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Advances in Neurophilosophy
ii
Advances in Experimental Philosophy
Series Editor:
Justin Sytsma, Lecturer in Philosophy, Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand
Editorial Board:
Joshua Knobe, Yale University, USA

Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Thomas Nadelhoffer, College of Charleston, UK
Eddy Nahmias, Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University, USA
Jennifer Nagel, University of Toronto, Canada
Joshua Alexander, Siena College, USA
Empirical and experimental philosophy is generating tremendous excitement,
producing unexpected results that are challenging traditional philosophical
methods. Advances in Experimental Philosophy responds to this trend, bringing
together some of the most exciting voices in the field to understand the
approach and measure its impact in contemporary philosophy. The result is
a series that captures past and present developments and anticipates future
research directions.
To provide in-depth examinations, each volume links experimental philosophy
to a key philosophical area. They provide historical overviews alongside case
studies, reviews of current problems and discussions of new directions. For
upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals actively pursuing
research in experimental philosophy these are essential resources.
Titles in the series include:

Advances in Experimental Epistemology, edited by James R. Beebe
Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology, edited by Hagop Sarkissian and
Jennifer Cole Wright
Advances in Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Methodology, edited by
Jennifer Nado
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Aesthetics, edited by Florian Cova and
Sébastien Réhault
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language, edited by Jussi Haukioja
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, edited by
Andrew Aberdein and Matthew Inglis
iii
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind, edited by Justin Sytsma

Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy, edited by
Helen De Cruz and Ryan Nichols
Experimental Metaphysics, edited by David Rose
Methodological Advances in Experimental Philosophy, edited by Eugen Fischer
and Mark Curtis
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will and Responsibility, edited by
Thomas Nadelhoffer and Andrew Monroe
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Causation, edited by Alex Wiegmann
and Pascale Willemsen
Experimental Philosophy of Identity and the Self, edited by Kevin Tobia
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Action, edited by Paul Henne and
Samuel Murray
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Law, edited by Stefan Magen and
Karolina Prochownik
Advances in Experimental Political Philosophy, edited by Matthew Lindauer
Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Medicine, edited by Kristien Hens and
Andreas De Block
iv
Advances in Neurophilosophy
Edited by
Nora Heinzelmann
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2024
Copyright © Nora Heinzelmann and Contributors, 2024
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1988, to be identified as Editor of this work.
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Contents
List of figures viii

Note on contributors ix
Introduction to neurophilosophy 1
1 How the perception of vocal emotions can be measured through

intracranial recordings in the human brain Marine Bobin 17
2 Electrophysiology, human agency and moral psychology
Sofia Bonicalzi 39
3 Finding feelings of responsibility in the human brain with
magnetoencephalography Marwa El Zein 65
4 From ‘blobs’ to mental states: The epistemic successes and
limitations of functional magnetic resonance imaging
Javier Gomez-Lavin 77
5 Resting-state fMRI and cognitive neuroscience Bryce Gessell 103
6 Using TMS to test hypotheses about the causal roles of specific
brain regions John Michael 133
7 Transcranial direct-current stimulation Alexander Soutschek 141
8 Cognitive computational neuroscience J. Brendan Ritchie and
Gualtiero Piccinini 151
9 Individual development: Developmental neuroscience
Kristina Musholt and Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann 179
10 About leaving the neuroscience laboratory Antonella Tramacere 199
Index 225
Figures
1.1 Set-up of the bed-side experimental procedure for

intracranial recordings 21
1.2 Extracellular recording of neurons in the human brain 24
3.1 MEG experimental design 68
3.2 Agency-related neural correlates of responsibility 70
4.1 A depiction of the stimuli and three task trials that participants
completed as part of our study 94
4.2 Whole-brain univariate analyses 95
4.3 Component 3 96
5.1 Results from Zhang et al.’s resting-state study of connection
between the thalamus and various cortical areas
(available online: https://www.bloomsburyonlineresources.com/
advances-in-neurophilosophy)
5.2 An examination of how different seed locations change the
corresponding composition of the default mode network
(available online: https://www.bloomsburyonlineresources.com/
advances-in-neurophilosophy)
7.1 Basic principles of tDCS 144
7.2 Overview of different electrical stimulation approaches 145
7.3 Example study 147
8.1 The interdisciplinary structure of CCN and cognitive science
as fields 153
8.2 Hypothesis tested by Hong et al. (2016) 158
8.3 Population decoding results from Hong et al. (2016) 160
Contributors
Marine Bobin is a research fellow at the University of Zurich, Switzerland,

associated with the Department of Psychology. Her research primarily delves
into the intricate role of the medial temporal lobe in the perception of emotional
voices, with a special focus on the hippocampal formation. Situated at the
crossroads of neurobiology and cognitive science, her work seeks to unravel the
complexity of human behaviour and emotions related to the auditory domain.
Sofia Bonicalzi is Associate Professor in Moral Philosophy at the Department

of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Art, Roma Tre University, and
she is also affiliated with the Cognition, Value and Behavior research group at
the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her interests lie in the philosophy
and neuroscience of volition, action and responsibility as well as in the ethics of
artificial intelligence. Her book Rethinking Moral Responsibility was published
in 2019.
Marwa El Zein is a researcher at the Adaptive Rationality Center, Max Planck

for Human Development, under a Marie-Sklodowska Curie European funding,
and collaborates with the Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po, Paris. Her
research investigates how and why humans engage in collective decisions and
aims to characterize the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying collective
decisions. She focuses on the aspects of shared responsibility in groups as well as
group affiliation and normative influences on group behaviours.
Bryce Gessell is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southern Virginia

University. He teaches liberal arts, philosophy of psychology and neuroscience
and the history and philosophy of science. He has written on psychology,
neuroimaging and other topics.
Javier Gomez-Lavin is an assistant professor at Purdue University in the

Department of Philosophy and the director of the Purdue Normativity and
Cognitions (PuNCs) and Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence (VRAI) Labs.
His research interests focus on how our mental capacities shape and are shaped
by our social, moral and aesthetic domains necessitating a new ontology of
x Contributors
cognitive concepts. He has published articles on cognitive ontology with an

emphasis on the construct of working memory, cognitive neuroimaging and
experimental philosophy applied to theories of joint action.
Nora Heinzelmann is a junior faculty member at the University of Erlangen-

Nuremberg. She has a PhD in Philosophy from Cambridge, a BPhil from Oxford,
and an MPhil from LMU Munich. She specialises in philosophy of cognitive and
neuroscience.
John Michael completed his PhD in philosophy at the University of Vienna

in 2010. He has held faculty positions in philosophy and psychology at the
University of Warwick and the University of Stirling (UK) and is currently
a research professor at the Cognition and Action Lab and the Philosophy
Department at the University of Milan. His research interests include the sense
of commitment, self-control, cooperation and joint action. He was the recipient
of an ERC starting grant investigating the sense of commitment in joint action
(2016–21) and a winner of the Leverhulme Prize for Early Career Excellence in
2017.
Kristina Musholt is Professor for Cognitive Anthropology in the Philosophy

Department at Leipzig University. Her research focusses on the philosophy of
mind and its intersections with the cognitive sciences. She has published on the
development of self-consciousness and social cognition and the relation between
philosophy and neuroscience. She is the author of Thinking About Oneself: From
Nonconceptual Content to the Concept of a Self (2015).
Gualtiero Piccinini is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and

Associate Director of the Center for Neurodynamics at the University of
Missouri–St. Louis. In 2014, he received the Herbert A. Simon Award from the
International Association for Computing and Philosophy. In 2018, he received
the K. Jon Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association. In 2019,
he received the Chancellor’s Award for Research and Creativity from University
of Missouri–St. Louis. His publications include Physical Computation: A
Mechanistic Account (2015), Neurocognitive Mechanisms: Explaining Biological
Cognition (2020) and The Physical Signature of Computation: A Robust Mapping
Account (with Neal Anderson, forthcoming).
J. Brendan Ritchie is a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Brain and

Cognition at the National Institute of Mental Health. His scientific research
Contributors xi
concerns the neural basis of higher-level vision which he investigates using

human fMRI and M/EEG along with machine learning and other computational
modelling methods. His philosophical research interests concern the nature of
explanation in cognitive neuroscience and specifically the role of computation
and representation in such explanation.
Alexander Soutschek is research group leader at the Ludwig Maximilian

University Munich in the Department for Psychology. He holds two PhD
degrees, one in philosophy and another in neuroscience. Correspondingly, he
is interested in questions at the intersection of these disciplines, with a strong
focus on the neural basis of decision-making and metacognition. In his research,
he uses a broad range of neuroscientific methods, including functional imaging
and brain stimulation.
Antonella Tramacere got her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Parma.

