Alva Noë (born 1964) is an American philosopher. He is Professor of Philosophy at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. The focus of his work is the theory of perception and consciousness. In addition to these problems in cognitive science and the

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 add ...

, he is interested in analytic phenomenology, the

theory of art A theory of art is intended to contrast with a definition of art. Traditionally, ''definitions'' are composed of necessary and sufficient conditions and a single counterexample overthrows such a definition. ''Theorizing'' about art, on the other ...

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...

enactivism Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. It claims that the environment of an organism is brought about, or enacted, by the active ...

, and the origins of analytic philosophy.

Education

Noë received his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He also holds a

B.Phil. Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil, BPh, or PhB; la, Baccalaureus Philosophiae or ) is the title of an academic degree that usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects. Unlike many other bachelor's d ...

from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and a

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 ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Philosophical work

Noë joined the

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

Department of Philosophy as an associate professor in 2003, where he was a member of the UC Berkeley Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, serving as a core faculty member for the Program in Cognitive Science and the Center for New Media. During 2011–2012, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Before coming to Berkeley, Noë was an assistant professor of philosophy at

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

. He has been a Post-doctoral Research Associate of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, a visiting scholar at the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine and at the Institut Jean-Nicod (CNRS/EN/EHESS) in Paris, a McDonnell-Pew Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and a visiting scholar at the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen. Noë has been a recipient of a UC President's Fellowship in the Humanities and an ACLS/Ryskamp Fellowship, and in 2007–2008 was a research fellow at the

Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled ...

. Noë is the author of the books ''Strange Tools'' (2015),''Varieties of Presence'' (2012), ''Out of Our Heads'' (2009) and ''Action In Perception'' (

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, 2004). He is the co-editor of ''Vision and Mind: Selected Readings in the Philosophy of Perception'' (MIT Press, 2002) and the author of ''Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?'' (Imprint Academic, 2002). In ''Action In Perception'', Noë puts forth the notion of the sensorimotor profile. Externalism about the mind and mental content is a pervasive theme in his work.

References

External links

Interview with Noë on NYC radio

Why You Are Not Your Brain? A Conversation on Consciousness with Alva Noe, Ph.D. Bridging the Gaps: A Portal for Curious Minds
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noe, Alva 1964 births Philosophers of mind Living people American cognitive scientists City University of New York faculty University of California, Santa Cruz faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Harvard University alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford Columbia College (New York) alumni