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Papers by Michael Roberts
University of Birmingham, 2018
This PhD thesis concerns introspective approaches to the study of the mind. Across three standalo... more This PhD thesis concerns introspective approaches to the study of the mind. Across three standalone papers, I examine the significance of introspective data and advise on appropriate kinds of training for the production of such data. An overview document first introduces major themes, methods and arguments of the thesis. Paper 1 then begins the argumentative work, interrogating the constraining function of introspection in cognitive science. Here, I evaluate “enactivist” claims about the significance of introspection, clarifying central enactivist suggestions to draw out the broader importance of introspection in science and philosophy. Paper 2 then examines the proposed employment of Buddhist meditation practices in the production of rigorous introspective data. I defend such proposals against concerns that meditators yield ungeneralizable data, given the transformative character of these attention-training techniques. I argue that some meditation-trained transformations are actually epistemically-beneficial, undermining popular associations between transformation and “distortion”. Paper 3 then reviews difficulties involved in integrating meditative training into research. I emphasise the importance of specific contextual supports to meditation as critical ingredients of introspective proficiency, showing how difficulties replicating these threaten to limit the scope of meditation’s scientific benefits. I layout methodological responses to this that can maximise meditation’s positive impact going forwards.
This paper does two things. Firstly, it clarifies the way that phenomenolog-ical data is meant to... more This paper does two things. Firstly, it clarifies the way that phenomenolog-ical data is meant to constrain cognitive science according to enactivist thinkers. Secondly, it points to inconsistencies in the 'Radical Enactivist' handling of this issue, so as to explicate the commitments that enactivists need to make in order to tackle the explanatory gap. I begin by sketching the basic features of enactivism in sections 1–2, focusing upon enactive accounts of perception. I suggest that enactivist ideas here rely heavily upon the endorsement of a particular explanatory constraint that I call the structural resemblance constraint (SRC), according to which the structure of our phenomenology ought to be mirrored in our cognitive science. Sections 3–5 delineate the nature of, and commitment to, SRC amongst enactivists, showing SRC's warrant and implications. The paper then turns to Hutto and Myin's (2013) handling of SRC in sections 6–7, highlighting irregularities within their programme for Radical Enactivism on this issue. Despite seeming to favour SRC, I argue that Radical Enactivism's purported compatibility with the narrow (brain-bound) supervenience of perceptual experience is in fact inconsistent with SRC, given Hutto and Myin's phenomenological commitments. I argue that enactivists more broadly ought to resist such a concessionary position if they wish to tackle the explanatory gap, for it is primarily the abidance to SRC that ensures progress is made here. Section 8 then concludes the paper with a series of open questions to enactivists, inviting further justification of the manner in which they apply SRC.
Talks by Michael Roberts
Birmingham Arts and Sciences Festival, 15 Mar 2016, University of Birmingham 'The idea of mindfu... more Birmingham Arts and Sciences Festival, 15 Mar 2016, University of Birmingham
'The idea of mindfulness has never been so popular in the UK. Ever more frequently, we are informed of the impressive benefits of “being mindful”, from improved relaxation and concentration to greater creativity and physical health. Popular accounts of mindfulness, however, are often short on detail concerning how this hallowed state is to be attained. Defining mindfulness simply as a “present-centred” and “non-judgemental” form of awareness lacks instruction and papers over some of the more deliberative and conceptual activities that mindfulness has traditionally been associated with.
Recent scholarly work has come to emphasise the rich historical connotations of the term, problematising simplistic definitions. It has likewise stressed that an appreciation of this history can help us in the practice of mindfulness, that is to say, how we might cultivate it. In this talk, I outlines how these considerations highlight the importance of memory and active forgetting in mindfulness practice and suggest that we might best conceive mindfulness practice as a procedure of “remembering to forget” what is unhelpful.'