Now, she is a research fellow at the University of Bologna and an associate
member of the Max Planck for the Science of the Human History in Jena,
Germany. Her special interests include topics in the philosophy of cognition and
animal experimentation, social and cultural cognition, consciousness and self-
perception.
Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann is a research group leader in early cognitive

development at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain
Sciences. Her research focuses on the cognitive and neural basis of early social-
cognitive development. She has published on the development of Theory of
Mind, self-concept and language and their interaction in early childhood.
xii
Introduction to neurophilosophy
Nora Heinzelmann
Neurophilosophy is a branch of experimental philosophy that uses methods

from neuroscience for philosophical research. It is a small and relatively
young discipline. Neuroscience itself has been around for a few decades only
and philosophers started incorporating neuroscientific approaches into their
research even more recently. The nascent branch of neurophilosophy remains
obscure to many, and misunderstood. This book seeks to change this. Each
chapter introduces readers not familiar with neuroscience to one neuroscientific
methodology and illustrates with an example from current research how this
method can be used to advance philosophical debates.
This introductory chapter has two parts. The first delineates neurophilosophy
from related approaches, incorporating some historical remarks. It also highlights
three methodological differences between neuroscience and philosophy that have
both beneficial and challenging implications for the interdisciplinary approach that
neurophilosophy takes. Then it discusses two examples from ethics and philosophy of
mind, respectively. On the one hand, it argues that neuroscientific work cannot bridge
the is-ought gap but may constrain normative claims by identifying physiological and
neural limitations of abilities and opportunities (‘cannot’ implies ‘not ought’) or by
debunking claims with an account of their genealogy or causation that casts doubt on
their justification. On the other hand, the chapter argues that on a roughly physicalist
understanding, findings about brain regions and states can inform philosophical
theories about the mind. The second part of the chapter gives a short overview over
the contributions collected in this volume, detailing the differences, relative strengths
and weaknesses of various methods. In closing, it mentions topics not covered in the
present collection that may provide avenues for future research and editions.
1 Neurophilosophy and related fields
Neurophilosophy has traditionally applied neuroscientific conceptions and

methods to philosophical inquiries (Bickle, Mandik & Landreth, 2019). For
2 Advances in Neurophilosophy
example, neurophilosophy may draw on empirical evidence on how the brain

processes information to inform philosophical debates about mental content,
mental states or mental representation.
Neurophilosophy thus understood is primarily a methodological approach
to any philosophical research question. Therefore, it overlaps with but also
meaningfully differs from related fields like philosophy of neuroscience or
neuroethics. Let us take these in turn.
Philosophy of neuroscience is a branch of philosophy of science. Philosophy
of science broadly deals with philosophical questions about the sciences. These
pertain to, for example, the nature and justification of scientific methods
and theories or realist versus anti-realist approaches to science. A subfield in
philosophy of science focuses on a particular science, such as physics and biology,
or a subdiscipline like quantum physics or evolutionary biology. Accordingly,
philosophy of neuroscience deals with philosophical questions relating to
neuroscience specifically. For instance, it discusses to what extent, if any,
neuroscientific data can justify correlational or causal claims. Neurophilosophy
as presented in this volume differs from the philosophy of neuroscience in
that it focuses on employing neuroscientific methods rather than investigating
neuroscience and its methods. For example, while a neurophilosopher may use
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to research how we make moral
decisions, a philosopher of neuroscience may study whether evidence from
studies using fMRI may justify scientific claims. Of course, these questions cannot
always be answered independently of each other; the distinction between the two
approaches is thus primarily a matter of the research topics and questions chosen.
Neuroethics is a field within applied or practical ethics, namely ethics
focusing on a particular domain like business, technology or the environment
(Dittmer, 2013). It is concerned with ethical questions arising from all matters
neuroscience (Roskies, 2021). For example, there has been an ongoing debate
on whether neuroenhancement is ethically permissible, that is, the use of
neural methods from psychopharmacology or brain stimulation to increase
human abilities. Neurophilosophy contrasts with neuroethics in that it does not
confine itself to ethical issues. For instance, neurophilosophers may investigate
questions arising within the philosophy of mind. In addition, neuroethics need
not employ neuroscientific methods. For example, neuroethicists may apply
principles of biomedical ethics to ethical challenges arising for neurologists in
thought experiments (Beauchamps and Childress, 1994). Again, the distinction
between the two approaches is not strict; a philosopher may use neuroscientific
methods and also reflect on the ethical dimensions of their work.
Introduction to Neurophilosophy 3
Historically, neuroscientific evidence and conceptions have primarily

attracted the interest of philosophers of mind, who investigate questions like the
nature of the mind and the mental, whether they may be identical or reducible to
the physical or material and whether talk of the mental or theories about it may
be described in or explained by non-mental terminology or theory.
So-called ‘eliminative materialists’ have argued that a future neuroscience
will eventually replace folk psychology, that is, our common-sense approach to
the mental, just like modern thermodynamics replaced the theory of phlogiston
(Churchland, 1981). In her influential Neurophilosophy (1986), Patricia
Churchland showcased that neuroscientific findings can bear on philosophical
discussion and outlined how an interdisciplinary approach would, in her opinion,
eventually reduce the mental to the physical. Along similar lines, Daniel Dennett
(1993 [1991]) relied on empirical evidence from neuroscience and related fields
to develop a materialist account of consciousness.
More recently, philosophers have moved from the armchair to the lab, as
it were, and started using empirical methods in their research. Philosophers
taking this approach employ methods like neuroimaging or neural stimulation
to investigate research questions pertaining to, for example, mental states,
intention, agency and moral judgements. The contributions in this volume are
examples in point.
The remainder of this section discusses three differences between neuroscience
and philosophy in terms of their methodologies and aims. These, in turn, imply
benefits and caveats of the interdisciplinary approach that neurophilosophy
takes.
A first difference concerns the process of theory building in the two
disciplines. As in all empirical sciences, theorizing in neuroscience is primarily
data-driven. Claims that are empirically testable are essential because they can
be preregistered as hypotheses and falsified or confirmed by empirical data.
In contrast, philosophical theorizing is primarily conceptual. Whether or not
its claims are empirically testable is far less important than whether they are
coherent, supported by sound arguments or defensible against critique. Where
possible, neuroscience can thus benefit from philosophy in that it can draw on its
complex and robust theoretical framework. For example, philosophical claims
can be operationalized and tested in neuroscientific research and philosophy
may advance debates within neuroscientific research with conceptual criteria
like logical coherence or argumentative soundness. Conversely, philosophy can
draw on neuroscientific data to support its claims or even to advance a debate
that has reached an impasse based on theoretical considerations alone. On the
one hand, then, an approach linking neuroscience and philosophy can reap
the benefits of both disciplines. That is, neurophilosophy may develop theories
that are both empirically confirmed and conceptually valuable. On the other
hand, the challenge arises to avoid the pitfalls of each approach, lest the result be
neither conceptually defensible nor supported by empirical evidence.
A second difference between philosophy and neuroscience is closely related
to the first but often underappreciated by interdisciplinary researchers. This
concerns the nature and content of claims the two disciplines put forward. For
example, consider generic claims like ‘judgements motivate action’. Philosophers
may advance this claim in a debate between motivational judgement internalists
and externalists, who are roughly divided about whether or not an agent making
an evaluative or normative judgement is at least somewhat motivated to act
accordingly. In philosophy, generic claims are taken to be all-quantified, that
is, they hold for each and every token or member of the class over which they
quantify. In our example, according to the claim put forward, each and every
single judgement motivates action. Consequently, this and other claims can
be falsified with one sole counterexample. In this vein, Adina Roskies (2003)
has argued that sociopaths are counterexamples to the claim that judgements
motivate actions because they make judgements without being at all motivated
to act accordingly.
Neuroscientists may operationalize and empirically test the very same
claim as part of a research project investigating value-based decision-making.
However, they understand it as a probabilistic claim rather than an all-quantified
one. For instance, the claim that judgements motivate action can be taken
as stating that judgements determine behaviour to a statistically significant
degree. Hence, this claim need not be falsified if some participants repeatedly
make judgements without acting accordingly. Some generic claims are even
regarded as true although the majority of instances are counterexamples to
them. For instance, many neurologists would presumably accept the claim
that the pork tapeworm causes seizures, although infections with adult pork
tapeworms generally have no or only relatively mild symptoms like diarrhoea
(cf. Leslie, 2017).
Differentiating between these two ways of understanding generic claims
is important in interdisciplinary research to prevent misunderstandings and
misguided research. Philosophers should not read such claims in neuroscientific
publications as all-quantified statements. Conversely, neuroscientists drawing
on such claims from philosophical theories for their work should bear in mind
that they do not allow for exceptions. Researchers taking an interdisciplinary
approach need to be mindful of the issue, making explicit as far as possible how
any generic claim used in data collection or writing is to be understood.
Third, words and expressions from both everyday language and technical
terminology can differ in meaning between fields. The word ‘judgement’ from
ordinary language is an example in point, although neither discipline uses
it in the ordinary sense. Neuroscientists regard it largely as a synonym for
‘decision’ or ‘choice’ and focus on its behavioural manifestations. In a typical
setup, participants are taken to make judgements when they move a cursor and
click on a rating scale presented on a computer screen or press one of several
buttons. In contrast, philosophers use ‘judgement’ more broadly as a label for a
mental process, state or event that need not have any behavioural or even neural
manifestation. As an example for a more technical term, ‘moral psychology’ is
used as a label for a special discipline in both neuroscience and philosophy but
it is, again, understood differently. Neuroscientists regard moral psychology as a
field within psychology that investigates moral decision-making and behaviour.
Among other questions, this field examines how factors like emotions determine
moral decisions, the conditions under which people perform seemingly altruistic
actions and when a child starts taking another’s perspective into account when
condemning their moral transgressions. Moral psychology widely employs
experimental methods but it need not use neuroscientific ones.
In philosophy, moral psychology is a subdiscipline that overlaps with meta-
ethics, action theory and philosophy of psychology. It deals with questions
like under what conditions someone is morally responsible for their action,
whether the genealogy of a moral judgement can undermine its justification
and how we become virtuous. Moral psychology as a philosophical discipline
has for the greater part of its history not employed experimental or empirical
methods, and this has changed only somewhat in recent decades. Both kinds of
moral psychology thus investigate similar topics but they do so within different
disciplinary contexts, by different standards and using different methods.
These two examples illustrate differences in terminology between philosophy
and neuroscience. These differences can constitute obstacles for interdisciplinary
research. Particularly for expressions and words that researchers take to either
be part of ordinary language or constitute a technical term, the challenge
arises to even notice that another discipline may understand them somewhat
or even completely differently. One could erroneously assume that words
of ordinary English have the same meaning for all competent speakers (like
‘judgement’) and overlook subtle but potentially decisive differences between
the disciplines. Technical terms seem to be idiosyncratic to one’s own field (like
‘moral psychology’), and thus one may think that one’s own definition is the only
correct one. This can hamper collaboration on collaborative research projects.
This challenge can be addressed by seeking to thoroughly understand
the terminology of other disciplines, to be mindful of hidden but substantial
assumptions built into conceptions and to ask for definitions from experts
where required. Because this challenge is specific to interdisciplinary research,
neurophilosophers have to take greater care than researchers who stay within
their disciplinary boundaries to describe the conceptions they study and use as
clearly and explicitly as possible to their collaborators and readers.
To draw an interim conclusion, I have suggested that neurophilosophy faces
challenges and benefits because it needs to overcome three differences between
the two approaches it seeks to link, namely philosophy and neuroscience. The
remainder of this section illustrates with two examples from contemporary
research how this can be successfully done.
My first example concerns the use of neuroscientific methods in moral
philosophy, which gained considerable attention shortly after the turn of the
millennium. One reason for this may have been a particular concern about
empirical methods in a normative field, namely the worry about the so-called
naturalistic fallacy or is-ought gap. Very roughly, the latter is the difference
between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ or facts and values, which is typically invoked to stress
that it is logically or conceptually impermissible to transition between them
(Hume, Treatise 3.1.1). For instance, from the claim that a child is suffering we
cannot derive a claim that the child ought to be suffering, and from the mere fact
that one person is wealthier than another nothing follows about whether this
is good or fair or problematic. Relatedly, the naturalistic fallacy is supposedly
the illegitimate transition from a natural to a normative property (Moore, 1903,
ch. 1, §10). For instance, from the claim that an action has a natural property
such as being pleasant, we may not conclude that this action is morally valuable
or required. Assuming that concerns like these are valid, empirical methods
and evidence may appear irrelevant to research interested in normative claims,
like ethics. For instance, if we find that, empirically, human actions have certain
causes or exhibit specific regularities, nothing follows about whether these
actions are morally permissible, required, valuable and so on. More specifically,
neuroscientific data about our behaviour or mental states and processes seem
irrelevant to research in moral philosophy.
Nevertheless, empirical findings may have normative implications in at least
two ways: by ‘“ought” implies “can”’ and by debunking. Let us take them in
turn.
Ethicists widely agree that if we morally ought to do something, then we can

