Updated on 2026/03/12

写真a

 
CHENG, Tony
 
Affiliation
Affiliated organization, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study
Job title
Associate Professor(non-tenure-track)
Mail Address
メールアドレス
Homepage URL
http://www.tonycheng.net

Research Experience

  • 2024.04
    -
    Now

    Waseda University   Waseda Institute for Advanced Study   Associate Professor

Education Background

  • 2019.09
    -
    2021.06

    King's College London   Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience   MSc  

    Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health

  • 2015.09
    -
    2019.01

    University College London   Department of Philosophy   PhD  

  • 2012.09
    -
    2014.06

    University College London   Department of Philosophy   MPhil  

  • 2010.09
    -
    2012.06

    City University of New York, Graduate Center   Department of Philosophy   MA  

Committee Memberships

  • 2025.01
    -
    Now

    Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (LMPST)  Director

  • 2022.02
    -
    2024.12

    Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (LMPST)  Supervisor

  • 2022.02
    -
    　

    Center for Traditional & Scientific Metaphysics (TSM)  Academic Committee Member

Research Areas

  • Cognitive science   Theoretical Psychology; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy of Perception; Epistemology

Research Interests

  • Transcendental Arguments

  • Bodily Awareness

  • Attention

  • Consciousness

  • Perception

Awards

  • Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences

    2022.12   Academia Sinica  

 

Papers

  • The Limits of the Sciences of AI Consciousness

    Tony Cheng

    Science   389 ( 6765 )  2025.11  [Refereed]

  • How pictorial are mnemic scenarios?

    Tony Cheng

    Asian Journal of Philosophy   4 ( 92 )  2025.08  [Refereed]

  • Adversarial collaborations: all theories must be subject to critical evaluation

    Joel S. Snyder, Tony Cheng, Michał Klincewicz, Michael Schmitz, Miguel Ángel Sebastián

    Nature   642 ( 8069 ) 867 - 867  2025.06  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

  • What makes a theory of consciousness unscientific?

    Michał Klincewicz, Tony Cheng, Michael Schmitz, Miguel Ángel Sebastián, Joel S. Snyder, Derek H. Arnold, Mark G. Baxter, Tristan A. Bekinschtein, Yoshua Bengio, James W. Bisley, Jacob Browning, Dean Buonomano, David Carmel, Marisa Carrasco, Peter Carruthers, Olivia Carter, Dorita H. F. Chang, Ian Charest, Mouslim Cherkaoui, Axel Cleeremans, Michael A. Cohen, Philip R. Corlett, Kalina Christoff, Sam Cumming, Cody A. Cushing, Beatrice de Gelder, Felipe De Brigard, Daniel C. Dennett, Nadine Dijkstra, Adrien Doerig, Paul E. Dux, Stephen M. Fleming, Keith Frankish, Chris D. Frith, Sarah Garfinkel, Melvyn A. Goodale, Jacqueline Gottlieb, Jake R. Hanson, Ran R. Hassin, Michael H. Herzog, Cecilia Heyes, Po-Jang Hsieh, Shao-Min Hung, Robert Kentridge, Tomas Knapen, Nikos Konstantinou, Konrad Kording, Timo L. Kvamme, Sze Chai Kwok, Renzo C. Lanfranco, Hakwan Lau, Joseph LeDoux, Alan L. F. Lee, Camilo Libedinsky, Matthew D. Lieberman, Ying-Tung Lin, Ka-Yuet Liu, Maro G. Machizawa, Julio Martinez-Trujillo, Janet Metcalfe, Matthias Michel, Kenneth D. Miller, Partha P. Mitra, Dean Mobbs, Robert M. Mok, Jorge Morales, Myrto Mylopoulos, Brian Odegaard, Charles C.-F. Or, Adrian M. Owen, David Pereplyotchik, Franco Pestilli, Megan A. K. Peters, Ian Phillips, Rosanne L. Rademaker, Dobromir Rahnev, Geraint Rees, Dario L. Ringach, Adina Roskies, Daniela Schiller, Aaron Schurger, D. Samuel Schwarzkopf, Ryan B. Scott, Aaron R. Seitz, Joshua Shepherd, Juha Silvanto, Heleen A. Slagter, Barry C. Smith, Guillermo Solovey, David Soto, Hugo Spiers, Timo Stein, Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel, Frank Tong, Peter U. Tse, Jonas Vibell, Sebastian Watzl, Taylor Webb, Josh Weisberg, Thalia Wheatley, Michał Wierzchoń, Martijn E. Wokke, Karen Yan

    Nature Neuroscience    2025.03  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Corresponding author

    DOI

    Scopus

    14
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Artificial intelligence in lie detection: Why do cognitive theories matter?

