Dr Jakob Hohwy
Ph.D., ANU 1999
Email: Jakob.Hohwy@monash.edu
Phone: +61 3 990 53208
Other contact details.
My teaching is mainly in philosophy of mind, critical thinking and philosophy of language. I'm involved in research in philosophy of mind, ranging from the traditional mind-body debate over philosophy of cognitive neuroscience to philosophical psychopathology. In much of this research the focus is on the notions of reduction and explanation: how can the science of the brain explain higher-level, psychological phenomena? I am involved in a number of experimental, interdisciplinary research projects with neuroscientists and psychiatrists.
Two major research projects are currently funded by the Australian Research Council. The first grant is "Conscious states in conscious creatures: A philosophical framework for the science of consciousness" (DP0984572). This grant, which is held with Tim Bayne (Oxford) focuses on fundamental issues in the science of consciousness concerning the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. We are especially interested in the difference between what it is to be conscious as such and what it is to have specific conscious experiences. We focus, for example, on studies of binocular rivalry and studies of preservation of consciousness in disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative state. We do both conceptual analysis and empirical experiments. The second grant, "A model of the mind which explains the role of emotions in normal cognition and affective disorder" (DP0988514) is held with Philip Gerrans (Adelaide). We are interested in neurobiological and computational neuroscience challenges to various standard models of emotion. In particular, we think that reward prediction has been overlooked in some of these models and that its inclusion will provide a more comprehensive model of emotion and affect, which will also throw new light on affective disorders like depression and addiction.
I welcome honours and research students in all of the above areas. Students can work on research projects in traditional philosophical areas or join in some of the interdisciplinary research projects. I welcome students with a background mainly in philosophy as well as students with a background in areas such as medicine, psychology, biology, computer science, and engineering. If you want to hear more about any particular research projects, either in philosophy or interdisciplinary, then you're welcome to contact me.
Education
- Mag.Art., Inst. for filosofi, Aarhus Universitet, 1995.
- M.Phil., Dept. of Logic & Metaphysics, University of St. Andrews, 1992.
- Ph.D., Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1998. [Ph.D.-thesis: Meaning as Use, Philosophy Program, RSSS, ANU, 1998.]
Area of research
Philosophy of mind and language, philosophy of science, philosophy of neuroscience and neuropsychiatry.
Publications
Books and edited collections:
Hohwy, J. & Kallestrup, J. (eds).. Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. September 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-921153-1. With contributions from: Valerie Gray Hardcastle and Rosalyn Stewart, John Bickle, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Christian List & Philip Pettit, Jaegwon Kim, Peter Lipton, David Papineau, Barry Loewer, Louise Antony, Tim Crane, Peter Menzies, James Woodward, Daniel Stoljar, Karen Bennett.
Functional Integration and the Mind. Special issue of Synthese 159(3), 2007. Guest editor, J. Hohwy. With contributions from: Mike Anderson, Rick Grush, Tori McGeer, Chris Eliasmith, Karl Friston and Klaas Stephan, Philip Gerrans, Tim Bayne & Elizabeth Pacherie.
Articles:
Paton, B., Hohwy, J., Enticott, P. The rubber hand illusion reveals proprioceptive and sensorimotor differences in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-011-1430-7. [Final draft]
Hohwy, J. & Rajan, V. Delusions as Forensically Disturbing Perceptual Inferences. Neuroethics. 2011 doi: 10.1007/s12152-011-9124-6
Hohwy, J. & Fox, E. forthcoming. Preserved aspects of consciousness in disorders of consciousness: A review and conceptual analysis. Journal of Consciousness Studies. Scheduled for 2012.
Hohwy, J. Phenomenal variability and introspective reliability. Mind & Language 26(3): 261-286, 2011.
Hohwy, J. (2010). Mind-brain identity and evidential insulation. Philosophical Studies. Online First DOI: 10.1007/s11098-010-9524-1.
Hohwy, J., Paton, B. (2010). Explaining away the body: experiences of supernaturally caused touch and touch on non-hand objects within the rubber hand illusion. PLoS ONE 5(2): e9416. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009416
Hohwy, J. (2010). The hypothesis testing brain: some philosophical implications. In ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science. Edited by Wayne Christensen, Elizabeth Schier, and John Sutton. Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.
Hohwy, J. (2009). The neural correlates of consciousness: new experimental approaches needed?< Consciousness and Cognition. 18: 428-438.
Hohwy, J., Reutens, D. (2009). A case for increased caution in end of life decision for disorders of consciousness. Monash Bioethics Review 28, No. 2: 13.1-13.13.
Hohwy, J., Roepstorff, A., Friston, K. Predictive coding explains binocular rivalry: an epistemological review. Cognition 108 (3): 687-701, 2008.
Hohwy, J. Functional integration and the mind. Synthese 159(3): 315-328, 2007.
Hohwy, J. The Sense of Self in the Phenomenology of Agency and Perception. Psyche 13/2 (Susanna Siegel, ed.). 2007.
Hohwy, J. The Search for Neural Correlates of Consciousness. Philosophy Compass 2/3: 461-474, 2007.
Hohwy, J. Internalized meaning factualism. Philosophia, Philosophical Quarterly of Israel 34:3: 325-336.
Hohwy, J., Rosenberg, R. Cognitive neuropsychiatry: conceptual and methodological issues. World Journal of Biological Psychiatry 6(3): 192-197, 2005.
Hohwy, J., Rosenberg, R. Unusual experiences, reality testing and delusions of alien control. Mind & Language 20(2): 141-162, 2005.
Hohwy, J. Explanation and two conceptions of the physical. Erkenntnis 62: 71-89, 2005.
Hohwy, J., Frith, C. Can neuroscience explain consciousness? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11 (7-8): 180-198, 2004.
Hohwy, J. Evidence, explanation, and experience: On the harder problem of consciousness. The Journal of Philosophy CI (5): 242-254, 2004. Also found on Ned Block's webpages.
Hohwy, J. The experience of mental causation. Behaviour and Philosophy 32, 377-400, 2004.
Hohwy, J. Top-down and bottom-up in delusion formation. Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 11(1): 65-70, 2004.
Hohwy, J., Frith, C. Studies of the neural correlates of consciousness can do better, but are on the right track. Journal of Consciousness Studies 11(1): 45–51, 2004.
Hohwy, J. Capacities, explanation and the possibility of disunity. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17(2): 179–190, 2003.
Hohwy, J. Critical Notice: When Self-Consciousness Breaks, by Lynn Stephens & Graham. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 8: 237–242, 2003.
Hohwy, J. A reductio of Kripke-Wittgenstein's objections to dispositionalism about meaning, Minds and Machines 13(2): 257–268, 2003.
Hohwy, J. Deflationism about truth and meaning. Southern Journal of Philosophy 40: 217–242, 2002.
Hohwy, J. Privileged self-Knowledge and externalism: A contextualist approach. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 83: 235–252, 2002.
Hohwy, J. Semantic primitivism and normativity. Ratio 14: 1–17, 2001.
Gold, I., Hohwy, J. Rationality and schizophrenic delusion. Mind and Language 15: 146–167, 2000. Also in Pathologies of Belief, M. Coltheart & M. Davies (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell 2000.
Hohwy, J. Quietism and cognitive command. Philosophical Quarterly 47: 496–500, 1997.
Companion and encyclopaedia entries
Consciousness. In The Language of Science - ISSN 1971-1352 - Monza: Polimetrica.
Reviews:
Review. The Nature of Consciousness, by Mark Rowlands. In Philosophical Psychology 18(1): 145–156, 2005.