do it, as expressed by the slogan that ‘“ought” implies “can”’. This can be spelled
out in different ways. For one thing, ‘can’ may be understood as ‘being able and
having the opportunity’ (Vranas 2018). For example, if I morally ought to save
a child from drowning, then I am both able and have the opportunity to save
them; I have swimming skills, access to the body of water where the child is
drowning and so on. Conversely, from ‘“ought” implies “can”’ it follows logically
that if we cannot do something, then it is not the case that we ought to do it, that
is, ‘cannot’ implies ‘not ought’. If I am a wheelchair user with paralysed legs and
hips, then it is not the case that I ought to save the child from drowning.
Whether an agent can or cannot do something is primarily an empirical
question. The answer to it has direct normative implications. To determine
whether I morally ought to save a drowning child I need empirical evidence
about whether I can save them. This evidence can be neuroscientific: it may
concern neuroscientific findings about our abilities to act in certain ways or to
make certain moral decisions. For example, clinical neuroscience can provide
evidence about the conditions under which disorders or neurodegenerative
diseases like autism, addiction, depression or dementia may impair our abilities
to make decisions, give consent, empathize with others, help them and so on.
Neuropharmacology can provide evidence about constraints on what we can
do under the influence of psychoactive substances like alcohol or heroin and
medication like opioids.
The second way in which empirical findings may have normative implications
is by way of debunking. So-called genealogical or debunking arguments attack
a target by showing that its causal origins, history or foundation undermine
its justification. For instance, on a view that has been attributed to Friedrich
Nietzsche, contemporary moral values should be rejected because they arose
merely as weapons devised by Christians persecuted during the Roman Empire
(Nietzsche, 1887; Prinz, 2007, ch. 6). In a similar vein, evolutionary debunking
arguments claim that, roughly, moral beliefs are the product of evolutionary
processes which do not track moral truth, and thus they are unjustified (Street,
2006; Vavova, 2014; Kahane, 2011). From this perspective, merely because it
may be evolutionarily beneficial to have a moral taboo against incest, say, this
does not provide us with a justification why incest should be morally wrong.
A debunking argument invoking neuroscientific evidence has been, roughly,
the following (Greene, 2008): neuroscience1 shows that emotional responses
determine deontological moral judgements but as these emotional responses
do not track moral truth, the moral judgements they determine are unjustified.
Whether this particular debunking argument is sound has been controversial

(Kamm, 2009, 2015; Berker, 2009), yet if we accept debunking as a valid way
of undermining the justification of claims, then neuroscientific evidence can
have normative implications in that it may allow us to reject some of those
claims. Neurophilosophy may, in this vein, advance research into moral and
other norms.
My second example to illustrate how neuroscientific methods can be
meaningfully used to inform philosophical inquiry concerns research into
mental states in the philosophy of mind and action. Both philosophers and
neuroscientists have long been interested in the nature of mental states and
processes and how they do or do not affect other mental states and actions.
Bearing in mind the three differences described earlier and the caveats they raise,
we may note that the two disciplines do not characterize the same mental states
and processes in the same ways, that they use different methods to investigate
and theorize about them and that the claims they advance about them differ in
content and nature. For one thing, when seeking to answer how beliefs translate
into action philosophers rely on conceptions of motivation or control and discuss
problems like weakness of will while neuroscientists observe neural activity and
bodily movements caused by or associated with them. Each approach can thus
provide an account of, say, an agent’s forming and acting on an intention, in
different words, on different levels of description, and using different kinds of
evidence. Linking the two is a non-trivial but promising task that may provide a
fuller understanding of the phenomenon than the individual disciplines can offer
on their own. Consider an analogy from the medical sciences: we can describe
a disorder like diabetes separately on the level of symptoms (thirst, frequent
urination, etc.) and on a mechanistic level (lack or insufficient production of
insulin) but both taken together enable us to better identify and treat it. These
two accounts are not rivals but allow us to better use the conception depending
on context and pragmatic need. Similarly, describing mental states on a neural
and philosophical level may provide us with a conception that enables us to
better identify and specify norms for them. In what follows, I shall describe an
example for an interdisciplinary inquiry into moral and aesthetic judgements.
In philosophy, there has been a long-standing debate whether the two kinds
of judgements differ in any meaningful way. Prima facie, moral judgements like
‘he is virtuous’ or ‘lying is ethically impermissible’ differ from aesthetic ones like
‘the painting is beautiful’ or ‘this is not true art’ in that they concern different
objects or express different values and norms. Kant explicated this difference
by suggesting that moral judgements express reverence for the moral law while
aesthetic judgements express awe for the sublime. Although it does not seem
ungrammatical to talk of beautiful acts of altruism or vicious literature, moral and
aesthetic terms clearly seem to have different meanings and in the two examples
just cited people may be speaking loosely. But some philosophers have disagreed
with this view, insisting that both kinds of judgements have the same nature
in that they all express sentiments of approval or disapproval (Hume Treatise
2). At the very least, aesthetic and moral judgements belong to the same class:
value judgements. That is, like prudential judgements about what is rational or
in one’s self-interest to do, or legal judgements about what is legitimate or legally
prohibited to do, they concern norms or evaluations.
Examining the nature of moral and aesthetic judgements in comparison to
each other may advance this debate. What, exactly, do people do when they
aesthetically or morally judge an object, action, event or person? There are
different ways do answer this question: we can assess the phenomenology,
namely what it is like to make moral or aesthetic judgements, we can introspect
or elicit reports about this process from others, we can observe behavioural
manifestations like utterances, we can define or characterize the two
judgements and compare our conceptions and so on. Neuroscience provides
us with further tools to study and contrast moral and aesthetic judgements: it
allows us to observe what happens in the brain when its owner makes them,
or what we call their neural or neurocorrelates. Neural correlates interest
scientists or physicians because they help us understand how the brain and
thus our perception, experience, thinking and behaviour work. For instance,
by studying the neurocorrelate of seeing we can understand how vision works.
Neuroscientists have observed where and what neural activity arises when
agents look at something or solve visual tasks. Repeatedly, they found that the
same area of the brain at the back of a participant’s head was active during such
tasks, a region that has become known as the visual cortex. This finding has
broad implications. For example, it informs treatment of blindness because
it tells us that performing surgery on a blind person’s eyes is useless if their
visual cortex is damaged to such an extent that it cannot process signals from
the eyes.
Thus, knowing the neurocorrelate of a specific perception, experience,
thought process or action is largely sufficient for knowing that, if such a process
or event occurs, then there is correlated neural activity. However, the reverse
is not true: if we observe neural activity that we know to be a correlate of a
specific process or event, we cannot infer that the latter is present as well. For
example, if we observe activity in a person’s visual cortex, we cannot infer that
this person is looking at something or engaged in a visual task. Activity in blind