    Philip Tseng, Tony Cheng

    New Ideas in Psychology   76   101128 - 101128  2025.01  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Last author

    DOI

    Scopus

    4
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Structural correspondence in Molyneux’s subjects

    Tony Cheng

    Philosophy and the Mind Sciences   5  2024.11  [Refereed]

    　View Summary

    The historical Molyneux’s question – roughly, whether congenital blind subjects can visually identify shapes in front of them right after being made to see – is having its renaissance in recent years (Ferretti and Glenney, 2021). While there have been many different formulations of it, and many attempted answers as well, no clear consensus has been reached. Moreover, although arguably both memory and imagination are involved in the process, their roles in the Molyneux’s task have not been adequately discussed. In this paper, I focus on a specific version of Molyneux’s question, propose a specific hypothesis in relation to that version, and sketch the roles of structural correspondence, memory, and imagination in the relevant hypothesis. One key moral of this discussion is that while Molyneux’s question has primarily been regarded as a perceptual puzzle, other kinds of mental episodes such as memory and imagination have to be taken into account as well in order to have a more satisfying answer to versions of Molyneux’s question (Macpherson and Dorsch, 2018).

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The sustenance and retention of perspectival shape representations

    Ankit Gupta, Yu-Hui Lo, Tony Cheng, Philip Tseng

    Consciousness and Cognition   126   103788 - 103788  2024.11  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

  • Neural representations of perspectival shapes and attentional effects: Evidence from fMRI and MEG

    Yi Lin, Yung-Yi Hsu, Tony Cheng, Pin-Cheng Hsiung, Chen-Wei Wu, Po-Jang Hsieh

    Cortex   176   129 - 143  2024.07  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    2
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Causal prominence for neuroscience

    Philip Tseng, Tony Cheng

    Nature Reviews Neuroscience   25 ( 8 ) 591 - 591  2024.06  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Last author

    DOI

    Scopus

    6
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Schellenberg and the capacity to perceive

    Tony Cheng

    Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science     251 - 254  2024.05  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

  • William Bechtel and Linus Ta-Lun Huang, Philosophy of Neuroscience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2022), 94 pp., $20.00 (Paperback)

    Tony Cheng

    Erkenntnis    2024.03  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • On the transcendental explanation of intentionality

    Tony Cheng

    Australasian Philosophical Review   8 ( 1 ) 69 - 73  2024.01  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • Perspectival shapes are viewpoint-dependent relational properties.

    Tony Cheng, Yi Lin, Chen-Wei Wu

    Psychological Review   131 ( 1 ) 307 - 310  2024.01  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author, Corresponding author

    DOI

    Scopus

    6
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The language of tactile thought

    Tony Cheng

    Behavioral and Brain Sciences   46  2023.09  [Refereed]

    　View Summary

    Abstract

    The target article argues that language-of-thought hypothesis (LoTH) is applicable to various domains, including perception. However, it focusses exclusively on the visual case, which is limited in this regard. I argue for two ideas in this commentary: first, their case can be extended to other modalities such as touch; and second, the status of those six criteria needs to be further clarified.

    DOI

  • Capturing the Elusive Self

    Tony Cheng

    Philosophical Psychology   38 ( 2 ) 978 - 981  2023.02  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • Artificial agential intelligence

    Tony Cheng

    Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness   09 ( 03 ) 285 - 295  2022.12  [Refereed]

