Peter J Mandik
Professor • Department of

Professional Interests
My research concerns points of intersection between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences, especially neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. I am primarily interested in naturalistic accounts of consciousness and intentionality. My main lines of research to date have focused largely on three areas: (1) neurophilosophical explanations of phenomenal consciousness, (2) artificial-life experiments on the evolutionary emergence of representational content, and (3) the role of action-oriented representations as the basis for enactive cognition and perception. My most recent directions for exploration are: type-Q materialist (Quinean) explanations of consciousness, especially conscious color vision; alternate architectures for posthuman minds (alternate minds in a hypothetical post-singularity era); and analytic philosophy of mind approaches to meditation.
Other Interests
Visual art, especially painting, comic illustration, and graphic design
French
Degrees
Specialization
Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Cognitive Science
Representative Publications
This is Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction;
Oxford; Wiley-Blackwell;
2013
Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind;
New York, NY; Continuum;
2010
How Philosophy of Mind Can Shape the Future;
Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries; 2018
Metaphysical Daring as a Posthuman Survival Strategy;
, Midwest Studies In Philosophy;
Volume
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/misp.12040
Notable Courses Taught
Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Space and Time