Gerard O'Brien

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Research Interests:

* Theoretical foundations of cognitive science
* Neurocomputational models of cognition
* Consciousness
* Mental representation
* Naturalised theories of ethics and values

My Research
Career
Publications
Supervision
Contact

Research Interests

Theoretical foundations of cognitive science
Neurocomputational models of cognition
Consciousness
Mental representation
Naturalised theories of ethics and values

Appointments

Date Position Institution name
1989 - ongoing Professor University of Adelaide
Education

Date Institution name Country Title
1987 - 1989 University of Oxford United Kingdom DPhil

Date	Position	Institution name
1989 - ongoing	Professor	University of Adelaide

Date	Institution name	Country	Title
1987 - 1989	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	DPhil

Journals

Year	Citation
2015	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2015). Intentionality lite or analog content? A response to Hutto and Satne. Philosophia, 43(3), 723-729. DOI Scopus16 WoS15
2011	O'Brien, G. (2011). Defending the semantic conception of computation in cognitive science. Journal of Cognitive Science, 12, 381-399.
2009	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2009). The role of representation in computation. Cognitive Processing, 10(1), 53-62. DOI Scopus23 WoS13 Europe PMC2
2006	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2006). How do connectionist networks compute?. Cognitive Processing, 7(1), 30-41. DOI Scopus27 Europe PMC5
2004	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2004). Vehicle, process, and hybrid theories of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(2), 303-305. DOI
2003	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2003). The computational baby, the classical bathwater, and the middle way. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(3), 348-349. DOI
2003	O'Brien, G., & Jureidini, J. (2003). Dispensing with the dynamic unconscious. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, 9(2), 141-153. DOI
2002	O'Brien, G., & Jureidini, J. (2002). The last rites of the dynamic unconscious. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, 9(2), 161-166. DOI
2002	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2002). Language and thought. Language & Communication, 22(3), 209. DOI
2002	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2002). Internalizing communication. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(6), 694-695. DOI Scopus2 WoS4
2002	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2002). Radical connectionism: thinking with (not in) language. Language & Communication, 22(3), 313-329. DOI Scopus15 WoS12
2002	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2002). The computational baby, the classical bathwater, and the middle way. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(3), 348-349. DOI
2001	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2001). Sins of omission and commission. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(5), 997-998. DOI Scopus3 WoS3
2001	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2001). Functional resemblance and the internalization of rules. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(4), 695-696. DOI Scopus1
2001	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2001). Connectionist vehicles, structural resemblance, and the phenomenal mind. Communication & Cognition, 34(1/2), 13-38.
2000	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2000). Disunity defended: a reply to Bayne. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 78(2), 255-263. DOI Scopus9 WoS7
1999	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). Putting content into a vehicle theory of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 175-196.
1999	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). A Connectionist theory of phenomenal experience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(1), 127-148. DOI Scopus100 WoS80 Europe PMC25
1999	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). What's really doing the work here? Knowledge representation or the Higher-Order Thought theory of Consciousness?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(5), 778-779. DOI
1999	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). A Defense of Cartesian Materialism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 59(4), 939-963. DOI WoS5
1999	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). Finding a place for experience in the physical-relational structure of the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(6), 996-997. DOI
1999	O'Brien, G. J. (1999). Connectionism, analogicity, and mental content. Acta Analytica, 22, 111-131.
1998	O'Brien, G. J. (1998). The mind: Embodied, embedded, but not extended. Metascience: an international review journal for the history, philosophy and social studies of science, 7, 78-83.
1998	O'Brien, G. J. (1998). A converstation about superposition and distributed representation. Noetica: Open Forum, 3(10).
1998	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1998). The Disunity of Consciousness. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 76(3), 378-395. DOI Scopus26 WoS21
1998	O'Brien, G. (1998). The role of implementation in connectionist explanation. Psycoloquy, 9(6), Article 3.
1998	O'Brien, G. (1998). Digital Computers versus Dynamical Systems: A Conflation of Distinctions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21, 648-649.
1997	O'Brien, G. (1997). Book Review of D. Chalmers The Conscious Mind. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 75, 413-415.
1997	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1997). Cognitive science and phenomenal consciousness: A dilemma, and how to avoid it. Philosophical Psychology, 10(3), 269-286. DOI Scopus15 WoS6
1994	O'Brien, G. J. (1994). From mind as text to mind as process. Metascience: an international review journal for the history, philosophy and social studies of science, 6, 123-126.
1993	O'Brien, G. J., & Mortensen, C. (1993). Representation and causal asymmetry. Psycoloquy, 4(19).
1993	O'Brien, G. J., Mortensen, C., & Paterson, B. (1993). Distinctions: Subpersonal and subconscious. Psycoloquy, 4(62).
1991	O'Brien, G. J. (1991). Is connectionism common sense?. Philosophical Psychology, 4, 165-174.
1987	O'Brien, G. J. (1987). Eliminative materialism and our psychological self-knowledge. Philosophical Studies, 52(1), 49-70. DOI

