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".
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,[2] as well as third-person accounts of brain states and functions, which in Velmans' work are thought of as complementary.
He was appointed National Visiting Professor for 2010–2011 by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, and in 2011 was elected to a Fellowship of the British Academy of Social Sciences.
[6] Velmans' Understanding Consciousness (2000, 2009) is a comprehensive summary of his theoretical work, and introduces the idea of "reflexive monism.
It states that it does not make sense to speak of phenomenological experiences of reality as occurring solely within the brain, given that some of them quite clearly occur within the experienced world itself (for example, asked to point to an external light as-experienced, almost all rational subjects would point to the light that is experienced rather than to the brain, which is where, according to dualists and reductionists, the experience actually takes place).
[11][7] He writes: This sketch of how consciousness fits into the wider universe supports a form of non-reductive, Reflexive Monism.
However, Velmans points out that all that would be required for S and E to exchange roles is for them to change their respective foci (as he puts it "S and E merely have to turn their heads"), so that E focuses exclusively on the light and reports his experiences, while S focuses her attention not just on the light, but on the events in E's brain and his reports of the experience.
"[12] Velmans points out that this outcome is patently absurd, as the phenomenology of the light (that is, the way it is experienced) remains the same from the perspective of S or E, whether it is thought of as being an observed stimulus or a subjective experience.
This becomes a point of departure for a more nuanced analysis of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity, and ultimately for an epistemology for the study of consciousness that, according to Velmans, fits psychology smoothly into science.