Sussex 2016 Graduate Phenomenology Conference, University of Sussex, 24/06/16
4th Biennial Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar, University of Glasgow, 26/05/16
Drafts by Michael Roberts
This paper critiques contemporary proposals to employ Buddhist meditation practices within cognit... more This paper critiques contemporary proposals to employ Buddhist meditation practices within cognitive science as forms of introspective training. I draw out under-appreciated complexities in the Buddhist path to introspective proficiency and reflect upon the bearing these might have for future incorporation of meditation into scientific research programmes. §1 delineates existing suggestions to utilise meditation within science. §2 then casts doubt on these proposals by invoking recent worries over the utility of meditation that has been " stripped for export " and practised in isolation from traditional ethical and philosophical frameworks. I illustrate a prevailing consensus in scholarly, pedagogical and psychotherapeutic circles that the therapeutic value of meditation practice suffers when undertaken without these traditional supports. I demonstrate that a parallel problem emerges for meditation's introspective value and thereby its utility for cognitive science. §3 surveys this broader web of supportive practices, fleshing out a " broader path " to introspective skill within Buddhism that is much more demanding than is often credited. §4 then crystallises a dilemma that is revealed for proponents of meditation in science, and highlights a methodological choice needing to be made between promoting broad or narrow paths of training, each of which affords science different kinds of benefit. I comment on how to make this choice effectively. In §5, I conclude with some comments on the how science might make best use of meditative practice going forwards.
This paper sketches how transformation of the mind through Buddhist meditation practice can suppo... more This paper sketches how transformation of the mind through Buddhist meditation practice can support introspective investigations of experience in science. Rebuffing conventional associations between transformation and distortion, it carves out a space for epistemically-beneficial transformations. §1 first introduces meditation's place within Buddhist thought, outlining traditional claims that the practice cultivates attentional gestures important for interrogating the mind. It then outlines proposed uses of these practices within science, before introducing worries over their utility. Such worries propose that meditative gestures transform and thereby distort the mind, making resultant introspective judgements unrepresentative of untrained or inattentive experience. The remainder of the paper combats these worries using material from two distinct fields. §2 introduces literature from the cognitive psychology of attention to sketch a first-pass account of how meditative transformations might be of benefit. It argues that converging models of attention here can precisify the phenomenological changes available through meditative training, such that their epistemic merits can be better evaluated. I identify one kind of meditation practice as training a form of top-down attentional control. And using cognitive psychological models of this capacity, I argue that it can (i) accentuate and (ii) isolate particular features of experience, to our epistemic advantage. §3 outlines some more challenging, distortive dangers surrounding the introspective use of top-down attentional control, showing how it can be misappropriated to yield genuinely unrepresentative accounts of experience. Responding to these, §4 brings the attention literature into dialogue with the pedagogical literature on meditation practice to show how to use this attentional faculty appropriately in introspective investigations, addressing such dangers. This allows me to conclude in §5 with some comments on prudent approaches to introspective inquiry within science.
University of Birmingham, 2018
This PhD thesis concerns introspective approaches to the study of the mind. Across three standalo... more This PhD thesis concerns introspective approaches to the study of the mind. Across three standalone papers, I examine the significance of introspective data and advise on appropriate kinds of training for the production of such data. An overview document first introduces major themes, methods and arguments of the thesis. Paper 1 then begins the argumentative work, interrogating the constraining function of introspection in cognitive science. Here, I evaluate “enactivist” claims about the significance of introspection, clarifying central enactivist suggestions to draw out the broader importance of introspection in science and philosophy. Paper 2 then examines the proposed employment of Buddhist meditation practices in the production of rigorous introspective data. I defend such proposals against concerns that meditators yield ungeneralizable data, given the transformative character of these attention-training techniques. I argue that some meditation-trained transformations are actually epistemically-beneficial, undermining popular associations between transformation and “distortion”. Paper 3 then reviews difficulties involved in integrating meditative training into research. I emphasise the importance of specific contextual supports to meditation as critical ingredients of introspective proficiency, showing how difficulties replicating these threaten to limit the scope of meditation’s scientific benefits. I layout methodological responses to this that can maximise meditation’s positive impact going forwards.
This paper does two things. Firstly, it clarifies the way that phenomenolog-ical data is meant to... more This paper does two things. Firstly, it clarifies the way that phenomenolog-ical data is meant to constrain cognitive science according to enactivist thinkers. Secondly, it points to inconsistencies in the 'Radical Enactivist' handling of this issue, so as to explicate the commitments that enactivists need to make in order to tackle the explanatory gap. I begin by sketching the basic features of enactivism in sections 1–2, focusing upon enactive accounts of perception. I suggest that enactivist ideas here rely heavily upon the endorsement of a particular explanatory constraint that I call the structural resemblance constraint (SRC), according to which the structure of our phenomenology ought to be mirrored in our cognitive science. Sections 3–5 delineate the nature of, and commitment to, SRC amongst enactivists, showing SRC's warrant and implications. The paper then turns to Hutto and Myin's (2013) handling of SRC in sections 6–7, highlighting irregularities within their programme for Radical Enactivism on this issue. Despite seeming to favour SRC, I argue that Radical Enactivism's purported compatibility with the narrow (brain-bound) supervenience of perceptual experience is in fact inconsistent with SRC, given Hutto and Myin's phenomenological commitments. I argue that enactivists more broadly ought to resist such a concessionary position if they wish to tackle the explanatory gap, for it is primarily the abidance to SRC that ensures progress is made here. Section 8 then concludes the paper with a series of open questions to enactivists, inviting further justification of the manner in which they apply SRC.
