Consciousness and World

“What is consciousness?” “What is the relationship between consciousness and the world?” Contemporary consciousness studies are dominated by a neurocentric paradigm that tends to reduce our mind to a mere product of the brain, thus impeding the complete understanding of the multifaceted nature of consciousness. It is therefore necessary to change the direction of research, focusing no more on the isolated brain or on the disembodied mind, rather on an interdisciplinary and nonreductive approach to experience that intertwines philosophy, phenomenology, and neuroscience. This neurophilosophical and neuroethical perspective will reconsider consciousness not merely in terms of the brain- or mind-relationship, but as intrinsically world-related.

Federico Zilio is a Postdoctoral Researcher and he teaches Moral Philosophy at the University of Padova. He has studied and worked at the University of Padova and at the Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research at the University of Ottawa. His main research interests include neurophilosophy and neuroethics, as well as bioethical issues concerning disorders of consciousness and the locked-in syndrome.