William Hirstein is an American
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
primarily interested in
philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...
,
philosophy of language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...
,
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
,
cognitive science, and
analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...
. He is a professor of philosophy at
Elmhurst University
Elmhurst University is a private university in Elmhurst, Illinois. It has a tradition of service-oriented learning and an affiliation with the United Church of Christ. The university changed its name from Elmhurst College on July 1, 2020.
Hist ...
.
Training
William Hirstein received his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in philosophy at the
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...
under the direction of
Richard Wollheim
Richard Arthur Wollheim (5 May 1923 − 4 November 2003) was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting. Wollheim served as the president of the British So ...
.
UC Davis Philosophy Department PhDs
/ref> He then did post-doctoral work under the supervision of Patricia Churchland
Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943) is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Calif ...
and Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a disti ...
at the University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
, exploring neurological
Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...
syndromes that lead to confabulation
In psychology, confabulation is a memory error defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world. It is generally associated with certain types of brain damage (especially aneurysm in the a ...
, such as in split-brain
Split-brain or callosal syndrome is a type of disconnection syndrome when the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is severed to some degree. It is an association of symptoms produced by disruption of, or interference with, ...
patients, and patients with anosognosia
Anosognosia is a condition in which a person with a disability is cognitively unaware of having it due to an underlying physical or psychological (e.g., PTSD, Stockholm syndrome, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dementia) condition. Anosognosia c ...
or Capgras delusion
Capgras delusion or Capgras syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical impostor. It is named after Joseph Capgras (1 ...
.
Theory of confabulation
Hirstein draws heavily on the interaction between his philosophical training and his clinical experience in his 2005 book ''Brain Fiction'' to develop a comprehensive epistemic theory of the neural basis of confabulation, and argues that prefrontal executive processes fail to correct false memories or perceptions, resulting in a confabulation. Thus confabulation is a result of two errors, which may be caused by two separate brain lesions. First there is an error in memory or perception, and second, prefrontal executive processes fail to correct the error.
Mindmelding hypothesis
In his 2012 book, ''Mindmelding: Consciousness, Neuroscience, and the Mind's Privacy'', Hirstein argues that a significant block to solving the mind–body problem
The mind–body problem is a philosophical debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. The debate goes beyond addressing the mere question of how mind and bo ...
can be removed if we allow that it is possible for one person to directly experience the conscious mind of another. The vast majority of philosophers and scientists writing about consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
believe that this is impossible, but this would mean that conscious brain states are different from all other physical states, which can be known about by multiple persons. This creates a block to understanding our minds as physical systems. Hirstein describes how "mindmelding" could be achieved by connecting person A's prefrontal lobes to person B's posterior cortex Posterior cortex usually means the posterior (back) part of the complete cerebral cortex and includes the occipital, parietal, and temporal cortices. In other words, the posterior cortex includes all the cerebral cortex without the frontal cortex. ...
, which would in effect connect person A's sense of self to person B's conscious thoughts and sensations.
Books
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See also
* American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
* List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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References
External links
Philpapers Page
Psychology Today Blog
Researchgate Page
American Scientist Interview
''American Scientist Review of Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation''
Ramachandran, V. S. & W. Hirstein (1998), "The perception of phantom limbs: The D.O. Hebb lecture.", ''Brain'' 9 (121):1603-1630
V.S. Ramachandran and W. Hirstein, ''Three Laws of Qualia: What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self''
W. Hirstein, V. S. Ramachandran, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences ''Capgras syndrome: a novel probe for understanding the neural representation of the identity and familiarity of persons''
V.S. Ramachandran and W. Hirstein, The Science of Art: A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic Experience. ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'', Volume 6, No.6/7, (June/July 1999)
''Mindmelding: Connected Brains and the Problem of Consciousness'', W. Hirstein, Mens Sana Research Foundation Monograph Series, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2008
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirstein, William
Philosophers of language
Philosophers of mind
American cognitive scientists
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American philosophers
Living people
University of California, Davis alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)