Matthew MacKisack is an historian of science and philosophy, focusing on how imagining and the imagination have been understood, experienced and instrumentalised. He primarily explores this in the context of early-modern Europe, but is also interested in the continuities and breaks with modernity. His research is interdisciplinary, employing critical and literary theory alongside the findings of cognitive science and neuroscience.
Prior to joining the Medical School, Matthew completed a PhD at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and gained his BA in English from the University of Oxford.
His postdoctoral research at the Medical School contributes to the Eye’s Mind project. Currently he is co-editing a special cross-disciplinary issue of the neuroscience journal Cortex, and organising the first public conference for, and exhibition of art by, those with aphantasia and hyperphantasia.
Qualifications
BA (Hons) University of Oxford
PGCE Institute of Education, London
PhD Goldsmiths College, London
Research
Research interests
- History of Science
- History of Philosophy
- Imagery and Imagination
- Interdisciplinarity
- Critical Theory
- Literary Theory
- Cognitive Science and Neuroscience
Research projects
- The Eye’s Mind: a study of the neural basis of visual imagination and its role in culture (PI: Prof Adam Zeman)
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Publications by category
Journal articles
Winlove C, Milton F, Ranson J, Fulford J, MacKisack M, Macpherson F, Zeman AZJ (In Press). The neural correlates of visual imagery: a co-ordinate-based meta-analysis.
Cortex Full text.
MacKisack M (2017). Painter and scribe: from model of mind to cognitive strategy.
CortexAbstract:
Painter and scribe: from model of mind to cognitive strategy.
Since antiquity the mind has been conceived to operate via images and words. Pre-scientific thinkers (and some scientific) who presented the mind as operating in such a way tended to i) bias one representational mode over the other, and ii) claim the dominance of the mode to be the case universally. The rise of empirical psychological science in the late 19th-century rehearses the word/image division of thought but makes universal statements - e.g. that recollection is a verbal process for everyone - untenable. Since then, the investigation of individual differences and case studies of imagery loss have shown rather that words and images present alternative cognitive "strategies" that individuals will be predisposed to employing - but which, should the necessity arise, can be relearned using the other representational mode. The following sketches out this historical shift in understanding, and concludes by inviting consideration of the wider context in which discussion of the relationships between 'images' and 'words' (as both internal and external forms of representation) must take place.
Abstract.
Author URL.
MacKisack M (2016). Differential Imagery Experience and Ut Pictura Poesis in the 18th-century.
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS,
41(4), 319-331.
Author URL.
MacKisack M, Aldworth S, Macpherson F, Onians J, Winlove C, Zeman A (2016). On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
Front Psychol,
7Abstract:
On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical - and even psychological - reckoning with imagery and its parent concept 'imagination'. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination's intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for - and presents challenges to - the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature's most commonly used task - imagining a concrete object - and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
Publications by year
In Press
Winlove C, Milton F, Ranson J, Fulford J, MacKisack M, Macpherson F, Zeman AZJ (In Press). The neural correlates of visual imagery: a co-ordinate-based meta-analysis.
Cortex Full text.
2017
MacKisack M (2017). Painter and scribe: from model of mind to cognitive strategy.
CortexAbstract:
Painter and scribe: from model of mind to cognitive strategy.
Since antiquity the mind has been conceived to operate via images and words. Pre-scientific thinkers (and some scientific) who presented the mind as operating in such a way tended to i) bias one representational mode over the other, and ii) claim the dominance of the mode to be the case universally. The rise of empirical psychological science in the late 19th-century rehearses the word/image division of thought but makes universal statements - e.g. that recollection is a verbal process for everyone - untenable. Since then, the investigation of individual differences and case studies of imagery loss have shown rather that words and images present alternative cognitive "strategies" that individuals will be predisposed to employing - but which, should the necessity arise, can be relearned using the other representational mode. The following sketches out this historical shift in understanding, and concludes by inviting consideration of the wider context in which discussion of the relationships between 'images' and 'words' (as both internal and external forms of representation) must take place.
Abstract.
Author URL.
2016
MacKisack M (2016). Differential Imagery Experience and Ut Pictura Poesis in the 18th-century.
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS,
41(4), 319-331.
Author URL.
MacKisack M, Aldworth S, Macpherson F, Onians J, Winlove C, Zeman A (2016). On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
Front Psychol,
7Abstract:
On Picturing a Candle: the Prehistory of Imagery Science.
The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical - and even psychological - reckoning with imagery and its parent concept 'imagination'. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination's intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for - and presents challenges to - the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature's most commonly used task - imagining a concrete object - and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
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