Kirchhoff, Michael D.

Overview

Michael Kirchhoff studied at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, obtaining his PhD on the metaphysics of the extended mind hypothesis from Macquarie University in 2014. Michael is a chief investigator on an ARC DP on "Minds in Skilful Performance" and has previously received grants from the John Templeton Foundation. Some outcomes of these grants are: the special issue in Synthese on 'Predictive Brains and Embodied, Enactive Cognition', a finished book manuscript under review with Routledge entitled 'Extended Consciousness and Predictive Processing: A Third-Wave View' and numerous single and jointly authored papers in top-rated journals such as the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Synthese, Entropy, the Journal for the Royal Society Interface, and many more.

Michael is currently working on completing a large grant application to the John Templeton Foundation and will be submitting his DECRA application to the ARC early next year.

Top Publications

Year	Title
2018	Predictive processing, perceiving and imagining: Is to perceive to imagine, or something close to it? Published in Philosophical Studies: an international journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition
2018	Predictive brains and embodied, enactive cognition: an introduction to the special issue Published in Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science

Research Areas

Research Overview

Michael research interests include topics in naturalistic philosophy of mind, especially the relation between life and mind, the Bayesian brain hypothesis, the free energy principle, consciousness, and more philosophy of science motivated topics such as mechanistic and non-mechanistic explanation.

Michael is the associate editor of Adaptive Behavior

Available as Research Supervisor

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Year	Title
2020	On Markov blankets and hierarchical self-organisation Published In Journal of Theoretical Biology Volume 486 Pages 110089-1 - 110089-14 ISSN 0022-5193 Altmetric
2019	A tale of two densities: active inference is enactive inference Published In Adaptive Behavior: animals, animats, software agents, robots, adaptive systems Volume Online First Pages 1 - 15 ISSN 1059-7123 Altmetric
2019	Breaking explanatory boundaries: flexible borders and plastic minds Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 18 Pages 185 - 204 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2019	Enactive social cognition: Diachronic constitution & coupled anticipation Published In Consciousness and Cognition Volume 70 Pages 1 - 10 ISSN 1053-8100 Altmetric
2019	How to determine the boundaries of the mind: a Markov blanket proposal Published In Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science Volume Online First Pages 1 - 20 ISSN 0039-7857 Altmetric
2018	A New, Better BET: Rescuing and Revising Basic Emotion Theory Published In Frontiers in Psychology Volume 9 Pages 1217-1 - 1217-12 ISSN 1664-1078 Altmetric
2018	Autopoiesis, free energy, and the life–mind continuity thesis Published In Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science Volume 195 Pages 2519 - 2540 ISSN 0039-7857 Altmetric
2018	Enactivism and predictive processing: a non-representational view Published In Philosophical Explorations: an international journal for the philosophy of mind and action Volume 21 Pages 264 - 281 ISSN 1741-5918 Altmetric
2018	Predictive brains and embodied, enactive cognition: an introduction to the special issue Published In Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science Volume 195 Pages 2355 - 2366 ISSN 0039-7857 Altmetric
2018	Predictive processing, perceiving and imagining: Is to perceive to imagine, or something close to it? Published In Philosophical Studies: an international journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition Volume 175 Pages 751 - 767 ISSN 0031-8116 Altmetric
2018	The Markov blankets of life: autonomy, active inference and the free energy principle Published In Journal of the Royal Society Interface Volume 15 Pages 20170792-1 - 20170792-11 ISSN 1742-5662 Altmetric
2017	From mutual manipulation to cognitive extension: challenges and implications Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 16 Pages 863 - 878 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2017	Where There Is Life There Is Mind: In Support of a Strong Life-Mind Continuity Thesis Published In Entropy: international and interdisciplinary journal of entropy and information studies Volume 19 Pages e19040169-1 - e19040169-18 ISSN 1099-4300 Altmetric
2016	Composition and transactive memory systems Published In Philosophical Explorations: an international journal for the philosophy of mind and action Volume 19 Pages 59 - 77 ISSN 1741-5918 Altmetric
2016	Dreaming: Ontological and Methodological Considerations Published In Constructivist Foundations Volume 11 Pages 420 - 423
2016	Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism, and the Hard Problem of Consciosuness Published In Constructivist Foundations Volume 11 Pages 346 - 353
2015	Cognitive assembly: towards a diachronic conception of composition Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 14 Pages 33 - 53 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2015	Experiential fantasies, prediction, and enactive minds Published In Journal of Consciousness Studies: controversies in science and the humanities Volume 22 Pages 68 - 92 ISSN 1355-8250
2015	Extended cognition & the causal-constitutive fallacy: in search for a diachronic and dynamical conception of constitution Published In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 90 Pages 320 - 360 ISSN 0031-8205 Altmetric
2015	Looking beyond the brain: social neuroscience meets narrative practice Published In Cognitive Systems Research Volume 34-35 Pages 5 - 17 ISSN 1389-0417 Altmetric
2015	Species of realization and the free energy principle Published In Australasian Journal of Philosophy Volume 93 Pages 706 - 723 ISSN 0004-8402 Altmetric
2015	The enactive roots of STEM: rethinking educational design in mathematics Published In Educational Psychology Review Volume 27 Pages 371 - 389 ISSN 1040-726X Altmetric
2014	Book review: Feeling Extended: Sociality as Extended Body-Becoming-Mind by D Robinson Published In Journal of Consciousness Studies: controversies in science and the humanities Volume 21 Pages 228 - 235 ISSN 1355-8250
2014	Cognitive transformations and extended expertise Published In Educational Philosophy and Theory Volume 46 Pages 610 - 623 ISSN 0013-1857 Altmetric
2014	Extended cognition & constitution: Re-evaluating the constitutive claim of extended cognition Published In Philosophical Psychology Volume 27 Pages 258 - 283 ISSN 0951-5089 Altmetric
2014	Extensive enactivism: why keep it all in? Published In Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Volume 8 Pages 1 - 11 ISSN 1662-5161 Altmetric
2014	In search of ontological emergence: diachronic, but non-supervenient Published In Axiomathes Volume 24 Pages 89 - 116 ISSN 1572-8390 Altmetric
2013	Book review: Enaction: toward a new paradigm for cognitive science Published In Philosophical Psychology Volume 26 Pages 163 - 167 ISSN 0951-5089 Altmetric
2012	Distributed cognitive agency in virtue epistemology Published In Philosophical Explorations: an international journal for the philosophy of mind and action Volume 15 Pages 165 - 180 ISSN 1741-5918 Altmetric
2012	Extended cognition and fixed properties : steps to a third-wave version of extended cognition Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 11 Pages 287 - 308 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2011	Anti-representationalism: Not a Well-founded Theory of Cognition Published In Res Cogitans: Journal of Philosophy Volume 2 Pages 1 - 34
2009	Material agency: a theoretical framework for ascribing agency to material culture Published In Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology Volume 13 Pages 1 - 11 ISSN 1091-8264

