1 Lost in Phenospace. Questioning the Claims of Popular Neurophilosophy1

Philosophical critique can help clarify issues surrounding the burgeoning cognitive neurosciences and thereby contribute constructively to the field. ›Neurophilosophy ‹ has become a fashionable chorus to some of the new experimental approaches to the neural foundations of human traits and capacities. Sometimes, self-declared neurophilosophers – a group that one might call the ›cheerleaders ‹ of the new mind sciences – aspire to deliver over-arching visions of the human mind and its place in nature.2 These visions almost rival older metaphysical approaches in their scope and generality. However, the impression that a broad philosophical conception follows directly from the experimental results of neuroscience is untenable. Unfortunately, quite often there is no proper distinction between what seems an obvious lesson derived from experimental findings and what is instead a philosophical assumption invested into the subject matter beforehand. Some of this seems to be the case with a recent, popular book on the subject, Thomas Metzinger’s ›The Ego-Tunnel ‹ (2009). In the spirit of Wolfgang Lenzen’s sharp and thoughtful critical analyses of neuroscientific and neurophilosophical work, I want to take issue with some of the claims that Metzinger makes in his book, in the hope of helping to clarify the specific relevance of ne