Max Velmans
Encyclopedia
Max Velmans is a Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 at Goldsmiths, University of London. From 2003 to 2006 he was Chair of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society
British Psychological Society
The British Psychological Society is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. The BPS is also a Registered Charity and, along with advantages, this also imposes certain constraints on what the society can and cannot do...

 (an organisation he co-founded) and has been involved in many other initiatives to encourage studies in consciousness. He is known for the theory of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...

 called "reflexive monism
Reflexive monism
Monism is the view that the universe, at the deepest level of analysis, is one thing or composed of one fundamental kind of stuff. This is usually contrasted with Substance Dualism, the view found for example in the writings of Plato and Descartes that, fundamentally, the universe is composed of...

", in which the materialist/dualist gap is bridged by placing aspects of human consciousness in the experienced world, rather than within the brain; the theory also combines facets of realism
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....

 with facets of idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

, though it falls short of avowing the necessity of perception to the existence of reality per se (the principle of "esse est percipi").

Velmans is the author and editor of numerous books and papers on consciousness including Understanding Consciousness
Understanding Consciousness
Understanding Consciousness is a scientific-philosophical text written by psychologist Max Velmans. The book combines scientific studies of consciousness with philosophy of mind...

(Routledge/Psychology Press, London, 2000), Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2 (Routledge/Psychology Press, London, 2009)The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (Blackwell, 2007), The Science of Consciousness (Routledge, 1996), Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness (John Benjamins, 2000) and How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains? (Imprint, 2003).

Understanding Consciousness, arguably his most important work thus far, is a comprehensive summary of his theoretical work concerning consciousness, and introduces "reflexive monism". This theory of consciousness presents itself as an alternative to both dualism
Dualism
Dualism denotes a state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages. Dualism can refer to moral dualism, Dualism (from...

 and reductionism
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...

 that is arguably consistent both with the findings of science and with common sense. Briefly, this theory states that it is nonsensical to speak of phenomenological experiences of reality as occurring within the brain, given that some of them quite clearly occur within the experienced world itself (that is, asked to point to the light they experience, almost all rational subjects would point to the light that is experienced rather than to the brain, which is where, according to dualists and reductionists, the experience actually takes place). Thus, Velmans argues, the relationship between subjects and experienced reality is reflexive: some experiences apprehended by the subject are quite clearly placed "in the world" by the perceiving mind. The contents of consciousness are, thus, not exclusively in the brain, but often in the perceived physical world itself; in fact, in terms of phenomenology, there is no clear and distinct difference between what we normally think of as the "physical world", the "phenomenal world" and the "world as perceived". In Velmans' own words "Reflexive Monism [is] a modern version of the ancient view that humans are differentiated parts of a unified, reflexive universe".

See also

  • Changing places
    Changing places
    The changing places thought experiment was conceived of by Max Velmans, Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and was discussed in his 2000 work, Understanding Consciousness...

    , a thought experiment
    Thought experiment
    A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...

     devised by Velmans.
  • Reflexive monism
    Reflexive monism
    Monism is the view that the universe, at the deepest level of analysis, is one thing or composed of one fundamental kind of stuff. This is usually contrasted with Substance Dualism, the view found for example in the writings of Plato and Descartes that, fundamentally, the universe is composed of...

    , a dual-aspect theory of consciousness devised by Velmans and expounded most fully in his work Understanding Consciousness
    Understanding Consciousness
    Understanding Consciousness is a scientific-philosophical text written by psychologist Max Velmans. The book combines scientific studies of consciousness with philosophy of mind...

    .
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