people’s visual cortex has been observed when they perform verbal tasks with
(e.g. reading Braille) or without sensory input (Sadato et al., 1996; Amedi,
Raz, Pianka, Malach & Zohary, 2003; Merabet and Pascual-Leone, 2010). This
example illustrates the impermissibility of so-called reverse inference from neural
activity to its mental correlate (Poldrack and Yarkoni, 2016; Poldrack, 2006,
2011), as both small and large regions can perform a multitude of functions.
Although this relates to neuroplasticity, it is not identical to it. Neuroplasticity
concerns adaptation to changing demands or events, such as brain lesions, stress
or learning. But even a brain region that does not change over time in this way
can be active during substantially different mental events and processes. Some
correlates have been associated with such a vast array of functions that they
convey the impression to be necessary for any cognitive activity. For instance,
the tongue-in-cheek ‘Cingular Theory of Unification [. . .] postulates that one
brain region – the “cingulate cortex” – is the alpha and omega, responsible for
all of humankind’s functions’ (Gage, Parikh & Marzullo, 2008, p. 12). Seemingly
inspired by research into artificial intelligence, its advocates ‘predict that between
2050 and 2100, there will be more cingulate publications than there are cells in
the cingulate cortex itself. At this point, we fear that the “Cingularity” will be
reached, and the cingulate cortex will become self-aware’ (p. 13).
In short, comparing the neurocorrelates of moral and aesthetic judgements with
each other can provide us with new insights into commonalities and differences
between the two. To do so, my colleagues and I first assembled a set of details
from pictures of art that depicted morally salient actions, such as Titian’s painting
of Tarquinius threatening Lucretia. The selection covered actions that ranged
between morally very good and morally very bad, as judged by participants in
pilot studies, and artwork ranging between very beautiful and very ugly.2 In our
main study (Heinzelmann, Weber & Tobler, 2020), we instructed participants to
separately judge the beauty of the artwork and the moral goodness of the action
depicted while we measured their neural activity using fMRI (cf. Chapter 4 of this
volume). Then we compared the neural activity correlated with moral judgements
with the neural activity correlated with aesthetic judgements. We found highly
significant evidence for strong neural commonalities, that is, for both aesthetic
and moral judgements we observed similar activation in similar brain regions.
This was the case even though there was no evidence that the aesthetic and moral
judgements themselves correlated. That is, participants seemed to judge morality
and beauty independently from each other and did not indicate, say, that artwork
depicting morally good actions was ceteris paribus more beautiful than artwork
depicting morally bad actions. Using machine learning analyses, we also found
evidence for some weaker differences in neurocorrelates. Overall, though, our
results align more with a Humean view which claims that moral and aesthetic
judgements have the same nature. This conclusion presupposes a multilevel
account of moral and aesthetic judgements, with the neuroscientific and the
philosophical characterization aligning. We may regard this as a minimally
physicalistic understanding of moral and aesthetic judgements, that is, one that
allows for the conceptions of these judgements to include their neurocorrelates.
To conclude, neurophilosophy must adjudicate between or overcome the
differences between philosophy and neuroscience. In particular, this concerns
the conceptual versus empirical approach to theory building, the nature of the
claims proposed and the potentially diverging understanding of ordinary and
technical terms. However, these challenges are not insurmountable. Examples
from neurophilosophical research into moral norms and mental states illustrate
this as well as further case studies collected in this volume. The remainder of this
chapter provides a brief overview over them.
2 Outline of this collection
This collection has three main parts. The first part, Chapters 1 to 5, focuses on
neuroimaging methods that measure neural activity on different levels. Neuroimaging
allows us to observe the brain when we, for example, perceive voices or make
decisions. We describe four approaches from lower to higher levels of description:
measures of individual or multiple neurons, electro- and magnetoencephalography
(EEG and MEG), respectively, fMRI and resting-state MRI.
The second part of this volume, Chapters 6 and 7, is concerned with causal
interventions, where experimenters influence the brain directly and observe the
consequences, if any, on neural activity or the participants’ reports or behaviour.
We showcase two such interventions: magnetic and direct-current stimulations
of the brain.
The third part of this collection, Chapters 8 to 11, focuses on advanced
statistical and developmental methods to neuroscientific data. The large amount
of data (‘Big Data’) collected in neuroscientific experiments lends itself to
computational approaches. Developmental perspectives consider neuroscientific
phenomena as a process of evolution over time within an individual human life
(ontogenetic development) or within a species, especially as compared to other
species (phylogenetic development).
Neuroimaging produces pictures of the structure or activity of the brain or

of parts of it. On the lowest level, single- or multi-cell recordings measure the
individual or groups of brain cells, the neurons. In her chapter, Marine Bobin
explains how she uses this method to investigate how humans perceive voices
and process information about the speaker’s emotional state. Philosophers
have long debated the nature of perception and emotion, including the role
of bottom-up versus top-down processing. Bobin’s work provides us with
a description of how our memory affects our perception, how voices grab
our attention and how we are able to prioritize information about emotions
in others.
Moving from measurements on the cellular level to the cerebral cortex, the
chapter by Sofia Bonicalzi introduces EEG and illustrates how this method can
inform philosophical research into agency. According to a common view in the
philosophy of mind and action, intentional action is a paradigm example of
mental causation: you decide in your head to, say, get up and open the door, and
lo, your body follows suit. But what exactly is going on in such a case? We can
approach this question by considering what goes on in our brain. EEG allows
us to investigate neural processes as they unfold when we make decisions or
perceive our environment. Bonicalzi draws on two EEG studies detailing the
relations between intention, action and action outcome to inform a mechanistic
model of agency.
In a similar vein, the chapter by Marwa El Zein on MEG introduces readers
to a neuroscientific method with high temporal resolution. Primarily, it differs
from EEG in that it measures magnetic rather than electric brain signals. El Zein
and her colleagues used this method to inform the philosophical debate about
blaming and ascriptions of responsibility. More specifically, they were interested
in any differences in self-assigned responsibility for outcomes of actions that
participants performed either individually or as part of a group. Results inform
the relationship between agency and responsibility on a mechanistic level and
can inform discussions about collective agency and blame, which in turn have
ramifications for ethical and legal responsibility.
In his chapter, Javier Gomez-Lavin explains fMRI, which has poorer temporal
but better spatial resolution and can measure neural activity in the whole brain
roughly once every dozen seconds. Talk of the brain ‘lighting up’ often refers
to data from fMRI investigations but is, strictly speaking, incorrect because
experimenters do not observe or record light emitted by the brain. Instead,
changes in neural activity measured using fMRI are typically highlighted with
colour gradients reflecting the strength of the activity recorded. To illustrate how
fMRI can be employed in the service of philosophical inquiry, Gomez-Lavin

provides details of a study that examined object categorization during reasoning.
It indicates that distinct functional networks are involved in the categorization
of items on the one hand and specific item retention on the other. This may
suggest that the two are mechanistically or even mentally different.
Bryce Gessell introduces us to a variance of magnetic resonance imaging called
‘resting-state fMRI’. In classic fMRI experiments, brain activity is measured in
virtue of a contrast between a control condition and an experimental condition.
For example, a participant may consecutively be asked to listen to a sound and to
listen to silence, and experimenters can then measure the difference in brain activity
between the two states in order to make inferences about auditory perception.
Without a control condition, brain activity measured includes all kinds of activation
the experimenters would not be interested in, such as neural activity correlated
with breathing or heartbeat. Resting-state fMRI roughly resembles the control
task: the participant rests while undergoing brain scanning. Interestingly, resting-
state fMRI has provided striking insights into fundamental cognitive and neural
functions. For example, it has shown that the brain has a so-called ‘default mode’
network that is less active during many cognitive tasks. Gessell illustrates resting-
state fMRI further with an example from a particular study while also providing a
list of further research showcasing the range and potential of this method.
The first chapter of the part on causal interventions introduces readers to
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technology. Electric current flowing
through a coil creates a strong magnetic field that in turn induces a weak current
in the brain. For example, the experimenter can stimulate specific regions of the
motor cortex in such a way that the participant’s targeted finger twitches. TMS
thus allows researchers to directly change neural activity and observe the effects,
if any, on human behaviour. John Michael draws on his work with collaborators
to explain a specific type of TMS employed to study our understanding of
agency. Findings suggest that there is substantial overlap in the brain processes
underlying action understanding and action performance. This may inform
philosophical discussions of agency and perception as well as of first- versus
third-person perspectives on action.
Like TMS, transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) changes neural
activity and thus allows for inferences about how changes in the brain causally
effect changes in behaviour. Unlike in TMS, in tDCS weak electric current is
directly applied rather than magnetically induced. In his chapter, Alexander
Soutschek explains how tDCS can be put to versatile use by, for example,
varying the strength of the electric current or the direction in which it flows.
He illustrates the use of the technology with a recent study where his team used
tDCS to identify the brain processes underlying metacognitive awareness of
one’s own self-control. In other words, stimulating a specific region changed
how aware study participants were of their abilities to control and stick to their
choices. Findings like these may support philosophical accounts of higher- and
lower-order cognition, self-control and self-knowledge.
J. Brendan Ritchie and Gualtiero Piccinini kick off the third part of this collection
on statistical methods with their chapter on computational neuroscience. This
approach applies computational modelling to neuroscientific data. This may
include computer simulations, mathematical models or theories about information
processing to describe and predict neural structures and activity from the neuronal
to the whole-brain level. Ritchie and Piccinini explain this approach, discussing in
greater detail conceptions of computation and information processing. They also
demonstrate by way of example how computational neuroscience can re-describe
processes of object recognition and improve our understanding of them. This, in
turn, sheds new light on topics discussed in metaphysics and the philosophy of
science, such as the relationship between different levels of organization and theory
building or the ontological nature of computation and information processing.
Introducing us to developmental neuroscience, Kristina Musholt and
Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann take us on a journey to different methods
used to study individual development, from eyetracking to functional near-
infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Individual developmental neuroscience seeks
to understand the development of cognitive abilities and of the brain, thereby
teaching us about cognitive and neural mechanisms in general. Showcasing
this approach by way of example, Musholt and Grosse Wiesmann explain how
developmental neuroscience can help us disentangle complex linguistic and
social-cognitive processes that develop at different rates over the human life
span. Thereby, they argue, developmental neuroscience can inform research into
classic subjects of the philosophy of mind and cognition, notably theories of our
own mental states and of other minds.
Wrapping up this edited collection with a chapter aptly entitled ‘About leaving
the neuroscience lab’, Antonella Tramacere introduces us to developmental
comparative neuroscience. This approach within neuroscience investigates, inter
alia, the evolution of human behaviour and the human brain by way of comparing
it with that of other species. Tramacere probes common conceptual and
methodical assumptions underlying comparative neuroscience, such as the claims
that evolution proceeds from simpler to more complex structures or that species-
specific behaviour can be localized to fixed brain areas. Tramacere argues that the
evolution of behaviour and correlated brain mechanisms is adaptive and varies

