollection.Zara M. Bergström, Max Velmans, Jan de Fockert & Alan Richardson-Klavehn - 2007 - Brain Research 1151:119-133.
  29.  53
    A psychologist's map of consciousness studies.Max Velmans - 2000 - In Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: New Methodologies and Maps. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 333-358.
    This overview of Consciousness Studies examines the conditions that one has to satisfy to establish a scientific investigation of phenomenal consciousness. Written from the perspective experimental psychology, it follows a two-pronged approach in which traditional third-person methods for investigating the brain and physical world are complementary to first-person methods for investigating subjective experience allowing the possibility of finding “bridging laws” that relate such first- and third-person data to each other. Mindful of the relative sophistication of third-person methods the chapter focuses (...)
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  30.  78
    When perception becomes conscious.Max Velmans - 1999 - British Journal of Psychology 90 (4):543-566.
    The study of preconscious versus conscious processing has an extensive history in cognitive psychology, dating back to the writings of William James. Much of the experimental work on this issue has focused on perception, conceived of as input analysis, and on the relation of consciousness to attentional processing. The present paper examines when input analysis becomes conscious from the perspectives of cognitive modelling, methodology, and a more detailed understanding of what is meant by "conscious processing." Current evidence suggests that perception (...)
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  31. Physical, psychological and virtual realities.Max Velmans - 1998 - In Joanne A. Wood (ed.), [Book Chapter]. Routledge. pp. 45-60.
    This chapter examines the similarities and differences between physical, psychological and virtual realities, and challenges some conventional, implicitly dualist assumptions about how these relate to each other. Virtual realities are not easily understood in either dualist or materialist reductive terms, as they exemplify the reflexive nature of perception. The chapter summarises some of the evidence for this “reflexive model”—and examines some of its consequences for the “hard” problem of consciousness. The chapter then goes on to consider how these realities might (...)
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  32.  72
    Is consciousness integrated?Max Velmans - 1992 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (2):229-230.
    In the visual system, the represented features of individual objects (shape, colour, movement, and so on) are distributed both in space and time within the brain. Representations of inner and outer event sequences arrive through different sense organs at different times, and are likewise distributed. Objects are nevertheless perceived as integrated wholes - and event sequences are experienced to form a coherent "consciousness stream." In their thoughtful article, Dennett & Kinsbourne ask how this is achieved.
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  33.  81
    The limits of neuropsychological models of consciousness.Max Velmans - 1995 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18 (4):702-703.
    This commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousness might explain how consciousness arises from the brain, but does not address how consciousness evolved, affects behaviour or confers survival value. The commentary argues that such limitations apply to all neurophysiological or other third-person perspective models. To approach such questions the first-person nature of consciousness needs to be taken seriously in combination with third-person models of the brain.
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  34.  32
    The evolution of consciousness.Max Velmans - 2010 - In Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes (eds.), Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 261-272.
    There have been various attempts to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to an understanding of the human condition within psychology and the social sciences. This paper evaluates whether Darwinian Theory can explain human consciousness. Starting with a brief definition of phenomenal consciousness and the central features of evolutionary theory, the paper examines whether random variations in the genome that confer a selective, reproductive advantage can explain both the emergence of consciousness and its varied forms. To inform the discussion, the paper reviews (...)
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  35.  51
    Is the universe conscious? Reflexive monism and the ground of being.Max Velmans - 2021 - In Edward F. Kelly & Paul Marshall (eds.), Consciousness Unbound: Liberating Mind from the Tyranny of Materialism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
    This chapter examines the integrative nature of reflexive monism (RM), a psychological/philosophical model of a reflexive, self-observing universe that can accommodate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences in a natural, non-reductive way that avoids both the problems of reductive materialism and the (inverse) pitfalls of reductive idealism. To contextualize the ancient roots of the model, the chapter touches briefly on classical models of consciousness, mind and soul and how these differ in a fundamental way from how mind and consciousness are viewed (...)
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  36. Why conscious free will both is and isn't an illusion.Max Velmans - 2004 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (5):677.
