[WTI-trainee] [REMINDER] Richard Brown, December 11th, Thursday, 11:00am " Constructing a Scientific Theory of Phenomenal Consciousness"

[Natalia Castelo Branco Matos]

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Dear all,

This is a reminder of the upcoming session of our neurophilosophy seminar
series featuring *Professor Richard Brown* from City University of New York
(CUNY).

🎙️ Talk Title: Constructing a Scientific Theory of Phenomenal
Consciousness.
📅 Date: Thursday, December 11th, 2025
🕒 Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
📍 Location: 100 College Street, Room 1167

*About the Speaker: **About the Speaker: *Professor Richard Brown is a
philosopher of mind and cognitive scientist at CUNY Graduate Center. His
research focuses on the nature of consciousness, higher-order theories of
consciousness, and their connections to cognitive science and neuroscience,
and he is especially known for developing the HOROR (Higher-Order
Representation of a Representation) theory of phenomenal consciousness. He
has published widely on higher-order thought theories, cognitive
phenomenology, and the neural correlates of consciousness, and he founded
the Online Consciousness Conference, one of the first major fully online
philosophy conferences devoted to consciousness studies.

*About the Talk: * This talk examines what it would take to construct a
genuinely scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness—the
“what-it’s-like” aspect of mind. It visits several key notions of
consciousness (including phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness,
and self-consciousness) and argues that a successful science of
consciousness should primarily target phenomenal consciousness while still
accommodating its connections to cognition. The talk offers a brief
overview of leading contemporary approaches in cognitive neuroscience,
highlighting their central commitments and limitations. Against this
background, Professor Brown introduces the HOROR (Higher-Order
Representation of a Representation) view, which understands conscious
experience in terms of a distinctive higher-order relation to one’s own
mental states. He outlines the main motivations for HOROR, explains how it
aims to account for core phenomenological data, and gestures toward
possible strategies for empirically testing and constraining the view
within current neuroscientific frameworks.

Looking forward to seeing you there!
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