Conference Paper

Year	Title
2010	Pressing agency beyond the flesh: three programmatic arguments grounding the notion of material agency Published In Copenhagan Working Papers on Design Pages 91 - 95

Other

Year	Title
2017	Biological self-organisation and Markov blankets Pages 1 - 25 External URL Biological self-organisation and Markov blankets Altmetric

Investigator On

Year	Title
2017	Minds in Skilled Performance: Explanatory Framework and Comparative Study Awarded by: Australian Research Council (ARC) Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects
2016	Michael Kirchhoff - Academic Cross - Training Fellowship Awarded by: John Templeton Foundation Funding Scheme: ACT Fellowship
2015 - 2016	Probabilitizing Consciousness: implications and new directions Awarded by: John Templeton Foundation Funding Scheme: Cambridge New Directions in the Study of Mind

Other Research Activities

Junior Fellowship awarded by the University of Bochum, Center for Mind, Brain and Cognitive Evolution Fellow 2017

Available as Research Supervisor

Potential Supervision Topics

Philosophy of mind and cognition:
- Are predictive processing theories of cognition compatible with enactivism?
- Are life and mind deeply connected?
- Can the free energy principle unify and explain the structure and function of biological and cognitive systems?
- What might a probabilistic view of cognition look like?
- If perception is probabilistic, why don’t we see the world probabilistically?
- Is there a distinction between perception and thought?
- Is there such a thing as cognitive penetration?
- Are 4E-approaches to cognition – embodied, enactive, embedded, ecological, extended – theoretically compatible?
- Do minds only extend sometimes or are they always naturally extensive?
- Can there be such a thing as extended consciousness?
- Can we understand cognitive scaffolding through niche construction?
- Is there really a hard problem of consciousness? Can it be solved or only dissolved?
- Is neurophenomenology credible?
- Can neurophenomenology make any progress on the hard problem of consciousness?
- Is perception contentful, at all?
- Is perception cognitively penetrable?
- And much more
Philosophy of Science:
- What is the explanatory reach of mechanistic explanation?
- Must interventionist approaches to explanation in science target difference-makers at the constituent level?
- Can dynamical systems be explanatory?
- What is causation?
- How does multi scale modelling work in science?
Metaphysics:
- Does physics fix all the facts? Are facts all there is?
- Is any version of idealism credible?
- Do the life and mind sciences require a process ontology?
- How can we make sense of grounding relations (constitution, composition, realisation) in the sciences of life and mind?
- Bottom-up causation doesn’t seem to be a problem. But what about top-down causation?
- What is the nature of time and its role in contemporary cognitive science?

