Core Enaction: Semester 3

Marek completed his D.Phil. in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, and is currently senior lecturer in Psychology at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

His principal research is theoretical work within the enactive approach. He has a particular interest in conceptions of the body, and the complementarity or mutuality between body and environment. Marek also draws heavily on work from the domain of ecological psychology, both as it was developed by James and Eleanor Gibson and their students, but also from the work of Roger and Louise Barker, and the research team of the Midwest Psychological Field Station. He has a related interest in critical considerations of theory and scientific practice in psychology more broadly.

Marek co-convenes the ENSO Seminars, a series of online seminars with researchers from enactive and ecological cognitive science.

Dr Sebastjan Vörös is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His research interests encompass philosophy of science, epistemology, phenomenology, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Podobe neupodobljivega (The Images of the Unimaginable; KUD Logos & University of Ljubljana Press 2013, 2015), in which he investigates the phenomenon of mystical experiences from neuroscientific, phenomenological, and gnoseological perspectives. He has (co)edited numerous articles and special issues centered on embodiment, enaction and (neuro)phenomenology, with a special emphasis on Francisco Varela’s contributions to these fields. Additionally, he has translated several important philosophical texts into Slovene: in addition to works by A. Damasio, D. Dennett, W. James and A. N. Whitehead, he has also translated and edited The Embodied Mind by F. Varela, E. Thompson, and E. Rosch. Finally, he is the head of the transdisciplinary institute-in-the-making Metanoia, and is currently – painfully slowly, yet arduously – writing a book on the philosophical and scientific work of Francisco Varela.

Following her doctoral work under the supervision of Francisco Varela at the Institute of Neurosciences (Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris), Dr Valérie Bonnardel pursued her research at the Experimental Psychology laboratory, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Her initial research work concerned the psychophysical aspects of colour vision in humans. She later developed interest in the study of cognitive and cultural aspects of colour, while heading the Research Chair at the National Institute of Design in India in 2011-12. She has been the Vice Chair and the Chair of the Colour Group Great Britain (2011-2014) and is today a member of the executive committee of the Association Internationale de la Couleur. In 2016 she developed a module for third year students on “Embodied Cognition and Contemplative Practice Studies” in the Department of Psychology at the University of Winchester.

Ezequiel A. Di Paolo is a Research Professor working at Ikerbasque, the Basque Science Foundation in Spain and a Visiting Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Sussex. His interdisciplinary research on embodied and enactive approaches to life, mind, and society integrates work from cognitive science, neuroscience, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and computational modelling. His research focus is on enactive theory, embodied intersubjectivity, language, ethics, and participatory sense-making. He is (co)author of over 200 publications, including the books Sensorimotor Life: An Enactive Proposal (2017, Oxford University Press) and Linguistic Bodies. The Continuity between Life and Language (2018, MIT Press). He is co-editor of the recently published annotated edition of Francisco Varela’s Principles of Biological Autonomy (2025, MIT Press).

Jay L. Garfield directs the Buddhist Studies Program and Tibetan Studies in India program at Smith College. He is also visiting professor of Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, Professor of Philosophy at Melbourne University and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Academicinfluence.com has identified him as one of the 50 most influential philosophers in the world over the past decade.

Garfield’s research addresses topics in the foundations of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; the history of modern Indian philosophy; topics in ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of logic; the philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment methodology in cross-cultural interpretation; and topics in Buddhist philosophy, particularly Indo-Tibetan Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. He is the author or editor of over 30 books and over 200 articles, chapters, and reviews.

Garfield’s most recent books are: Getting Over Ourselves: How to be a Person Without a Self (2022), Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse (with the Yakherds 2021), Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration (2021), ̛What Can’t Be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought (with Yasuo Deguchi, Graham Priest, and Robert Sharf 2021), The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s Treatise From the Inside Out (OUP 2019), Minds Without Fear: Philosophy in the Indian Renaissance (with Nalini Bhushan, 2017), Dignāga’s Investigation of the Percept: A Philosophical Legacy in India and Tibet (with Douglas Duckworth, David Eckel, John Powers, Yeshes Thabkhas and Sonam Thakchöe, 2016) Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (2015), Moonpaths: Ethics and Emptiness (with the Cowherds, 2015) and (edited, with Jan Westerhoff), Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: Allies or Rivals? (2015).

Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher, anthropologist and author. She is co-founder of the Mind & Life Institute, founded the Ojai Foundation, the Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order, is Abbot and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, and co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order. She is a pioneer in the end-of-life care field, and is well known internationally for her work in engaged Buddhism. She was an Honorary Research Fellow at Harvard University and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress.

Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he is also an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology (Cognitive Science). His most recent book, co-authored with Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, is The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience (MIT Press, 2024). He is also the author Why I Am Not a Buddhist (Yale University Press, 2020); Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation and Philosophy (Columbia University Press 2015); Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007); and Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995). He is the co-author, with Francisco J. Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991; revised edition 2016). Thompson is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a former President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association.