from one context to the next, concluding that we must leave the neuroscience
laboratory and study behaviour and brain plasticity in naturalistic settings.
In sum, this book provides the reader with an introduction to both
established methods like fMRI or EEG and cutting-edge approaches like MEG
or computational neuroscience. In addition, it shows by way of examples from
current research how these methods are used to address philosophical debates
from fields like theory of mind and action to epistemology to ethics. Therefore,
what this collection does not seek to do is to provide a comprehensive overview
over all methods and current research topic. Instead, it is a spotlight overview
that focuses on the main but not all methods and it selectively presents pieces of
current research that showcase these methods. Future editions may add methods
not covered so far, such as lesion studies or positron emission tomography
(PET). As with all evolving research, over time some of the cutting-edge findings
presented here will get superseded. Our joint ambition for this volume is to make
a start and lead the way to what will become avenues for future endeavours.
Notes
1 Greene (2008) provides evidence from other fields as well, which I discuss in
Heinzelmann (2018). Here, I focus on evidence from neuroscience.
2 The stimuli, alongside data, materials and results from our pilot and main studies are
available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) at https://osf.io/9q286/.
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amendments in a subsequent, to preclude those in a prior part, or e
converso.]
When the committee is through the whole, a member moves that
the committee may rise, and the chairman report the paper to the
House, with or without amendments, as the case may be. 2 Hats.,
289, 292; Scob., 53; 2 Hats., 290; 8 Scob., 50.
When a vote is once passed in a committee, it cannot be altered
but by the House, their votes being binding on themselves. 1607,
June 4.
The committee may not erase, interline, or blot the bill itself; but
must, in a paper by itself, set down the amendments, stating the
words which are to be inserted or omitted, Scob., 50, and where, by
references to page, line, and word of the bill. Scob., 50.
SEC. XXVII.—REPORT OF COMMITTEE.
The chairman of the committee, standing in his place, informs the

House that the committee to whom was referred such a bill, have,
according to order, had the same under consideration, and have
directed him to report the same without any amendment, or with
sundry amendments (as the case may be), which he is ready to do
when the House pleases to receive it. And he or any other may move
that it be now received; but the cry of “now, now,” from the House,
generally dispenses with the formality of a motion and question. He
then reads the amendments, with the coherence in the bill, and
opens the alterations and the reasons of the committee for such
amendments, until he has gone through the whole. He then delivers
it at the Clerk’s table, where the amendments reported are read by
the Clerk without the coherence; whereupon the papers lie upon the
table till the House, at its convenience, shall take up the report.
Scob., 52; Hakew., 148.
The report being made, the committee is dissolved, and can act no
more without a new power. Scob., 51. But it may be revived by a vote,
and the same matter recommitted to them. 4 Grey, 361.
SEC. XXVIII.—BILL, RECOMMITMENT.

After a bill has been committed and reported, it ought not, in an
ordinary course, to be recommitted; but in cases of importance, and
for special reasons, it is sometimes recommitted, and usually to the
same committee. Hakew., 151. If a report be recommitted before
agreed to in the House, what has passed in committee is of no
validity; the whole question is again before the committee, and a new
resolution must be again moved, as if nothing had passed. 3 Hats.,
131—note.
In Senate, January, 1800, the salvage bill was recommitted three
times after the commitment.
A particular clause of a bill may be committed without the whole
bill, 3 Hats., 131; or so much of a paper to one and so much to
another committee.
SEC. XXIX.—BILL, REPORTS TAKEN UP.
When the report of a paper originating with a committee is taken

up by the House, they proceed exactly as in committee. Here, as in
committee, when the paragraphs have, on distinct questions, been
agreed to seriatim, 5 Grey, 366; 6 Grey, 368; 8 Grey, 47, 104, 360; 1
Torbuck’s Deb., 125; 3 Hats., 348, no question needs be put on the
whole report. 5 Grey, 381.
On taking up a bill reported with amendments, the amendments
only are read by the Clerk. The Speaker then reads the first, and puts
it to the question, and so on till the whole are adopted or rejected,
before any other amendment be admitted, except it be an
amendment to an amendment. Elsynge’s Mem., 53. When through
the amendments of the committee, the Speaker pauses, and gives
time for amendments to be proposed in the House to the body of the
bill; as he does also if it has been reported without amendments:
putting no questions but on amendments proposed; and when
through the whole, he puts the question whether the bill shall be read
a third time?
SEC. XXX.—QUASI-COMMITTEE.
If on motion and question the bill be not committed, or if no

proposition for commitment be made, then the proceedings in the
Senate of the United States and in Parliament are totally different.
The former shall be first stated.
[The 25th rule of the Senate says: “All bills on a second reading
shall first be considered by the Senate in the same manner as if the
Senate were in Committee of the Whole before they shall be taken up
and proceeded on by the Senate agreeably to the standing rules,
unless otherwise ordered;” (that is to say, unless ordered to be
referred to a special committee.) And when the Senate shall consider
a treaty, bill, or resolution, as in Committee of the Whole, the Vice-
President or President pro tempore may call a member to fill the
chair during the time the Senate shall remain in Committee of the
Whole; and the chairman (so called) shall, during such time, have
the powers of a President pro tempore.]
[The proceeding of the Senate as in a Committee of the Whole, or
in quasi-committee, is precisely as in a real Committee of the Whole,
taking no questions but on amendments. When through the whole,
they consider the quasi-committee as risen, the House resumed
without any motion, question, or resolution to that effect, and the
President reports that “the House, acting as in a Committee of the
Whole, have had under their consideration the bill entitled, &c., and
have made sundry amendments, which he will now report to the
House.” The bill is then before them, as it would have been if
reported from a committee, and questions are regularly to be put
again on every amendment; which being gone through, the President
pauses to give time to the House to propose amendments to the body
of the bill, and, when through, puts the question whether it shall be
read a third time?]
[After progress in amending the bill in quasi-committee, a motion
may be made to refer it to a special committee. If the motion
prevails, it is equivalent in effect to the several votes, that the
committee rise, the House resume itself, discharge the Committee of
the Whole, and refer the bill to a special committee. In that case, the
amendments already made fall. But if the motion fails, the quasi-
committee stands in statu quo.]
[How far does this 25th rule subject the House, when in quasi-
committee, to the laws which regulate the proceedings of
Committees of the Whole?] The particulars in which these differ
from proceedings in the House are the following: 1. In a committee
every member may speak as often as he pleases. 2. The votes of a
committee may be rejected or altered when reported to the House. 3.
A committee, even of the whole, cannot refer any matter to another
committee. 4. In a committee no previous question can be taken: the
only means to avoid an improper discussion is to move that the
committee rise; and if it be apprehended that the same discussion
will be attempted on returning into committee, the House can
discharge them, and proceed itself on the business, keeping down the
improper discussion by the previous question. 5. A committee cannot
punish a breach of order in the House or in the gallery. 9 Grey, 113. It
can only rise and report it to the House, who may proceed to punish.
[The first and second of these peculiarities attach to the quasi-
committee of the Senate, as every day’s practice proves, and it seems
to be the only ones to which the 25th rule meant to subject them; for
it continues to be a House, and therefore, though it acts in some
respects as a committee, in others it preserves its character as a
House. Thus (3) it is in the daily habit of referring its business to a
special committee. 4. It admits of the previous question. If it did not,
it would have no means of preventing an improper discussion: not
being able, as a committee is, to avoid it by returning into the House,
for the moment it would resume the same subject there, the 25th rule
declares it again a quasi-committee. 5. It would doubtless exercise its
powers as a House on any breach of order. 6. It takes a question by
yea and nay, as the House does. 7. It receives messages from the
President and the other House. 8. In the midst of a debate it receives
a motion to adjourn, and adjourns as a House, not as a committee.]
SEC. XXXI.—BILL, SECOND READING IN THE HOUSE.
In Parliament, after the bill has been read a second time, if on the
motion and question it be not committed, or if no proposition for
commitment be made, the Speaker reads it by paragraphs, pausing
between each, but putting no question but on amendments
proposed; and when through the whole, he puts the question
whether it shall be read a third time? if it came from the other
House; or, if originating with themselves, whether it shall be
engrossed and read a third time? The Speaker reads sitting, but rises
to put questions. The Clerk stands while he reads.
[[99]But the Senate of the United States is so much in the habit of
making many and material amendments at the third reading, that it
has become the practice not to engross a bill till it has passed—an
irregular and dangerous practice; because in this way the paper
which passes the Senate is not that which goes to the other House,
and that which goes to the other House as the act of the Senate, has
never been seen in Senate. In reducing numerous, difficult, and
illegible amendments into the text, the Secretary may, with the most
innocent intentions, commit errors which can never again be
corrected.]
The bill being now as perfect as its friends can make it, this is the
proper stage for those fundamentally opposed to make their first
attack. All attempts at earlier periods are with disjointed efforts,
because many who do not expect to be in favor of the bill ultimately,
are willing to let it go on to its perfect state, to take time to examine it
themselves and to hear what can be said for it, knowing that after all
they will have sufficient opportunities of giving it their veto. Its two
last stages, therefore, are reserved for this—that is to say, on the
question whether it shall be engrossed and read a third time? and,
lastly, whether it shall pass? The first of these is usually the most
interesting contest; because then the whole subject is new and
engaging, and the minds of the members having not yet been
declared by any trying vote the issue is the more doubtful. In this
stage, therefore, is the main trial of strength between its friends and
opponents, and it behooves every one to make up his mind decisively
for this question, or he loses the main battle; and accident and
management may, and often do, prevent a successful rallying on the
next and last question, whether it shall pass?
When the bill is engrossed, the title is to be indorsed on the back,
and not within the bill.—Hakew., 250.
SEC. XXXII.—READING PAPERS.
Where papers are laid before the House or referred to a