    Wegner’s analysis of the illusion of conscious will is close to my own account of how conscious experiences relate to brain processes. But our analyses differ somewhat on how conscious will is not an illusion. Wegner argues that once conscious will arises it enters causally into subsequent mental processing. I argue that while his causal story is accurate, it remains a first-person story. Conscious free will is not an illusion in the sense that this first-person story is compatible with and (...)
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  37. Defining consciousness.Max Velmans - manuscript
    The following extracts with connecting comments suggest a departure point for a definitions of consciousness that preserves its everyday phenomenology while allowing an understanding of what consciousness is to deepen as scientific investigation proceeds. I argue that current definitions are often theory-driven rather than following the contours of ordinary experience. Consequently they are sometimes too broad, sometimes too narrow, and sometimes not definitions of phenomenal consciousness at all. As an alternative, an ecologically valid, reflexive approach to consciousness is suggested that (...)
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  38. A natural account of phenomenal consciousness.Max Velmans - 2001 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 34 (1):39-59.
    Physicalists commonly argue that conscious experiences are nothing more than states of the brain, and that conscious qualia are observer-independent, physical properties of the external world. Although this assumes the 'mantle of science,' it routinely ignores the findings of science, for example in sensory physiology, perception, psychophysics, neuropsychology and comparative psychology. Consequently, although physicalism aims to naturalise consciousness, it gives an unnatural account of it. It is possible, however, to develop a natural, nonreductive, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to (...)
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  39.  44
    A Thoroughly Empirical First-person Approach To Consciousness: Commentary On Baars On Contrastive Analysis.Max Velmans - 1994 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 1.
    According to Nagel, bat consciousness is "what it is like to be a bat.'' According to Baars, we will never know what it is like to be bat, so this approach to consciousness does not allow the science of consciousness to progress. Rather, the nature of consciousness as such should be determined empirically, by contrasting processes which are conscious with processes that are not conscious. The present commentary argues that contrastive analysis is appropriate for finding the processes most closely associated (...)
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  40. Could phenomenal consciousness function as a cognitive unconscious?Max Velmans - 2002 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (3):357-358.
    Evidence for unconscious semantic representation suggests that a cognitive unconscious exists. Phenomenal consciousness cannot easily be shown to deal with complex cognitive operations such as those involved in language translation and creativity. A self-organising phenomenal consciousness that controls brain functions also runs into mind/body problems (well recognised in the consciousness studies literature) that Perruchet & Vinter must address.
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  41.  94
    Is the world in the brain, or the brain in the world?Max Velmans - 2003 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (4):427-429.
    Lehar provides useful insights into spatially extended phenomenology that may have major consequences for neuroscience. However, Lehar's biological naturalism leads to counterintuitive conclusions, and he does not give an accurate account of preceding and competing work. This commentary compares Lehar's analysis with that of Velmans, which addresses similar issues but draws opposite conclusions. Lehar argues that the phenomenal world is in the brain and concludes that the physical skull is beyond the phenomenal world. Velmans argues that the brain is in (...)
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  42.  73
    Introduction to Monist Alternatives to Physicalism.Max Velmans, Yujin Nagasawa, In M. Velmans & Y. Nagasawa - 2012 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (9-10):7-18.
    This Introduction to a Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to Physicalism summarises some of the basic problems of Physicalism and common fallacies in arguments for its defence that are found in the philosophical and scientific literature. It then introduces six monist alternatives: 1) a form of emergent panpsychism developed by William Seager; 2) a novel introduction to the process philosophy of A.N. Whitehead by Anderson Weekes; 3) a review of current developments in Russellian Monism by Torin (...)
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  43. How experienced phenomena relate to things themselves: Kant, Husserl, Hoche, and reflexive monism.Max Velmans - 2007 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (3):411-423.
    What we normally think of as the “physical world” is also the world as experienced, that is, a world of appearances. Given this, what is the reality behind the appearances, and what might its relation be to consciousness and to constructive processes in the mind? According to Kant, the thing itself that brings about and supports these appearances is unknowable and we can never gain any understanding of how it brings such appearances about. Reflexive monism argues the opposite: the thing (...)