Teaching Activities

PHIL227 The Meaning of Life Subject Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor 2016 - 2018
PHIL234 Mind, Body and World Subject Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor 2016 - 2018
PHIL 107 - Introduction to Philosophy Subject Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor 2015 - 2018

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Degree	Research Title	Advisee
Doctor of Philosophy	Investigating Inference and Social Cognition Theory: Is Inference Central to the Best Explanations of Cognition?
Doctor of Philosophy	Let me explain: the dynamical alternative	Meyer, Russell
Doctor of Philosophy	Is colour perceiving cognitively penetrable?	Hipolito, Ines
Doctor of Philosophy	Can the puzzle of skilled performance be solved?	Robertson, Ian
Doctor of Philosophy	Expecting Better: Feminist Perspectives on the Predictive Processing Framework.	Beecroft, Naomi
Doctor of Philosophy	The diachronic mind institutionalized: On the role of temporal hierarchies in neurodevelopment	Dengso, Mads

Education And Training

Ph.D. in Philosophy, Macquarie University, Philosophy 2010 - 2013
Master of Arts - Research (Faculty of Arts) in Philosophy, Aarhus University, Denmark, Philosophy 2006 - 2008
B.A. in Philosophy, Aarhus University, Denmark, Philosophy, B.A. in Philosophy and General (cognitive) Semiotics 2003 - 2006

Teaching Overview

My teaching covers areas such as philosophy of mind and metaphysics, phenomenology and its relation to the cognitive sciences, philosophy of science, and the relation between life and mind (including health)

Orcid Id

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2530-0718 (confirmed)

Top Publications

Year	Title
2018	Predictive processing, perceiving and imagining: Is to perceive to imagine, or something close to it? Published in Philosophical Studies: an international journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition
2018	Predictive brains and embodied, enactive cognition: an introduction to the special issue Published in Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science

Research Areas

Research Overview

Michael research interests include topics in naturalistic philosophy of mind, especially the relation between life and mind, the Bayesian brain hypothesis, the free energy principle, consciousness, and more philosophy of science motivated topics such as mechanistic and non-mechanistic explanation.

