Current Post-Docs

Nivedita Gangopadhyay

Niveditas current research is on "action-oriented" theories of visual perception, i.e. theories that seek to understand the phenomenon of vision by analyzing its observed links with action. It aims at understanding the notions of action and cognition as they come together in an account of visual consciousness in real-life involving an embodied perceiver situated in a dynamic interaction with a particular environment. The questions that she raises in this context are: In what sense is the notion of action to be understood in order to firmly establish its links with perception? Is action considered simply as motor movement executed in response to sensory stimuli sufficient to account for perception? She is interested in detailed conceptual and empirical study of the precise nature of the relationship between the cognitive mechanisms of attention, meaning construction, goal representation and sensorimotor dynamics, and the nature of their interaction in the context of consciousness. Some of the central topics of her current research interest are:

• The analysis of the relation between cognition and action in terms of attention and subsequent application of the analysis in an explanation of consciousness in a real-world situation. She proposes to develop this line of thought by focussing on empirical studies of the phenomenon of gaze redirection as a most interesting and challenging domain for the study of the interaction between cognition and action in the context of consciousness.
• The analysis of consciousness as sense of "presence" in a context and associating it with the sense of agency, especially as the performer of perceptually guided actions, along with the role of conscious perception in action as the awareness of possible states of affairs.
• Consideration of whether acceptance of "action" as a fundamental explanatory notion essentially implies a commitment to explain experience in terms of mechanisms of which the subject is aware and which are under the conscious control of the subject. Conversely, does the acceptance of the notion of "representation" essentially imply that conscious experience can be boiled down to sub-personal level phenomena? What could be an optimal choice for a theory that seeks to understand consciousness as a matter of dynamic interaction of a situated agent with the environment?
• Consideration of the distinction often drawn between "cognitive" and "non-cognitive" phenomena, whereby cognitive is related to conscious experience and non-cognitive is synonymous with sensorimotor system.

Jonathan Grose

Jonathan is a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC research project Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality.

Cedric Paternotte

Cedric is a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC research project Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality.

Richard Pettigrew

Richard is a British Academy postdoctoral researcher.

Emma Tobin

Emma Tobin joined the Department at Bristol in October 2006 as a postdoctoral fellow on the Metaphysics of Science Project. In 2006, she completed her Ph.D. at Trinity College Dublin entitled 'On the Disunity of the Sciences and Ceteris Paribus Laws.' Emma is now exploring the issue of natural kinds. She is interested in pursuing the links between ceteris paribus laws and the putative kinds of the special sciences. She is exploring questions concerning the links between natural kinds and causation; namely whether causation is itself a natural kind and whether the relata of causal relations are natural kinds. Emma is particularly interested in analysing the possible causal mechanisms which may be responsible for establishing the unity of natural kinds in the life sciences (e.g. Biology). She is also examining the applicability of essentialist and realist claims about natural kinds to the more particular case of the special sciences.