committee, every member has a right to have them once read at the
table before he can be compelled to vote on them; but it is a great
though common error to suppose that he has a right, toties quoties,
to have acts, journals, accounts, or papers on the table, read
independently of the will of the House. The delay and interruption
which this might be made to produce evince the impossibility of the
existence of such a right. There is, indeed, so manifest a propriety of
permitting every member to have as much information as possible
on every question on which he is to vote, that when he desires the
reading, if it be seen that it is really for information and not for delay,
the Speaker directs it to be read without putting a question, if no one
objects; but if objected to, a question must be put.—2 Hats., 117, 118.
It is equally an error to suppose that any member has a right,
without a question put, to lay a book or paper on the table, and have
it read, on suggesting that it contains matter infringing on the
privileges of the House.—Ib.
For the same reason, a member has not a right to read a paper in
his place, if it be objected to, without leave of the House. But this
rigor is never exercised but where there is an intentional or gross
abuse of the time and patience of the House.
A member has not a right even to read his own speech, committed
to writing, without leave. This also is to prevent an abuse of time,
and therefore is not refused but where that is intended.—2 Grey,
227.
A report of a committee of the Senate on a bill from the House of
Representatives being under consideration: on motion that the
report of the committee of the House of Representatives on the same
bill be read in the Senate, it passed in the negative.—Feb. 28, 1793.
Formerly, when papers were referred to a committee, they used to
be first read; but of late only the titles, unless a member insists they
shall be read, and then nobody can oppose it.—2 Hats., 117.
SEC. XXXIII.—PRIVILEGED QUESTIONS.
[[100] While a question is before the Senate, no motion shall be

received, unless for an amendment, for the previous question, or for
postponing the main question, or to commit it, or to adjourn.—Rule
8.]
It is no possession of a bill unless it be delivered to the Clerk to
read, or the Speaker reads the title.—Lex. Parl., 274; Elsynge Mem.,
85; Ord. House of Commons, 64.
It is a general rule that the question first moved and seconded
shall be first put. Scob., 28, 22; 2 Hats., 81. But this rule gives way to
what may be called privileged questions; and the privileged
questions are of different grades among themselves.
A motion to adjourn simply takes place of all others; for otherwise
the House might be kept sitting against its will, and indefinitely. Yet
this motion cannot be received after another question is actually put,
and while the House is engaged in voting.
Orders of the day take place of all other questions, except for
adjournment—that is to say, the question which is the subject of an
order is made a privileged one, pro hac vice. The order is a repeal of
the general rule as to this special case. When any member moves,
therefore, for the order of the day to be read, no further debate is
permitted on the question which was before the House; for if the
debate might proceed, it might continue through the day and defeat
the order. This motion, to entitle it to precedence, must be for the
orders generally, and not for any particular one; and if it be carried
on the question “Whether the House will now proceed to the orders
of the day?” they must be read and proceeded on in the course in
which they stand, 2 Hats., 83; for priority of order gives priority of
right, which cannot be taken away but by another special order.
After these there are other privileged questions, which will require
considerable explanation.
It is proper that every parliamentary assembly should have certain
forms of questions, so adapted as to enable them fitly to dispose of
every proposition which can be made to them. Such are, 1. The
previous question. 2. To postpone indefinitely. 3. To adjourn a
question to a definite day, 4. To lie on the table. 5. To commit. 6. To
amend. The proper occasion for each of these questions should be
understood.
1. When a proposition is moved which it is useless or inexpedient
now to express or discuss, the previous question has been introduced
for suppressing for that time the motion and its discussion. 3 Hats.,
188, 189.
2. But as the previous question gets rid of it only for that day, and
the same proposition may recur the next day, if they wish to suppress
it for the whole of that session, they postpone it indefinitely. 3 Hats.,
183. This quashes the proposition for that session, as an indefinite
adjournment is a dissolution, or the continuance of a suit sine die is a
discontinuance of it.
3. When a motion is made which it will be proper to act on, but
information is wanted, or something more pressing claims the
present time, the question or debate is adjourned to such day within
the session as will answer the views of the House. 2 Hats., 81. And
those who have spoken before may not speak again when the
adjourned debate is resumed. 2 Hats., 73. Sometimes, however, this
has been abusively used by adjourning it to a day beyond the session,
to get rid of it altogether, as would be done by an indefinite
postponement.
4. When the House has something else which claims its present
attention, but would be willing to reserve in their power to take up a
proposition whenever it shall suit them, they order it to lie on their
table. It may then be called for at any time.
5. If the proposition will want more amendment and digestion
than the formalities of the House will conveniently admit, they refer
it to a committee.
6. But if the proposition be well digested, and may need but few
and simple amendments, and especially if these be of leading
consequence, they then proceed to consider and amend it
themselves.
The Senate, in their practice, vary from this regular gradation of
forms. Their practice comparatively with that of Parliament stands
thus:
FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY: THE SENATE USES:
Postponement indefinite, Postponement to a day beyond the session.
Adjournment, Postponement to a day within the session.
Postponement indefinite.
Lying on the table.
Lying on the table.
In their eighth rule, therefore, which declares that while a question
is before the Senate no motion shall be received, unless it be for the
previous question, or to postpone, commit, or amend the main
question, the term postponement must be understood according to
their broad use of it, and not in its parliamentary sense. Their rule,
then establishes as privileged questions, the previous question,
postponement, commitment, and amendment.
But it may be asked: Have these questions any privilege among
themselves? or are they so equal that the common principle of the
“first moved first put” takes place among them? This will need
explanation. Their competitions may be as follows:
1. Previous question
and postpone
commit amend
2. Postpone and
previous question
In the first, second, and the third classes, and the first
commit amend
member of the fourth class, the rule “first moved first
3. Commit and put” takes place.
previous question
postpone amend
4. Amend and
previous question
postpone commit
In the first class, where the previous question is first moved, the
effect is peculiar; for it not only prevents the after motion to
postpone or commit from being put to question before it, but also
from being put after it; for if the previous question be decided
affirmatively, to wit, that the main question shall now be put, it
would of course be against the decision to postpone, or commit; and
if it be decided negatively, to wit, that the main question shall not
now be put, this puts the House out of possession of the main
question, and consequently there is nothing before them to postpone
or commit. So that neither voting for nor against the previous
question will enable the advocates for postponing or committing to
get at their object. Whether it may be amended shall be examined
hereafter.
Second class. If postponement be decided affirmatively, the
proposition is removed from before the House, and consequently
there is no ground for the previous question, commitment, or
amendment; but if decided negatively, (that it shall not be
postponed,) the main question may then be suppressed by the
previous question, or may be committed, or amended.
The third class is subject to the same observations as the second.
The fourth class. Amendment of the main question first moved,
and afterwards the previous question, the question of amendment
shall be first put.
Amendment and postponement competing, postponement is first
put, as the equivalent proposition to adjourn the main question
would be in Parliament. The reason is that the question for
amendment is not suppressed by postponing or adjourning the main
question, but remains before the House whenever the main question
is resumed; and it might be that the occasion for other urgent
business might go by, and be lost by length of debate on the
amendment, if the House had it not in their power to postpone the
whole subject.
Amendment and commitment. The question for committing,
though last moved shall be first put; because, in truth, it facilitates
and befriends the motion to amend. Scobell is express: “On motion
to amend a bill, any one may notwithstanding move to commit it,
and the question for commitment shall be first put.” Scob., 46.
We have hitherto considered the case of two or more of the
privileged questions contending for privilege between themselves,
when both are moved on the original or main question; but now let
us suppose one of them to be moved, not on the original primary
question, but on the secondary one, e. g.:
Suppose a motion to postpone, commit, or amend the main
question, and that it be moved to suppress that motion by putting a
previous question on it. This is not allowed: because it would
embarrass questions too much to allow them to be piled on one
another several stories high; and the same result may be had in a
more simple way—by deciding against the postponement,
commitment, or amendment. 2 Hats., 81, 2, 3, 4.
Suppose a motion for the previous question, or commitment or
amendment of the main question, and that it be then moved to
postpone the motion for the previous question, or for commitment or
amendment of the main question. 1. It would be absurd to postpone
the previous question, commitment, or amendment, alone, and thus
separate the appendage from its principal; yet it must be postponed
separately from its original, if at all; because the eighth rule of Senate
says that when a main question is before the House no motion shall
be received but to commit, amend, or pre-question the original
question, which is the parliamentary doctrine also. Therefore the
motion to postpone the secondary motion for the previous question,
or for committing or amending, cannot be received. 2. This is a piling
of questions one on another; which, to avoid embarrassment, is not
allowed. 3. The same result may be had more simply by voting
against the previous question, commitment, or amendment.
Suppose a commitment moved of a motion for the previous
question, or to postpone or amend. The first, second, and third
reasons, before stated, all hold good against this.
Suppose an amendment moved to a motion for the previous
question. Answer: The previous question cannot be amended.
Parliamentary usage, as well as the ninth rule of the Senate, has fixed
its form to be, “Shall the main question be now put?”—i. e., at this
instant; and as the present instant is but one, it can admit of no
modification. To change it to to-morrow, or any other moment, is
without example and without utility. But suppose a motion to amend
a motion for postponement, as to one day instead of another, or to a
special instead of an indefinite time. The useful character of
amendment gives it a privilege of attaching itself to a secondary and
privileged motion: that is, we may amend a postponement of a main
question. So, we may amend a commitment of a main question, as by
adding, for example, “with instructions to inquire,” &c. In like
manner, if an amendment be moved to an amendment, it is
admitted; but it would not be admitted in another degree, to wit, to
amend an amendment to an amendment of a main question. This
would lead to too much embarrassment. The line must be drawn
somewhere, and usage has drawn it after the amendment to the
amendment. The same result must be sought by deciding against the
amendment to the amendment, and then moving it again as it was
wished to be amended. In this form it becomes only an amendment
to an amendment.
[When motions are made for reference of the same subject to a
select committee and to a standing committee, the question on
reference to the standing committee shall be first put. Rule 48.]
[In filling a blank with a sum, the largest sum shall be first put to
the question, by the thirteenth rule of the Senate,[101]] contrary to the
rule of Parliament, which privileges the smallest sum and longest
time. [5 Grey, 179; 2 Hats., 8, 83; 3 Hats., 132, 133.] And this is
considered to be not in the form of an amendment to the question,
but as alternative or successive originals. In all cases of time or
number, we must consider whether the larger comprehends the
lesser, as in a question to what day a postponement shall be, the
number of a committee, amount of a fine, term of an imprisonment,
term of irredeemability of a loan, or the terminus in quem in any
other case; then the question must begin a maximo. Or whether the
lesser includes the greater, as in questions on the limitation of the
rate of interest, on what day the session shall be closed by
adjournment, on what day the next shall commence, when an act
shall commence, or the terminus a quo in any other case where the
question must begin a minimo; the object being not to begin at that
extreme which, and more, being within every man’s wish, no one
could negative it, and yet, if he should vote in the affirmative, every
question for more would be precluded; but at that extreme which
would unite few, and then to advance or recede till you get to a
number which will unite a bare majority. 3 Grey, 376, 384, 385. “The
fair question in this case is not that to which, and more, all will agree,
but whether there shall be addition to the question.” 1 Grey, 365.
Another exception to the rule of priority is when a motion has been
made to strike out, or agree to, a paragraph. Motions to amend it are
to be put to the question before a vote is taken on striking out or
agreeing to the whole paragraph.
But there are several questions which, being incidental to every
one, will take place of every one, privileged or not; to wit, a question
of order arising out of any other question must be decided before
that question. 2 Hats., 88.
A matter of privilege arising out of any question, or from a quarrel
between two members, or any other cause, supersedes the
consideration of the original question, and must be first disposed of.
2 Hats., 88.
Reading papers relative to the question before the House. This
question must be put before the principal one. 2 Hats., 88.
Leave asked to withdraw a motion. The rule of Parliament being
that a motion made and seconded is in the possession of the House,
and cannot be withdrawn without leave, the very terms of the rule
imply that leave may be given, and, consequently, may be asked and
put to the question.
SEC. XXXIV.—THE PREVIOUS QUESTION.

