Jesse Prinz, distinguished professor of philosophy and director of the committee for interdisciplinary science studies, is a notable expert in philosophy of psychology; he combines both philosophical and experimental methods to address enduring questions about the nature of the mind. His books include Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis (2002); Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of the Emotions (2004); The Emotional Construction of Morals (2007); Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind (2012); The Conscious Brain: How Attention Engenders Experience (2012); and Works of Wonder: A Theory of Art (forthcoming in 2013). He is also author of more than one hundred papers.
Prinz was a visiting fellow at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, a research fellow at the School for Advanced Study at the University of London, and John J. Rogers Distinguished Professor in the department of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, before coming to the Graduate Center in 2009. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago.
Books
Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind
In this era of genome projects and brain scans, it is all too easy to overestimate the role of biology in human psychology. But in this passionate corrective to the idea that DNA is destiny, the author focuses on the most extraordinary aspect of human nature: that nurture can supplement and supplant nature, allowing our minds to be profoundly influenced by experience and culture. Drawing on cutting-edge research in neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, Prinz shatters the myth of human uniformity and reveals how our differing cultures and life experiences make each of us unique. Along the way he shows that we can't blame mental illness or addiction on our genes, and that societal factors shape gender differences in cognitive ability and sexual behavior.
Published November 2012
W. W. Norton & Company, 2012
The Conscious Brain: How Attention Engenders Experience
(Philosophy of Mind)
Synthesizing decades of research, the author advances a new theory of the psychological and neurophysiological correlates of conscious experience. He makes two main claims: first, consciousness always arises at a particular stage of perceptual processing, the intermediate level; second, consciousness depends on attention. Attention changes the flow of information, allowing perceptual information to access memory systems. Neurobiologically, this change in flow depends on synchronized neural firing; neural synchrony is also implicated in the unity of consciousness and in the temporal duration of experience. Prinz also explores the limits of consciousness and concludes by discussing prevailing philosophical puzzles, providing a neuroscientifically grounded response to the leading argument for mind-body dualism and arguing that materialists need not choose between functional and neurobiological approaches but can combine them.
Published September 2012
Oxford University Press, 2012