Max Velmans

Max Velmans (born 27 May 1942 in Amsterdam) is a British psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, principally known for the theory of consciousness called "reflexive monism,"

Reflexive monism bridges the materialist/dualist divide by noting that, in terms of their phenomenology, experiences of the external world are none other than the physical world-as-experienced, thereby placing aspects of human consciousness in the external phenomenal world, rather than exclusively within the head or brain. A similar point of departure is adopted in much of European phenomenology. The theory then explores the consequences of this point of departure for a different understanding of various conventional ways of distinguishing mental from physical phenomena, such as internal versus external phenomena, private versus public phenomena, subjective versus objective phenomena, and the world-as-experienced versus the world as described by physics. The theory also combines facets of realism (for the existence of reality per se), with idealism (for the existence of the phenomenal world), which falls short of avowing the necessity of perception to the existence of reality per se (the principle of "esse est percipi").

Velmans has around 100 publications in the area of consciousness studies in which he develops this basic point of departure into a general theory that addresses the many problems of consciousness, including Understanding Consciousness (2000, 2009), and Towards a Deeper Understanding of Consciousness (2017). In his map of prominent theories of consciousness Francisco Varela categorises Velmans' work as non-reductionist, stressing the importance of first-person accounts of the phenomenology of consciousness, as well as third-person accounts of brain states and functions, which in Velmans' work are thought of as complementary.

Born in Amsterdam, Velmans grew up in Sydney, Australia. After attending Sydney Boy’s High School, he studied Electrical Engineering at St. Andrews College at the University of Sydney, where he received his B.Eng in 1963. In the evening he attended psychology classes at the University of Sydney for another two years, before moving to Europe. After several years of research and development he received his PhD in Psychology from Bedford College in 1974.

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