Michael Tye

University of Texas at Austin · Philosophy

Active 1975–2024

h-index44

Citations9.5k

Papers20515 last 5y

Funding—

Academic metrics are sourced from OpenAlex and public funding records; values may differ from Google Scholar.

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About

Michael Tye is a philosopher and professor whose special interests include consciousness, animal minds, perception, concepts, mental imagery, and vagueness. His work focuses on exploring these areas within philosophy, contributing to the understanding of how minds operate and how mental phenomena are conceptualized. He is accessible via email at mtye@austin.utexas.edu.

Research topics

Computer Science
Psychology
Political Science
Epistemology
Philosophy
Linguistics
Artificial Intelligence
Fishery
Aesthetics
Social psychology

Selected publications

Vagueness and the Evolution of Consciousness
Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 60 citations
1st authorCorresponding
Abstract Either consciousness appeared suddenly in living beings so that its appearance is like that of a light switch being turned on or it arose through intermediate stages. On the former view, consciousness is an on/off matter, but once it arose, it became richer and richer through time rather as a beam of light may become brighter and broader in its sweep. On the latter view, consciousness is not an on/off matter. There are shades of gray. Consciousness arose gradually just as life did, beco…
Publisher DOI
Homunculi Heads and Silicon Chips: The Importance of History to Phenomenology
The MIT Press eBooks · 2019-02-12 · 51 citations
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
Publisher DOI
How to Think About the Representational Content of Visual Experience
2019-07-22 · 29 citations
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
A number of different theses concerning the representational content of visual experience are canvassed and a new proposal is made. It is shown that the new proposal accounts satisfactorily both for hallucinatory experiences and for the justificatory role visual experiences play.
Publisher DOI
Crustacean Pain
Animal Sentience · 2022 · 24 citations
1st authorCorresponding
This commentary discusses the target article’s methodology, the relevance of the claim that crustaceans lack a neocortex to the thesis that they feel pain, and the evaluation of the results of some trade-off experiments done with hermit crabs.
Publisher OA PDF DOI
What Acquaintance Teaches
2019-11-27 · 23 citations
book-chapterOpen accessSenior author
Abstract In her black and white room, Mary doesn’t know what it is like to see red. Only after undergoing an experience as of something red and hence acquainting herself with red can Mary learn what it is like. But learning what it is like to see red requires more than simply becoming acquainted with it, one must also know an appropriate answer to the question ‘what is it like to see red?’. To be acquainted with something is to know it, but such knowledge, as we argue, is object knowledge rather…
Publisher OA PDF DOI

Frequent coauthors

R. M. Sainsbury
11 shared
Terence Horgan
4 shared
Tim Crane
Central European University
3 shared
Sam Coleman
University of Hertfordshire
3 shared
Anthony O’Hear
2 shared
Brian P. McLaughlin
2 shared
Kim Sterelny
Australian National University
2 shared
Brian Cutter
University of Notre Dame
2 shared

Labs

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