Birmingham Arts and Sciences Festival, 15 Mar 2016, University of Birmingham 'The idea of mindfu... more Birmingham Arts and Sciences Festival, 15 Mar 2016, University of Birmingham
'The idea of mindfulness has never been so popular in the UK. Ever more frequently, we are informed of the impressive benefits of “being mindful”, from improved relaxation and concentration to greater creativity and physical health. Popular accounts of mindfulness, however, are often short on detail concerning how this hallowed state is to be attained. Defining mindfulness simply as a “present-centred” and “non-judgemental” form of awareness lacks instruction and papers over some of the more deliberative and conceptual activities that mindfulness has traditionally been associated with.
Recent scholarly work has come to emphasise the rich historical connotations of the term, problematising simplistic definitions. It has likewise stressed that an appreciation of this history can help us in the practice of mindfulness, that is to say, how we might cultivate it. In this talk, I outlines how these considerations highlight the importance of memory and active forgetting in mindfulness practice and suggest that we might best conceive mindfulness practice as a procedure of “remembering to forget” what is unhelpful.'
Sussex 2016 Graduate Phenomenology Conference, University of Sussex, 24/06/16
4th Biennial Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar, University of Glasgow, 26/05/16
This paper critiques contemporary proposals to employ Buddhist meditation practices within cognit... more This paper critiques contemporary proposals to employ Buddhist meditation practices within cognitive science as forms of introspective training. I draw out under-appreciated complexities in the Buddhist path to introspective proficiency and reflect upon the bearing these might have for future incorporation of meditation into scientific research programmes. §1 delineates existing suggestions to utilise meditation within science. §2 then casts doubt on these proposals by invoking recent worries over the utility of meditation that has been " stripped for export " and practised in isolation from traditional ethical and philosophical frameworks. I illustrate a prevailing consensus in scholarly, pedagogical and psychotherapeutic circles that the therapeutic value of meditation practice suffers when undertaken without these traditional supports. I demonstrate that a parallel problem emerges for meditation's introspective value and thereby its utility for cognitive science. §3 surveys this broader web of supportive practices, fleshing out a " broader path " to introspective skill within Buddhism that is much more demanding than is often credited. §4 then crystallises a dilemma that is revealed for proponents of meditation in science, and highlights a methodological choice needing to be made between promoting broad or narrow paths of training, each of which affords science different kinds of benefit. I comment on how to make this choice effectively. In §5, I conclude with some comments on the how science might make best use of meditative practice going forwards.
This paper sketches how transformation of the mind through Buddhist meditation practice can suppo... more This paper sketches how transformation of the mind through Buddhist meditation practice can support introspective investigations of experience in science. Rebuffing conventional associations between transformation and distortion, it carves out a space for epistemically-beneficial transformations. §1 first introduces meditation's place within Buddhist thought, outlining traditional claims that the practice cultivates attentional gestures important for interrogating the mind. It then outlines proposed uses of these practices within science, before introducing worries over their utility. Such worries propose that meditative gestures transform and thereby distort the mind, making resultant introspective judgements unrepresentative of untrained or inattentive experience. The remainder of the paper combats these worries using material from two distinct fields. §2 introduces literature from the cognitive psychology of attention to sketch a first-pass account of how meditative transformations might be of benefit. It argues that converging models of attention here can precisify the phenomenological changes available through meditative training, such that their epistemic merits can be better evaluated. I identify one kind of meditation practice as training a form of top-down attentional control. And using cognitive psychological models of this capacity, I argue that it can (i) accentuate and (ii) isolate particular features of experience, to our epistemic advantage. §3 outlines some more challenging, distortive dangers surrounding the introspective use of top-down attentional control, showing how it can be misappropriated to yield genuinely unrepresentative accounts of experience. Responding to these, §4 brings the attention literature into dialogue with the pedagogical literature on meditation practice to show how to use this attentional faculty appropriately in introspective investigations, addressing such dangers. This allows me to conclude in §5 with some comments on prudent approaches to introspective inquiry within science.