Barbara Gail Montero

(she/her/hers)

Most of my research concerns the body, but in two distinct senses: body as physical or material substance, and body as the moving, breathing, flesh-and-blood instrument we use when we run, walk, dance, or play. One side of this bifurcation comprises my work on physicalism, dualism, and naturalism, topics woven into my forthcoming book, The Mind-Body Problem and the Metaphysical Leap: A Tale of Philosophy’s Broken Promise. The other side comprises my work on proprioception, aesthetics, and the role of consciousness in expert action, the last of which is the focus of my 2016 book Thought in Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind and, in collaboration with psychologists John Toner (first author) and Aidan Moran, my 2022 book Continuous Improvement: Intertwining Mind and Body in Athletic Expertise.

Representative Publications

Toner, Montero, and Moran (2021), Continuous Improvement: Intertwining Mind and Body in Athletic Expertise, (Oxford University Press).

Montero (2021), A Very Short Introduction: Philosophy of Mind (Oxford University Press).

Montero, B. G. (2021), “What Experience Doesn’t Teach: Pain-Amnesia and a New Paradigm for the Study of Memory,” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 102-125. Published as a symposium with response papers by Sabrina Conix, Filipe de Brigard, and L.A. Paul, with an introduction by Claudia Passos. 

Montero, Toner, and Moran (2020), “Body Focus,” in Embodiment: A Multidisciplinary Primer, edited by Nancy Dess, Routledge.

Montero (2016), Thought in Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind (Oxford University Press).