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  44.  85
    Are we out of our minds?Max Velmans - 2005 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (6):109-116.
    This paper is a commentary on Rupert Sheldrake’s analysis of theories of perception (in JCS, 2005, 2006). As Sheldrake points out in his fascinating review of ancient and modern thinking on this subject, theories of vision have ranged from “extramissive” theories that posit some active influence emanating from the eyes that both illuminates and influences the external world, “intramissive” theories that stress the influence of the external world on the (passive) brain, and theories in which intramissive and extramissive influences combine. (...)
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  45. The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness Second Edition.Susan Schneider & Max Velmans (eds.) - 2017 - Chichester: West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
    (From the Publisher 2017) Featuring many important updates and revisions, the highly-anticipated second edition of The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness offers a collection of readings that together represent the most thorough and comprehensive survey of the nature of consciousness available today. Chapters delve deeply into the wide variety of scientific and philosophical problems that arise from the study of consciousness—as well as the philosophical, cognitive, neuroscientific, and phenomenological approaches to solving them. -/- Along with updates to existing scientific readings reflecting (...)
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  46.  45
    A Brief Note on How Phenomenal Objects Relate to Objects Themselves.Max Velmans - 2011 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (11-12):199-202.
    This brief note corrects some basic errors in Meijsing's JCS paper on 'The Whereabouts of Pictorial Space', concerning the status of phenomenal objects in the reflexive model of perception. In particular I clarify the precise sense in which a phenomenal object relates to the object itself in visual perception.
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  47.  45
    (3 other versions)A Companion to Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology) Volume 1: The Origins of Psychology and the Study of Consciousness, Major Works Series, London: Routledge, pp. 402.Max Velmans - manuscript
    This is the first of four online Companions to Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology), a 4-volume collection of Major Works on Consciousness commissioned by Routledge, London. Each of the Companions presents a pre-publication version of the introduction to one of the Volumes and, for Volume 1, it also sets the stage for the entire, printed collection. As the collection forms part of a Critical Concepts in Psychology series, this selection of major works focuses mainly on works (...)
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  48.  44
    A View of Consciousness from the Fringe.Max Velmans - 1993 - Consciousness and Cognition 2 (2):137-141.
    This paper evaluates Mangan’s (1993) analysis of the way feelings at the fringes of consciousness provide global evaluations of what is happening at the focus of attention in ways that allow the human mind to direct its activities in an effective, adaptive way—elaborating on a distinction between fringe consciousness and focal-attentive consciousness originally developed by William James. The paper argues that, while Mangan’s analysis is a plausible account of mental operations, viewed from a first-person perspective, it is inconsistent with a (...)
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  49.  58
    (2 other versions)Goodbye to Reductionism.Max Velmans - 1998 - In Hameroff S., Kaszniak A. & Scott Siera Aubrey Lee Scott (eds.), Towards a Science of Consciousness II: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates. MIT Press. pp. 45-52.
    This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically characterise experience in ways which do not correspond to ordinary experience, and that to understand consciousness one must start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. Only then can one develop an understanding of how experiences viewed from a first-person perspective relate to events in the brain viewed from a third-person perspective. The paper then lists some common arguments for conscious experiences (accurately described) being nothing more than brain (...)
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  50.  69
    Consciousness and the Physical World.Max Velmans - 2008 - In Michel Weber and Will Desmond (ed.), Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought. De Gruyter. pp. 371-382.
    Physicalists commonly argue that conscious experiences are nothing more than states of the brain, and that conscious qualia are observer-independent, physical properties of the external world. Although this assumes the ‘mantle of science,’ it routinely ignores the findings of science, for example in sensory physiology, perception, psychophysics, neuropsychology and comparative psychology. Consequently, although physicalism aims to ‘naturalise’ consciousness, it gives an unnatural account of it. It is possible, however, to develop a natural, nonreductive, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to (...)
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