    　View Summary

    Since artificial intelligence (AI) emerged in the mid-20th century, it has incurred many theoretical criticisms (Dreyfus, H. [1972] What Computers Can’t Do (MIT Press, New York); Dreyfus, H. [1992] What Computers Still Can’t Do (MIT Press, New York); Searle, J. [1980] Minds, brains and programs, Behav. Brain Sci. 3, 417–457; Searle, J. [1984] Minds, Brains and Sciences (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA); Searle, J. [1992] The Rediscovery of the Mind (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA); Fodor, J. [2002] The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).). The technical improvements of machine learning and deep learning, though, have been continuing and many breakthroughs have occurred recently. This makes theoretical considerations urgent again: can this new wave of AI fare better than its precursors in emulating or even having human-like minds? I propose a cautious yet positive hypothesis: current AI might create human-like mind, but only if it incorporates certain conceptual rewiring: it needs to shift from a task-based to an agent-based framework, which can be dubbed “Artificial Agential Intelligence” (AAI). It comprises practical reason (McDowell, J. [1979] Virtue and reason, Monist 62(3), 331–350; McDowell, J. [1996] Mind and World (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)), imaginative understanding (Campbell, J. [2020] Causation in Psychology (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)), and animal knowledge (Sosa, E. [2007] A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, volume 1 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK); Sosa, E. [2015] Judgment and Agency (Oxford University Press, Cambridge, MA)). Moreover, I will explore whether and in what way neuroscience-inspired AI and predictive coding (Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., Summerfield, C., & Botvinick, M. [2017] Neuroscience-inspired artificial intelligence, Neuron 95(2), 245–258) can help carry out this project.

    DOI

  • Book Review: Metazoa - Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind

    Tony Cheng

    Biosystems   219   104733 - 104733  2022.09  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • Book Review: In Consciousness We Trust by Hakwan Lau

    Tony Cheng, Yi Lin

    Perception   51 ( 8 ) 598 - 600  2022.06  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • Radical internalism meets radical externalism or: Smithies’ epistemology transcendentalised

    Tony Cheng

    Asian Journal of Philosophy   1 ( 1 )  2022.02  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

  • Taking Conceptual Issues Really Seriously: One Next Step for the Cognitive Science of Consciousness

    Cheng, T., Lin, Y., Tseng, P.

    Cognitive Science   46 ( 11 )  2022  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author, Corresponding author

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Illusions, objectivity, and non-reductive emergentism: Reply to Rose

    Cheng, T.

    Perception   51 ( 12 )  2022  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    2
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • P3b Does Not Reflect Perceived Contrasts

    Chen, Y.-K., Cheng, T., Hsieh, P.-J.

    eNeuro   9 ( 2 )  2022  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    4
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Post-perceptual confidence and supervaluative matching profile

    Cheng, T.

    Inquiry (United Kingdom)   65 ( 3 )  2022  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    6
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Spatial representations in sensory modalities

    Cheng, T.

    Mind and Language   37 ( 3 )  2022  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    11
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Perception

    Cheng, T.

    Mind, Cognition, and Neuroscience: A Philosophical Introduction    2022  [Refereed]  [Invited]

    DOI

    Scopus

  • Book Review: The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

    Tony Cheng

    The Philosophical Quarterly   72 ( 1 ) 238 - 240  2021.03  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • Introduction: Sensing the self in world

    Cheng, T.

    Analytic Philosophy   62 ( 1 )  2021  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    2
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Molyneux’s question and somatosensory spaces

    Cheng, T.

    Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy    2020  [Refereed]  [Invited]

    DOI

    Scopus

    9
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Introduction: striving for objectivity in space

    Cheng, T., Snowdon, P.

    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences   18 ( 5 )  2019  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Quine's Naturalism and Behaviorisms

    Cheng, T.

    Metaphilosophy   49 ( 4 )  2018  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • A mechanism for spatial perception on human skin

    Fardo, F., Beck, B., Cheng, T., Haggard, P.

    Cognition   178  2018  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    29
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The recurrent model of bodily spatial phenomenology

    Cheng, T., Haggard, P.

    Journal of Consciousness Studies   25 ( 3-4 )  2018  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author, Corresponding author

  • Spatial senses: Philosophy of perception in an age of science

    Cheng, T., Deroy, O., Spence, C.

    Spatial Senses: Philosophy of Perception in an Age of Science    2018  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author, Corresponding author

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Is Bálint's syndrome a counterexample of the Kantian spatiality thesis?

    Cheng, T.

    Spatial Senses: Philosophy of Perception in an Age of Science    2018  [Refereed]

  • Introduction: Sensing in and of space

    Cheng, T., Deroy, O., Spence, C.

