Konrad Werner: The Bucket Theory of Mind

Lecture by Konrad Werner (University of Warsaw, Institute of Philosophy) organized by Theoretical Philosophy

Karl Popper famously criticized what he dubbed "the bucket theory of mind" (hereafter BTM), i.e. a conception holding, very roughly, that we can think of the mind as a container filled with materials (sense-data, ideas or pieces of information) delivered by the senses. Over the last twenty years or so many philosophers have joined Popper and set forth their own reasons for abandoning BTM. Most importantly, these were people associated with the movement called enactive and embodied cognition, championed by F. Varela, his collaborators, and followers.

However, I argue that before BTM can be dropped, we should be clear about what BTM says, and this is by no means obvious. I tackle this issue by employing the conceptual framework set up by people working on formal-ontological theories of location (A. Varzi, B. Smith, R. Casati, J. Perzanowski). I define the general concept of containment and its several more specific instantiations. Armed with this, I reconstruct BTM. Having this job done, I will proceed to articulate an alternative conception drawing on the concept, which might be considered the alter ego of containment, namely the concept of framing. While containers are such bounded places that obscure access to the contained entity, frames do exactly the opposite: they are bounded loci dedicated to making the entity exposed or accessible. This somewhat speculative metaphysical pursuit concludes with a reflection on whether or not the mind could be thought of in terms of frames, instead of containers.

When & where?

Wednesday, May 30, 15:30 - 17:00
Faculty of Philosophy, room Beta