Michael is the associate editor of Adaptive Behavior

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Year	Title
2020	On Markov blankets and hierarchical self-organisation Published In Journal of Theoretical Biology Volume 486 Pages 110089-1 - 110089-14 ISSN 0022-5193 Altmetric
2019	A tale of two densities: active inference is enactive inference Published In Adaptive Behavior: animals, animats, software agents, robots, adaptive systems Volume Online First Pages 1 - 15 ISSN 1059-7123 Altmetric
2019	Breaking explanatory boundaries: flexible borders and plastic minds Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 18 Pages 185 - 204 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2019	Enactive social cognition: Diachronic constitution & coupled anticipation Published In Consciousness and Cognition Volume 70 Pages 1 - 10 ISSN 1053-8100 Altmetric
2019	How to determine the boundaries of the mind: a Markov blanket proposal Published In Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science Volume Online First Pages 1 - 20 ISSN 0039-7857 Altmetric
2018	A New, Better BET: Rescuing and Revising Basic Emotion Theory Published In Frontiers in Psychology Volume 9 Pages 1217-1 - 1217-12 ISSN 1664-1078 Altmetric
2018	Autopoiesis, free energy, and the life–mind continuity thesis Published In Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science Volume 195 Pages 2519 - 2540 ISSN 0039-7857 Altmetric
2018	Enactivism and predictive processing: a non-representational view Published In Philosophical Explorations: an international journal for the philosophy of mind and action Volume 21 Pages 264 - 281 ISSN 1741-5918 Altmetric
2018	Predictive brains and embodied, enactive cognition: an introduction to the special issue Published In Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science Volume 195 Pages 2355 - 2366 ISSN 0039-7857 Altmetric
2018	Predictive processing, perceiving and imagining: Is to perceive to imagine, or something close to it? Published In Philosophical Studies: an international journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition Volume 175 Pages 751 - 767 ISSN 0031-8116 Altmetric
2018	The Markov blankets of life: autonomy, active inference and the free energy principle Published In Journal of the Royal Society Interface Volume 15 Pages 20170792-1 - 20170792-11 ISSN 1742-5662 Altmetric
2017	From mutual manipulation to cognitive extension: challenges and implications Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 16 Pages 863 - 878 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2017	Where There Is Life There Is Mind: In Support of a Strong Life-Mind Continuity Thesis Published In Entropy: international and interdisciplinary journal of entropy and information studies Volume 19 Pages e19040169-1 - e19040169-18 ISSN 1099-4300 Altmetric
2016	Composition and transactive memory systems Published In Philosophical Explorations: an international journal for the philosophy of mind and action Volume 19 Pages 59 - 77 ISSN 1741-5918 Altmetric
2016	Dreaming: Ontological and Methodological Considerations Published In Constructivist Foundations Volume 11 Pages 420 - 423
2016	Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism, and the Hard Problem of Consciosuness Published In Constructivist Foundations Volume 11 Pages 346 - 353
2015	Cognitive assembly: towards a diachronic conception of composition Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 14 Pages 33 - 53 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2015	Experiential fantasies, prediction, and enactive minds Published In Journal of Consciousness Studies: controversies in science and the humanities Volume 22 Pages 68 - 92 ISSN 1355-8250
2015	Extended cognition & the causal-constitutive fallacy: in search for a diachronic and dynamical conception of constitution Published In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 90 Pages 320 - 360 ISSN 0031-8205 Altmetric
2015	Looking beyond the brain: social neuroscience meets narrative practice Published In Cognitive Systems Research Volume 34-35 Pages 5 - 17 ISSN 1389-0417 Altmetric
2015	Species of realization and the free energy principle Published In Australasian Journal of Philosophy Volume 93 Pages 706 - 723 ISSN 0004-8402 Altmetric
2015	The enactive roots of STEM: rethinking educational design in mathematics Published In Educational Psychology Review Volume 27 Pages 371 - 389 ISSN 1040-726X Altmetric
2014	Book review: Feeling Extended: Sociality as Extended Body-Becoming-Mind by D Robinson Published In Journal of Consciousness Studies: controversies in science and the humanities Volume 21 Pages 228 - 235 ISSN 1355-8250
2014	Cognitive transformations and extended expertise Published In Educational Philosophy and Theory Volume 46 Pages 610 - 623 ISSN 0013-1857 Altmetric
2014	Extended cognition & constitution: Re-evaluating the constitutive claim of extended cognition Published In Philosophical Psychology Volume 27 Pages 258 - 283 ISSN 0951-5089 Altmetric
2014	Extensive enactivism: why keep it all in? Published In Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Volume 8 Pages 1 - 11 ISSN 1662-5161 Altmetric
2014	In search of ontological emergence: diachronic, but non-supervenient Published In Axiomathes Volume 24 Pages 89 - 116 ISSN 1572-8390 Altmetric
2013	Book review: Enaction: toward a new paradigm for cognitive science Published In Philosophical Psychology Volume 26 Pages 163 - 167 ISSN 0951-5089 Altmetric
2012	Distributed cognitive agency in virtue epistemology Published In Philosophical Explorations: an international journal for the philosophy of mind and action Volume 15 Pages 165 - 180 ISSN 1741-5918 Altmetric
2012	Extended cognition and fixed properties : steps to a third-wave version of extended cognition Published In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Volume 11 Pages 287 - 308 ISSN 1572-8676 Altmetric
2011	Anti-representationalism: Not a Well-founded Theory of Cognition Published In Res Cogitans: Journal of Philosophy Volume 2 Pages 1 - 34
2009	Material agency: a theoretical framework for ascribing agency to material culture Published In Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology Volume 13 Pages 1 - 11 ISSN 1091-8264

Conference Paper

Year	Title
2010	Pressing agency beyond the flesh: three programmatic arguments grounding the notion of material agency Published In Copenhagan Working Papers on Design Pages 91 - 95

Other

Year	Title
2017	Biological self-organisation and Markov blankets Pages 1 - 25 External URL Biological self-organisation and Markov blankets Altmetric

