Gerard O'Brien

Prof Gerard O'Brien

School of Humanities

College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

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

Research Interests

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

Date Position Institution name
1989 - ongoing Professor University of Adelaide

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

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 Scopus17 WoS16
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 Scopus25 WoS14 Europe PMC2
2006 O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2006). How do connectionist networks compute?. Cognitive Processing, 7(1), 30-41.
DOI Scopus29 Europe PMC6
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 Scopus3 WoS4
2002 O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (2002). Radical connectionism: thinking with (not in) language. Language & Communication, 22(3), 313-329.
DOI Scopus17 WoS13
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(1), 175-196.
DOI WoS17
1999 O'Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). A Connectionist theory of phenomenal experience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(1), 127-148.
DOI Scopus111 WoS84 Europe PMC34
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 Scopus31 WoS24
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 Scopus16 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

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.

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
2016 - 2024 Co-Supervisor Of Windows and Worlds: Representations of, by and within Honeybees Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Dook Shepherd
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
2015 - 2025 Co-Supervisor From the Body to the World: Structural Representation and the Mapping Problem Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Matthew James Nestor
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

Connect With Me

Other Links