When any question is before the House, any member may move a
previous question, “Whether that question (called the main question)
shall now be put?” If it pass in the affirmative, then the main
question is to be put immediately, and no man may speak anything
further to it, either to add or alter. Memor. in Hakew., 28; 4 Grey,
27.
The previous question being moved and seconded, the question
from the Chair shall be, “Shall the main question be now put?” and if
the nays prevail, the main question shall not then be put.
This kind of question is understood by Mr. Hatsell to have been
introduced in 1604. 2 Hats., 80. Sir Henry Vane introduced it. 2
Grey, 113, 114; 3 Grey, 384. When the question was put in this form,
“Shall the main question be put?” a determination in the negative
suppressed the main question during the session; but since the
words “now put” are used, they exclude it for the present only;
formerly, indeed, only till the present debate was over, 4 Grey, 43,
but now for that day and no longer. 2 Grey, 113, 114.
Before the question “Whether the main question shall now be
put?” any person might formerly have spoken to the main question,
because otherwise he would be precluded from speaking to it at all.
Mem. in Hakew., 28.
The proper occasion for the previous question is when a subject is
brought forward of a delicate nature as to high personages, &c., or
the discussion of which may call forth observations which might be
of injurious consequences. Then the previous question is proposed;
and in the modern usage, the discussion of the main question is
suspended, and the debate confined to the previous question. The
use of it has been extended abusively to other cases; but in these it
has been an embarrassing procedure; its uses would be as well
answered by other more simple parliamentary forms, and therefore
it should not be favored, but restricted within as narrow limits as
possible.
Whether a main question may be amended after the previous
question on it has been moved and seconded? 2 Hats., 88, says, if the
previous question has been moved and seconded, and also proposed
from the Chair, (by which he means stated by the Speaker for
debate,) it has been doubted whether an amendment can be
admitted to the main question. He thinks it may, after the previous
question moved and seconded; but not after it has been proposed
from the Chair. In this case, he thinks the friends to the amendment
must vote that the main question be not now put; and then move
their amended question, which being made new by the amendment,
is no longer the same which has been just suppressed, and therefore
may be proposed as a new one. But this proceeding certainly
endangers the main question, by dividing its friends, some of whom
may chose it unamended, rather than lose it altogether; while others
of them may vote, as Hatsell advises, that the main question be not
now put, with a view to move it again in an amended form. The
enemies of the main question, by this maneuver to the previous
question, get the enemies to the amendment added to them on the
first vote, and throw the friends of the main question under the
embarrassment of rallying again as they can. To support this
opinion, too, he makes the deciding circumstance, whether an
amendment may or may not be made, to be, that the previous
question has been proposed from the Chair. But, as the rule is that
the House is in possession of a question as soon as it is moved and
seconded, it cannot be more than possessed of it by its being also
proposed from the Chair. It may be said, indeed, that the object of
the previous question being to get rid of a question, which it is not
expedient should be discussed, this object may be defeated by
moving to amend; and in the discussion of that motion, involving the
subject of the main question. But so may the object of the previous
question be defeated, by moving the amended question, as Mr.
Hatsell proposes, after the decision against putting the original
question. He acknowledges, too, that the practice has been to admit
previous amendments, and only cites a few late instances to the
contrary. On the whole, I should think it best to decide it ab
inconvenienti, to wit: Which is most inconvenient, to put it in the
power of one side of the House to defeat a proposition by hastily
moving the previous question, and thus forcing the main question to
be put unamended; or to put it in the power of the other side to force
on, incidentally at least, a discussion which would be better avoided?
Perhaps the last is the least inconvenience; inasmuch as the Speaker,
by confining the discussion rigorously to the amendment only, may
prevent their going into the main question; and inasmuch also as so
great a proportion of the cases in which the previous question is
called for, are fair and proper subjects of public discussion, and
ought not to be obstructed by a formality introduced for questions of
a peculiar character.
SEC. XXXV.—AMENDMENTS.
On an amendment being moved, a member who has spoken to the

