Michael Tye (born 1950) is a British philosopher who is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He has made significant contributions to 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 ...

Education and career

Tye completed his undergraduate education at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in England, studying first physics and then physics and philosophy. He went on to complete a PhD in philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Before moving to Texas, Tye taught at

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducationa ...

in suburban Philadelphia and

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

in Philadelphia proper. He was also a visiting professor at

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King G ...

for some ten consecutive years while at Temple and briefly took up a chair at the

University of St. Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

. Besides philosophy of mind, Tye has interests in cognitive science,

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, and

philosophical logic Understood in a narrow sense, philosophical logic is the area of logic that studies the application of logical methods to philosophical problems, often in the form of extended logical systems like modal logic. Some theorists conceive philosophical ...

, especially problems relating to

vagueness In linguistics and philosophy, a vague predicate is one which gives rise to borderline cases. For example, the English adjective "tall" is vague since it is not clearly true or false for someone of middling height. By contrast, the word "prime" is ...

. Tye's third book, ''Ten Problems of Consciousness'' (1995), was an alternate selection of the Library of Science Book Club.

Philosophical work

Along with

Fred Dretske Frederick Irwin "Fred" Dretske (; December 9, 1932 – July 24, 2013) was an American philosopher noted for his contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Biography Born to Frederick and Hattie Dretske, Dretske first planned to be ...

and William Lycan, Tye defends the representationalist view of consciousness, more precisely what has been called the "strong" representationalist view, according to which "representation of a certain kind suffices for a sensory quality, where the kind can be specified in functionalist or other familiar materialist terms, without recourse to properties of any ontologically 'new' sort."

Animal consciousness

Tye has authored papers on

animal consciousness Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within a non-human animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience, aware ...

and

pain in animals Pain negatively affects the health and welfare of animals. "Pain" is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or descr ...

. He is the author of the book, ''Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?'', published in 2016. The book defends the hypothesis that consciousness extends a considerable way down the phylogenetic scale, focusing mainly on felt pain as criteria.Boisvert, M. J. (2017)
''Befuddled by the question of animal consciousness (Review of the book Tense bees and shell-Shocked crabs: Are animals conscious?, by M. Tye'')
''PsycCRITIQUES'' 62 (12). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040777Klein, Colin. (2017)
"Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?"
''Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews''. Retrieved February 6, 2020. He states that we should attribute pain to animals if they behave similarly to humans in context where we know that humans feel pain. He has reviewed scientific studies and concludes that arthropods, birds, mammals, reptiles and some fish are conscious. According to Tye,

teleost Teleostei (; Greek ''teleios'' "complete" + ''osteon'' "bone"), members of which are known as teleosts ), is, by far, the largest infraclass in the class Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fishes, containing 96% of all extant species of fish. Tele ...

fish feel pain but elasmobranchs and insects do not. Tye has commented that "insects do not react to treatment that would undoubtedly cause severe pain in mammals. So, there is reason to doubt that generally insects feel pain." Tye's book has been reviewed in ''

Metascience Metascience (also known as meta-research) is the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. Metascience seeks to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing inefficiency. It is also known as "''research on research''" ...

'' and ''

PsycCRITIQUES ''PsycCRITIQUES'' was a database of reviews of books, videos, and popular films published by the American Psychological Association. It replaced the print journal ''Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books'', which was published from 1956 to 20 ...

''.Monsó, Susana. (2017)
''To be rational, or not to be rational—that is the question''
''Metascience'' 26 (3): 487–491.

Vegetarianism

In Chapter 11 of ''Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?'', Tye argues in favour of

vegetarianism Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianis ...

Books

* ''The Metaphysics of Mind'' (1989) * ''The Imagery Debate'' (1991) * ''Ten Problems of Consciousness'' (1995) * ''Consciousness, Color, and Content'' (2000) * ''Consciousness and Persons'' (2003) * ''Consciousness Revisited: Materialism without Phenomenal Concepts'' (2009) * ''Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?'' (2016)

References

External links

Michael Tye's personal webpage
(includes articles for download). * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry o
Qualia

Interview for Mind and Consciousness
* A review of
Consciousness, Colour, and Content
' by Bill Brewer of

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tye, Michael Living people 1950 births 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Animal cognition writers Animal ethicists Analytic philosophers British animal rights scholars British vegetarianism activists British consciousness researchers and theorists Philosophers of mind Haverford College faculty Materialists Temple University faculty