Max Velmans, PhD

Max Velmans is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, and a fellow of the British Psychological Society and the Academy of the Social Sciences. He was a co-founder and 2004–06 chair of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. Mainly known for his development of Reflexive Monism, an integrative Western understanding of human consciousness as one manifestation of a conscious, self-observing universe his main research focus is on integrating work on the philosophy, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology of consciousness, and, more recently, on East–West integrative approaches. He has over 130 publications on these topics, including his books Understanding Consciousness (2000, 2nd ed. 2009), Consciousness (2018) (a four-volume collection of major works), Towards a Deeper Understanding of Consciousness (2017), and the co-edited Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (2007, 2nd ed. 2017). He has been a Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley (1984), a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Westminster and Plymouth, and National Visiting Professor for 2010-2011 of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Government of India.