Alva Noë (born 1964) is an American philosopher. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. 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, he is interested in

analytic phenomenology Phenomenology (from Greek φαινόμενον, ''phainómenon'' "that which appears" and λόγος, ''lógos'' "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded ...

, 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,

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 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 ...

Education

Noë received his B.A. from Columbia University. 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 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.

Philosophical work

Noë joined the UC Berkeley 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 of ...

. 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 model ...

. 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, 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 Sensorimotor or sensory-motor may refer to: * Sensory motor amnesia * Sensorimotor rhythm * Sensory-motor coupling * The ''sensorimotor stage'' in Piaget's theory of cognitive development Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehen ...

. 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