Thomas Metzinger - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Thomas Metzinger is a German philosopher. he holds the position of director of the theoretical philosophy group at the department of philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

The Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz is a university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg. With approximately 36,000 students in about 150 schools and clinics, it is among the ten largest universities in Germany...

and is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies

Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies

The Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies is a private-public institution for basic theoretical research in various areas of sciencefocusing on interdisiplinary research located in Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany....

and on the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation

Giordano Bruno Foundation

The Giordano Bruno Foundation is a Germany based non-profit foundation under public law that pursues the “Support of Evolutionary Humanism”. It was founded by entrepreneur Herbert Steffen in 2004 and was named after the Dominican monk Giordano Bruno who was convicted of heresy and burnt at the...

. From 2008 to 2009 he served as a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

He has been active since the early 1990s in the promotion 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...

studies as an academic endeavour. As a co-founder, he has been particularly active in the organization of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness

Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness

The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness is a professional membership organization that aims to encourage research on consciousness in cognitive science, neuroscience, philosophy, and other relevant disciplines in the sciences and humanities, directed toward understanding the...

(ASSC), and sat on the board of directors of that organisation from 1995 to 2008. He served as president of the ASSC in 2009/10. Metzinger is director of the MIND group and has been president of the German cognitive science society from 2005 to 2007. In English he has published two edited works, Conscious Experience (1995), and Neural correlates of consciousness: empirical and conceptual issues (2000). The latter book arose out of the second ASSC meeting, for which he acted as local organizer.

In 2003 Metzinger published the monograph Being No One. In this book he argues that no such things as selves

Self (philosophy)

The philosophy of self defines the essential qualities that make one person distinct from all others. There have been numerous approaches to defining these qualities. The self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of consciousness. Moreover, this self is the agent responsible for the...

exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. He argues that the phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model

Self-model theory of subjectivity

The self-model theory of subjectivity , also known as the human self model, is a theory of conscious experience. This concept comprises experiences of ownership, of body-centered spatial perspectivity, and of a long-term unity of beliefs and attitudes. These features are instantiated in the...

." In 2009 Metzinger published a follow-up book to Being No One for a general audience: The Ego Tunnel (Basic Books, New York, ISBN 0-465-04567-7).

Metzinger's work addresses some of the fundamental issues in neurobiology, consciousness, and the relationship between mind and body. His views about the self are the subject of considerable controversy and ongoing debate.

Metzinger's interests include:

Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...

(esp. philosophical aspects of empirical theories in the neuro- and cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and related areas of research).
Ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

(esp. conceptual connections between applied ethics, the philosophy of mind and anthropology)

Metzinger supervises The Neuroethics Web Portal.

Literature

Monographs

(1985) Neuere Beiträge zur Diskussion des Leib-Seele-Problems. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3820489274
(1993) Subjekt und Selbstmodell. Die Perspektivität phänomenalen Bewußtseins vor dem Hintergrund einer naturalistischen Theorie mentaler Repräsentation. mentis, Paderborn, ISBN 3897850818
(2003) Being No One. The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA., ISBN 0262134179 (Hardcover)/ISBN 0262633086 (Paperback)
(2009) The Ego Tunnel - The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self Basic Books, New York, ISBN 0465045677
(2009) Der Ego-Tunnel - Eine neue Philosophie des Selbst: Von der Hirnforschung zur Bewusstseinsethik Berlin Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3827006309
(2010) Der Ego Tunnel. Eine neue Philosophie des Selbst: Von der Hirnforschung zur Bewusstseinsethik. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. eBook ISBN: 9783827070371
(2011) Being No One. The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Kindle edition; ASIN: B004ELBJ56

Editorship

(1995) Bewußtsein – Beiträge aus der Gegenwartsphilosophie., Paderborn, mentis, Paderborn, ISBN 3897850125
(1995) Conscious Experience. Imprint Academic, Thorverton und mentis, Paderborn, ISBN 090784510X (Hardcover)
(2000) Neural Correlates of Consciousness – Empirical and Conceptual Questions. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA., ISBN 0262133709 (Hardcover)
(2006) Grundkurs Philosophie des Geistes – Band 1: Phänomenales Bewusstsein mentis, Paderborn, ISBN 3897855518
(2007) Grundkurs Philosophie des Geistes – Band 2: Das Leib-Seele-Problem mentis, Paderborn, ISBN 3897855526
(2010) Grundkurs Philosophie des Geistes – Band 3: Intentionalität und mentale Repräsentation mentis Paderborn, ISBN 9783897855533. All three volumes can be purchased for 78 Euros, ISBN 978-3-89785-554-0.

Selected articles and book chapters

(2003; with Vittorio Gallese) The emergence of a shared action ontology: building blocks for a theory In G. Knoblich, B. Elsner, G. von Aschersleben, und T. Metzinger (eds), Self and Action. Special issue of Consciousness & Cognition (12:4), 549-571.
(2003) Phenomenal transparency and cognitive self-reference Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2, 353-393. doi:10.1023/B:PHEN.0000007366.42918.eb.
(2003) Phänomenale Transparenz und kognitive Selbstbezugnahme In U. Haas-Spohn (Hrsg.), Intentionalität zwischen Subjektivität und Weltbezug. Paderborn: mentis. Seite 411-459.
(2003) Why are identity-disorders interesting for philosophers? In Thomas Schramme und Johannes Thome (Hrsg.), Philosophy and Psychiatry. Berlin: de Gruyter. S. 311-25.
(2004) Précis of "Being No One" In PSYCHE - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Consciousness, 11 (5), 1-35.
(2005) Out-of-body experiences as the origin of the concept of a "soul" Mind and Matter, 3(1), 57-84.
(2005) Die Selbstmodell-Theorie der Subjektivität: Eine Kurzdarstellung in sechs Schritten In C. S. Herrmann, M. Pauen, J. W. Rieger und S. Schicktanz (Hrsg.), Bewusstsein: Philosophie, Neurowissenschaften, Ethik. Stuttgart: UTB/Fink . S. 242-269.
(2006) Being No One – Eine sehr kurze deutsche Zusammenfassung In Grundkurs Philosophie des Geistes – Band 1: Phänomenales Bewusstsein. S. 424-475.
(2006) Conscious volition and mental representation: Towards a more fine-grained analysis In N. Sebanz und W. Prinz (Hrsg.), Disorders of Volition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. S. 19-48.
(2007; with B. Lenggenhager, T. Tadi und O. Blanke) Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating bodily self-consciousness Science, 317, 1096-1099.
(2008) Empirical perspectives from the self-model theory of subjectivity: A brief summary with examples In Rahul Banerjee and Bikas K. Chakrabarti (eds.), Progress in Brain Research, 168: 215-246. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
(2009; mit O. Blanke) Full-body illusions and minimal phenomenal selfhood Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13(1): 7-13.
(2010) The No-Self-Alternative Chapter 11 in S. Gallagher (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Self. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Seite 277-294.
(2011a; with Elisabeth Hildt). Cognitive Enhancement . In J. Illes and B.J. Sahakian (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. P. 245-264.

DVD-Set

(2009) Philosophie des Bewusstseins (5 DVDs)- 15 Vorlesungen an der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz vom Wintersemester 2007/2008 Auditorium-Netzwerk.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.