Investigator On

Year	Title
2017	Minds in Skilled Performance: Explanatory Framework and Comparative Study Awarded by: Australian Research Council (ARC) Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects
2016	Michael Kirchhoff - Academic Cross - Training Fellowship Awarded by: John Templeton Foundation Funding Scheme: ACT Fellowship
2015 - 2016	Probabilitizing Consciousness: implications and new directions Awarded by: John Templeton Foundation Funding Scheme: Cambridge New Directions in the Study of Mind

Other Research Activities

Junior Fellowship awarded by the University of Bochum, Center for Mind, Brain and Cognitive Evolution Fellow 2017

Potential Supervision Topics

Philosophy of mind and cognition:
- Are predictive processing theories of cognition compatible with enactivism?
- Are life and mind deeply connected?
- Can the free energy principle unify and explain the structure and function of biological and cognitive systems?
- What might a probabilistic view of cognition look like?
- If perception is probabilistic, why don’t we see the world probabilistically?
- Is there a distinction between perception and thought?
- Is there such a thing as cognitive penetration?
- Are 4E-approaches to cognition – embodied, enactive, embedded, ecological, extended – theoretically compatible?
- Do minds only extend sometimes or are they always naturally extensive?
- Can there be such a thing as extended consciousness?
- Can we understand cognitive scaffolding through niche construction?
- Is there really a hard problem of consciousness? Can it be solved or only dissolved?
- Is neurophenomenology credible?
- Can neurophenomenology make any progress on the hard problem of consciousness?
- Is perception contentful, at all?
- Is perception cognitively penetrable?
- And much more
Philosophy of Science:
- What is the explanatory reach of mechanistic explanation?
- Must interventionist approaches to explanation in science target difference-makers at the constituent level?
- Can dynamical systems be explanatory?
- What is causation?
- How does multi scale modelling work in science?
Metaphysics:
- Does physics fix all the facts? Are facts all there is?
- Is any version of idealism credible?
- Do the life and mind sciences require a process ontology?
- How can we make sense of grounding relations (constitution, composition, realisation) in the sciences of life and mind?
- Bottom-up causation doesn’t seem to be a problem. But what about top-down causation?
- What is the nature of time and its role in contemporary cognitive science?

Teaching Activities

PHIL227 The Meaning of Life Subject Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor 2016 - 2018
PHIL234 Mind, Body and World Subject Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor 2016 - 2018
PHIL 107 - Introduction to Philosophy Subject Coordinator, Lecturer, Tutor 2015 - 2018

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Degree	Research Title	Advisee
Doctor of Philosophy	Investigating Inference and Social Cognition Theory: Is Inference Central to the Best Explanations of Cognition?
Doctor of Philosophy	Let me explain: the dynamical alternative	Meyer, Russell
Doctor of Philosophy	Is colour perceiving cognitively penetrable?	Hipolito, Ines
Doctor of Philosophy	Can the puzzle of skilled performance be solved?	Robertson, Ian
Doctor of Philosophy	Expecting Better: Feminist Perspectives on the Predictive Processing Framework.	Beecroft, Naomi
Doctor of Philosophy	The diachronic mind institutionalized: On the role of temporal hierarchies in neurodevelopment	Dengso, Mads

Education And Training

Ph.D. in Philosophy, Macquarie University, Philosophy 2010 - 2013
Master of Arts - Research (Faculty of Arts) in Philosophy, Aarhus University, Denmark, Philosophy 2006 - 2008
B.A. in Philosophy, Aarhus University, Denmark, Philosophy, B.A. in Philosophy and General (cognitive) Semiotics 2003 - 2006

Teaching Overview

My teaching covers areas such as philosophy of mind and metaphysics, phenomenology and its relation to the cognitive sciences, philosophy of science, and the relation between life and mind (including health)

Orcid Id

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2530-0718 (confirmed)

Overview

Overview

Top Publications

Research Areas

Research Overview

Available as Research Supervisor

Publications

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Conference Paper

Other

Funding

Investigator On

Other Research Activities

Supervision

Available as Research Supervisor

Potential Supervision Topics

Teaching Activities

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Background

Education And Training

Teaching Overview

Identity

Orcid Id

Overview

Top Publications

Research Areas

Research Overview

Publications

Selected Publications

Journal Article

Conference Paper

Other

Funding

Investigator On

Other Research Activities

Supervision

Potential Supervision Topics

Teaching Activities

Advisees

Graduate Advising Relationship

Background

Education And Training

Teaching Overview

Identity

Orcid Id

Visualisations

Research Areas