Book Chapters

Year	Citation
2016	O'Brien, G. (2016). How does mind matter? Solving the content causation problem. In T. Metzinger (Ed.), Open MIND Philosophy and the Mind Sciences in the 21st Century. Volume 2 (pp. 1137-1150). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
2016	O'Brien, G. (2016). Rehabilitating resemblance redux. In T. Metzinger (Ed.), Open MIND Philosophy and the Mind Sciences in the 21st Century. Volume 2 (pp. 1-4). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
2015	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2015). A schizophrenic defense of a vehicle theory of consciousness. In R. Gennaro (Ed.), Disturbed Consciousness: New Essays on Psychopathology and Theories of Consciousness (pp. 265-292). United States of America: MIT Press. DOI
2015	Opie, J., & O'Brien, G. (2015). The structure of phenomenal consciousness. In S. Miller (Ed.), The Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness: Toward a Science and Theory (pp. 445-464). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. DOI
2012	Mortensen, C., Nerlich, G., Cullity, G., & O'Brien, G. (2012). Philosophy at the University of Adelaide. In N. Harvey, J. Fornasiero, G. McCarthy, C. Macintyre, & C. Crossin (Eds.), A History of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Adelaide 1876-2012: Celebrating 125 Years of the Faculty of Arts (1 ed., pp. 351-358). Australia: University of Adelaide Press. DOI
2011	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2011). Representation in Analog Computation. In A. Newen, A. Bartels, & E. Jung (Eds.), Knowledge and Representation (1 ed., pp. 109-127). Germany: Mentis.
2009	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2009). Vehicles of consciousness. In T. Bayne, A. Cleeremans, & P. Wilken (Eds.), The Oxford companion to consciousness (pp. 655). New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
2004	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2004). Notes towards a structuralist theory of mental representation. In H. Clapin, P. Staines, & P. Slezak (Eds.), Representation in mind - New approaches to mental representation (pp. 1-20). Sara Burgerhartstraat 25, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam: Elsevier. DOI
2003	O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2003). The multiplicity of consciousness and the emergence of self. In T. Kircher, & A. David (Eds.), The self in neuroscience and psychiatry (pp. 107-120). The Edinburgh Bldg, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI
1993	O'Brien, G. J. (1993). The connectionist vindication of folk psychology. In S. Christensen, & D. Turner (Eds.), Folk Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind. Psychology Press.

Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

Date	Role	Research Topic	Program	Degree Type	Student Load	Student Name
2016	Co-Supervisor	Philosophical Theories of Mind, Cognition, and The Status of Representation: Veridicality and Combination in Biological Sciences	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Mr Dook Shepherd

Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

Date	Role	Research Topic	Program	Degree Type	Student Load	Student Name
2023 - 2023	Co-Supervisor	Representation in Neural Networks	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Mr Adam Townsend
2020 - 2022	Co-Supervisor	The Role of Intuition in Moral Knowledge	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Mr Nicholas James Smyth
2017 - 2019	Principal Supervisor	A Critique of Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Moral Philosophy	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Mr Dominic Newnham
2017 - 2022	Co-Supervisor	Moral Agency	Master of Philosophy	Master	Part Time	Mr Timothy Nailer
2016 - 2019	Co-Supervisor	The Role of Analog Computation in Path Integrating Behaviour of the Desert Ant: A Defence of the Explanatory Credentials of Connectionism in Cognitive Science	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Robert Peter Farquharson
2015 - 2017	Co-Supervisor	Emergence and Experience : Systemic Emergence and the Prospects for a Mechanistic Explanation of the Existence of Experience	Master of Philosophy	Master	Full Time	Mr Andrew Kenneth McKilliam
2013 - 2017	Principal Supervisor	The Philosophy of Psychedelic Transformation	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Full Time	Dr Christopher Edward Ross Letheby
2004 - 2004	Principal Supervisor	Form and Content in Mental Representation	Master of Arts	Master	Part Time	Mr Mark Simms
2002 - 2007	Principal Supervisor	Emergence, Colour and the Knowledge Argument: So What if Mary Didn't Know	Doctor of Philosophy	Doctorate	Part Time	Ms Elizabeth Schier

Email: gerard.obrien@adelaide.edu.au

Gerard O'Brien

Research Interests

Appointments

Education

Journals

Book Chapters

Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

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