main question may speak again to the amendment. Scob., 23.
If an amendment be proposed inconsistent with one already
agreed to, it is a fit ground for its rejection by the House, but not
within the competence of the Speaker to suppress as if it were against
order. For were he permitted to draw questions of consistence within
the vortex of order, he might usurp a negative on important
modifications, and suppress, instead of subserving, the legislative
will.
Amendments may be made so as totally to alter the nature of the
proposition; and it is a way of getting rid of a proposition, by making
it bear a sense different from what it was intended by the movers, so
that they vote against it themselves. 2 Hats., 79; 4, 82, 84. A new bill
may be ingrafted, by way of amendment, on the words “Be it
enacted,” &c. 1 Grey, 190, 192.
If it be proposed to amend by leaving out certain words, it may be
moved, as an amendment to this amendment, to leave out a part of
the words of the amendment, which is equivalent to leaving them in
the bill. 2 Hats., 80, 9. The parliamentary question is, always,
whether the words shall stand part of the bill.
When it is proposed to amend by inserting a paragraph, or part of
one, the friends of the paragraph may make it as perfect as they can
by amendments before the question is put for inserting it. If it be
received, it cannot be amended afterward, in the same stage, because
the House has, on a vote, agreed to it in that form. In like manner, if
it is proposed to amend by striking out a paragraph, the friends of
the paragraph are first to make it as perfect as they can by
amendments, before the question is put for striking it out. If on the
question it be retained, it cannot be amended afterward, because a
vote against striking out is equivalent to a vote agreeing to it in that
form.
When it is moved to amend by striking out certain words and
inserting others, the manner of stating the question is first to read
the whole passage to be amended as it stands at present, then the
words proposed to be struck out, next those to be inserted, and lastly
the whole passage as it will be when amended. And the question, if
desired, is then to be divided, and put first on striking out. If carried,
it is next on inserting the words proposed. If that be lost, it may be
moved to insert others. 2 Hats., 80, 7.
A motion is made to amend by striking out certain words and
inserting others in their place, which is negatived. Then it is moved
to strike out the same words and to insert others of a tenor entirely
different from those first proposed. It is negatived. Then it is moved
to strike out the same words and insert nothing, which is agreed to.
All this is admissible, because to strike out and insert A is one
proposition. To strike out and insert B is a different proposition. And
to strike out and insert nothing is still different. And the rejection of
one proposition does not preclude the offering a different one. Nor
would it change the case were the first motion divided by putting the
question first on striking out, and that negatived; for, as putting the
whole motion to the question at once would not have precluded, the
putting the half of it cannot do it.
[The practice in the United States Senate in this respect is now
fixed by the 31st rule, as follows: If the question in debate contains
several points, any Senator may have the same divided; but on a
motion to strike out and insert, it shall not be in order to move for a
division of the question; but the rejection of a motion to strike out
and insert one proposition shall not prevent a motion to strike out
and insert a different proposition, nor prevent a subsequent motion
simply to strike out; nor shall the rejection of a motion simply to
strike out prevent a subsequent motion to strike out and insert.]
But if it had been carried affirmatively to strike out the words and
to insert A, it could not afterward be permitted to strike out A and
insert B. The mover of B should have notified, while the insertion of
A was under debate, that he would move to insert B; in which case
those who preferred it would join in rejecting A.
After A is inserted, however, it may be moved to strike out a
portion of the original paragraph, comprehending A, provided the
coherence to be struck out be so substantial as to make this
effectively a different proposition; for then it is resolved into the
common case of striking out a paragraph after amending it. Nor does
anything forbid a new insertion, instead of A and its coherence.
In Senate, January 25, 1798 a motion to postpone until the second
Tuesday in February some amendments proposed to the
Constitution; the words “until the second Tuesday in February,” were
struck out by way of amendment. Then it was moved to add, “until
the first day of June.” Objected that it was not in order, as the
question should be first put on the longest time; therefore, after a
shorter time decided against, a longer cannot be put to question. It
was answered that this rule takes place only in filling blanks for time.
But when a specific time stands part of a motion, that may be struck
out as well as any other part of the motion; and when struck out, a
motion may be received to insert any other. In fact, it is not until they
are struck out, and a blank for the time thereby produced, that the
rule can begin to operate, by receiving all the propositions for
different times, and putting the questions successively on the
longest. Otherwise it would be in the power of the mover, by
inserting originally a short time, to preclude the possibility of a
longer; for till the short time is struck out, you cannot insert a longer;
and if, after it is struck out, you cannot do it, then it cannot be done
at all. Suppose the first motion had been made to amend by striking
out “the second Tuesday in February,” and inserting instead thereof
“the first of June,” it would have been regular, then, to divide the
question, by proposing first the question to strike out and then that
to insert. Now this is precisely the effect of the present proceeding;
only, instead of one motion and two questions, there are two motions
and two questions to effect it—the motions being divided as well as
the question.
When the matter contained in two bills might be better put into
one, the manner is to reject the one, and incorporate its matter into
another bill by way of amendment. So if the matter of one bill would
be better distributed into two, any part may be struck out by way of
amendment, and put into a new bill. If a section is to be transposed,
a question must be put on striking it out where it stands and another
for inserting it in the place desired.
A bill passed by the one House with blanks. These may be filled up
by the other by way of amendments, returned to the first as such, and
passed. 3 Hats., 83.
The number prefixed to the section of a bill, being merely a
marginal indication, and no part of the text of the bill, the Clerk
regulates that—the House or committee is only to amend the text.
SEC. XXXVI.—DIVISION OF THE QUESTION.
If a question contains more parts than one, it may be divided into

two or more questions. Mem. in Hakew., 29. But not as the right of
an individual member, but with the consent of the House. For who is
to decide whether a question is complicated or not—where it is
complicated—into how many propositions it may be divided? The
fact is that the only mode of separating a complicated question is by
moving amendments to it; and these must be decided by the House,
on a question, unless the House orders it to be divided; as, on the
question, December 2, 1640, making void the election of the knights
for Worcester, on a motion it was resolved to make two questions of
it, to wit, one on each knight. 2 Hats., 85, 86. So, wherever there are
several names in a question, they may be divided and put one by one.
9 Grey, 444. So, 1729, April 17, on an objection that a question was
complicated, it was separated by amendment. 2 Hats., 79.
The soundness of these observations will be evident from the
embarrassments produced by the twelfth rule of the Senate, which
says, “if the question in debate contains several points, any member
may have the same divided.”
1798, May 30, the alien bill in quasi-committee. To a section and
proviso in the original, had been added two new provisos by way of
amendment. On a motion to strike out the section as amended, the
question was desired to be divided. To do this it must be put first on
striking out either the former proviso, or some distinct member of
the section. But when nothing remains but the last member of the
section and the provisos, they cannot be divided so as to put the last
member to question by itself; for the provisos might thus be left
standing alone as exceptions to a rule when the rule is taken away; or
the new provisos might be left to a second question, after having
been decided on once before at the same reading, which is contrary
to rule. But the question must be on striking out the last member of
the section as amended. This sweeps away the exceptions with the
rule, and relieves from inconsistence. A question to be divisible must
comprehend points so distinct and entire that one of them being
taken away, the other may stand entire. But a proviso or exception,
without an enacting clause, does not contain an entire point or
proposition.
May 31.—The same bill being before the Senate. There was a
proviso that the bill should not extend—1. To any foreign minister;
nor, 2. To any person to whom the President should give a passport;
nor, 3. To any alien merchant conforming himself to such regulations
as the President shall prescribe; and a division of the question into
its simplest elements was called for. It was divided into four parts,
the 4th taking in the words “conforming himself,” &c. It was objected
that the words “any alien merchant,” could not be separated from
their modifying words, “conforming,” &c., because these words, if left
by themselves, contain no substantive idea, will make no sense. But
admitting that the divisions of a paragraph into separate questions
must be so made as that each part may stand by itself, yet the House
having, on the question, retained the two first divisions, the words
“any alien merchant” may be struck out, and their modifying words
will then attach themselves to the preceding description of persons,
and become a modification of that description.
When a question is divided, after the question on the 1st member,
the 2d is open to debate and amendment; because it is a known rule
that a person may rise and speak at any time before the question has
been completely decided, by putting the negative as well as the
affirmative side. But the question is not completely put when the
vote has been taken on the first member only. One-half of the
question, both affirmative and negative, remains still to be put. See
Execut. Jour., June 25, 1795. The same decision by President Adams.
SEC. XXXVII.—COEXISTING QUESTIONS.
It may be asked whether the House can be in possession of two

motions or propositions at the same time? so that, one of them being
decided, the other goes to question without being moved anew? The
answer must be special. When a question is interrupted by a vote of

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Advances in Experimental Philosophy

Joshua Knobe, Yale University, USA

Titles in the series include:

Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind, edited by Justin Sytsma

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of

First published in Great Britain 2024

Copyright © Nora Heinzelmann and Contributors, 2024

Series design by Catherine Wood

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3503-4948-3

Series: Advances in Experimental Philosophy

Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

List of figures viii

1 How the perception of vocal emotions can be measured through

1.1 Set-up of the bed-side experimental procedure for

Marine Bobin is a research fellow at the University of Zurich, Switzerland,

Sofia Bonicalzi is Associate Professor in Moral Philosophy at the Department

Marwa El Zein is a researcher at the Adaptive Rationality Center, Max Planck

Bryce Gessell is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southern Virginia

Javier Gomez-Lavin is an assistant professor at Purdue University in the

cognitive concepts. He has published articles on cognitive ontology with an

Nora Heinzelmann is a junior faculty member at the University of Erlangen-

John Michael completed his PhD in philosophy at the University of Vienna

Kristina Musholt is Professor for Cognitive Anthropology in the Philosophy

Gualtiero Piccinini is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and

J. Brendan Ritchie is a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Brain and

concerns the neural basis of higher-level vision which he investigates using

Alexander Soutschek is research group leader at the Ludwig Maximilian

Antonella Tramacere got her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Parma.

Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann is a research group leader in early cognitive

Neurophilosophy is a branch of experimental philosophy that uses methods

1 Neurophilosophy and related fields

Neurophilosophy has traditionally applied neuroscientific conceptions and

example, neurophilosophy may draw on empirical evidence on how the brain

Historically, neuroscientific evidence and conceptions have primarily

Ethicists widely agree that if we morally ought to do something, then we can

Whether this particular debunking argument is sound has been controversial

this person is looking at something or engaged in a visual task. Activity in blind

2 Outline of this collection

Neuroimaging produces pictures of the structure or activity of the brain or

fMRI can be employed in the service of philosophical inquiry, Gomez-Lavin

evolution of behaviour and correlated brain mechanisms is adaptive and varies

Churchland, P. (1986). Neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

SEC. XXVII.—REPORT OF COMMITTEE.

The chairman of the committee, standing in his place, informs the

SEC. XXVIII.—BILL, RECOMMITMENT.

When the report of a paper originating with a committee is taken

If on motion and question the bill be not committed, or if no

SEC. XXXI.—BILL, SECOND READING IN THE HOUSE.

SEC. XXXII.—READING PAPERS.

Where papers are laid before the House or referred to a

SEC. XXXIII.—PRIVILEGED QUESTIONS.

[[100] While a question is before the Senate, no motion shall be

Postponement indefinite, Postponement to a day beyond the session.