Philosophical Psychology
February 27, 2026
José M. Araya
A commentary on Şerife Tekin's book argues that computational neurophenomenology can complement the MuSe (Multidimensional Self in Experience) framework to address challenges of objectivity in psychiatry. The author proposes integrating mechanistic accounts of self-model dynamics with MuSe's focus on subjective experience, which would strengthen the scientific standing of subjective reports and expand the role of experience-based experts in psychiatric research. This integration offers epistemic advantages and extends MuSe in new directions by grounding its facets in underlying dynamics.
Philosophies
February 26, 2026
Pavel Straňák
2 citations
Contemporary artificial intelligence excels at data processing and text generation but appears to lack consciousness, autonomous motivation, and genuine understanding. This article uses the metaphor of a motorcycle and a horse to argue that technological progress may obscure deeper principles of life and mind. Drawing on abduction, tacit knowledge, phenomenal consciousness, and autopoiesis, the paper contends that current approaches to Artificial General Intelligence may overlook organizational principles only partially understood in biological systems. It calls for a new paradigm that asks not just how to build smarter machines, but what intelligence, life, and consciousness fundamentally are, acknowledging their relation to computability remains an open question.
Erkenntnis
February 16, 2026
Marcelino Botin, Markel Kortabarria
Grounding is a non-reductive relation that helps physicalists address the hard problem of consciousness, but grounding physicalists face a new challenge: explaining substantive phenomenal knowledge, especially revelation—the claim that such knowledge reveals the essence of phenomenal properties. Revelation appears to conflict with the view that grounding relations are essence-mediated. Two solutions are offered: first, drop essence-mediation and adopt a law-based formulation of grounding physicalism, though this risks resembling dualism; second, retain essence-mediation and argue that, despite introspective appearances, phenomenal properties do not have purely phenomenal essences. Both approaches are viable, showing grounding physicalism can address the challenge.
Continental Philosophy Review
February 14, 2026
Jean Grondin
Gadamer, though rarely discussed in connection with sedimentation, is a key thinker on the topic within the phenomenological tradition. Sedimentation refers to what is deposited in consciousness, shaping it without full awareness. In Gadamer's work, this appears as the immemorial in consciousness, especially through the subterranean work of history in effective history (Wirkungsgeschichte). This yields a consciousness more affected by history than aware of its own sedimentations—more 'Being than consciousness.' Prejudices, traditions, and inherited language determine us more than conscious judgments, revealing that dialogue and language are always more inherited than created.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
February 13, 2026
Henrique Mendes
1 citation
Only a specific strain of enactive cognition—autopoietic or autonomist enactivism—genuinely challenges all core tenets of mainstream cognitive science, which are grounded in computationalism, representationalism, functionalism, internalism, and realism. Most other embodied, embedded, or extended cognition theories can be assimilated into the traditional cognitivist framework when suitably qualified. Autopoietic enactivism, rooted in second-order cybernetics and autopoietic theory, demands a deeper reconceptualization of cognition as emergent from dynamic, embodied interaction rather than internal symbol manipulation, resisting realist commitments and leaning toward radical constructivism. Thus, the enactive approach remains the only strand within 4E cognition where a full rejection of foundational assumptions is possible.
Consciousness and Cognition
February 11, 2026
Teresa Campillo-Ferrer, Antonella Iadarola, Ramona Cordani et al.
Unusual bodily experiences (UBEs)—illusory perceptions such as floating, body distortions, or out-of-body sensations—can occur during meditation and sleep. In a controlled sleep laboratory, 20 of 35 healthy participants reported 36 UBEs, primarily during meditation (wakefulness) but also during arousals, REM sleep, and non-REM sleep. Electroencephalography (EEG) analyses revealed that UBEs emerge during intermediate states of consciousness that combine features of wakefulness and sleep. Specifically, UBEs were associated with EEG reactivation: increased high-frequency activity (beta and gamma) and decreased low-frequency activity (delta and theta), especially around temporal regions. These findings offer new insights into the neural correlates of self-consciousness and body perception across sleep and wakefulness.
Analytic Philosophy
February 11, 2026
Andrew Y. Lee
A sense-datum theory of perception is developed and defended. Perceptual experiences involve acquaintance with sense-data, which are private particulars that have all the properties they appear to have, are common to perception and hallucination, constitute phenomenal character, and are analogous to internal pictures. The theory diverges from classic versions in three ways: sense-data are neural states presented first-personally; their sensational qualities differ from the sensible qualities of external objects; and sense-data are the vehicles of perception, not the objects perceived. This package is argued to be a viable contemporary position in philosophy of perception.
NeuroImage
February 4, 2026
Gabriel Della Bella, Agustina Velez Picatto, Dante Sebastián Galván Rial et al.
A participant who can reliably enter a self-induced non-ordinary state of consciousness (NOC) characterized by vivid imagery, altered bodily perception, and a sense of unity underwent 20 fMRI sessions. Compared to a control group, during the transition into the NOC state, functional connectivity became more variable, indicating temporary destabilization of network organization. In the NOC state, connectivity between brain networks broadly decreased, especially visual cortex coupling with auditory, sensorimotor, and other regions, while frontoparietal and salience networks increased coupling with precuneus and temporal areas, matching reports of inward attention and absorption. Entropy and complexity measures tracked the experience and returned to baseline afterward.
Psychopathology
February 2, 2026
Riccardo Poggioli, Giovanni Stanghellini
A critical expansion of phenomenological psychopathology from the individual to the collective dimension is proposed. To describe collective life and its link to individual psychology, the paper shifts focus from society to culture—a transversal symbolic system extending beyond social groups—and introduces "cultural existentials" (time, space, body, etc.) as a priori conditions of experience. These are integrated into a Dialectical Experiential Matrix (DEM) that frames the patient's experience as a dynamic interplay between individual freedom and cultural influence. An analysis of the convergence between pornographic culture and the homo œconomicus type demonstrates how cultural existentials provide a model for narcissistic vulnerabilities and dysregulations of alterity, offering a diagnostic device for clinicians.