    Spatial Senses: Philosophy of Perception in an Age of Science    2018  [Refereed]

    Authorship：Lead author, Corresponding author

  • On the very idea of a tactile field, or: A plea for skin space

    Cheng, T.

    Spatial Senses: Philosophy of Perception in an Age of Science    2018  [Refereed]

  • Iconic memory and attention in the overflow debate

    Cheng, T.

    Cogent Psychology   4 ( 1 )  2017  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    4
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The Trajectory of Self

    Lane, T., Duncan, N.W., Cheng, T., Northoff, G.

    Trends in Cognitive Sciences   20 ( 7 )  2016  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    10
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • The sceptical paradox and the nature of the self

    Cheng, T.

    Philosophical Investigations   39 ( 1 )  2016  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    1
    Citation
    (Scopus)

  • Compositionality and believing that

    Cheng, T.

    Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations   15 ( 1 )  2016  [Refereed]

  • A plea for the plurality of function

    Cheng, T.

    Review of Contemporary Philosophy   15  2016  [Refereed]

  • Book review: The first sense

    Tony Cheng

    Frontiers in Psychology   6  2015.08  [Refereed]

    DOI

  • Obstacles to testing Molyneux's question empirically

    Cheng, T.

    i-Perception   6 ( 4 )  2015  [Refereed]

    DOI

    Scopus

    22
    Citation
    (Scopus)

▼display all

Books and Other Publications

  • Transcendental Epistemology (Elements in Epistemology)

    Tony Cheng( Part： Sole author)

    Cambridge University Press  2024.02 ISBN: 100947863X

    ASIN

  • Expected Experiences: The Predictive Mind in an Uncertain World (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

    Ryoji Sato, Jakob Hohwy( Part： Joint editor)

    Routledge  2023.12 ISBN: 0367535475

    ASIN

  • John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity: Oxford Kantianism Meets Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences

    Tony Cheng( Part： Sole author)

    Bloomsbury Academic  2021.05 ISBN: 1350126713

    ASIN

  • Spatial Senses: Philosophy of Perception in an Age of Science (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

    Ophelia Deroy, Charles Spence( Part： Joint editor)

    Routledge  2019.06 ISBN: 1138506419

    ASIN

Presentations

  • On the Very Idea of a Perceptual Experience

    Tony Cheng

    Singapore NTU Workshop on Perception, Memory, and Imagination 

    Presentation date： 2026.04

  • The Affective Affordance Analysis of Atmosphere

    Tony Cheng

    Kobe Institute for Atmospheric Studies 

    Presentation date： 2026.03

  • The Analogue Contents of Mnemic Scenarios

    Tony Cheng

    Eurasian Memory Meeting 

    Presentation date： 2026.03

  • Dignāga-style Memory Argument Meets Multisensory Transparency

    Tony Cheng

    NTU-UGA Workshop on Buddhist and Analytic Approaches 

    Presentation date： 2026.01

  • Possibilitation

    Tony Cheng

    Tokyo Forum for Analytic Philosophy 

    Presentation date： 2025.12

  • Metaphysical Possibilitation

    Tony Cheng

    Waseda-Shangdon University Exchange 

    Presentation date： 2025.11

  • Returning to the Blue Book: A Wittgensteinian Solution to an Empirical Challenge to IEM

    Tony Cheng

    The Seventh International Wittgenstein Symposium —Wittgenstein: Meaning and Certainty 

    Presentation date： 2025.11

  • Embodied AI’s Ontological Challenge

    Tony Cheng

    Symposium on AI in the Context of Interdisciplinary Dialogue and Human Life 

    Presentation date： 2025.09

  • The Fate of Geist

    Tony Cheng

    Pragmatism, Inferentialism and Hegel in the Wake of R. Brandom’s A Spirit of Trust 

    Presentation date： 2025.08

  • Possibilitation: Its Logic, Language, and Limitations

    Tony Cheng

    Yonsei University Workshop on Logic and Language 

    Presentation date： 2025.07

  • AI: Mind and Body

    Tony Cheng

    AI and Philosophy Roundtable Series 

    Presentation date： 2025.07

  • Two Inside-out Binding Problems

    Tony Cheng

    Presentation date： 2025.06

  • The (Un)scientific status of IIT

    Tony Cheng

    Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 

    Presentation date： 2025.06

  • Causal Prominence and Mechanistic Explanations in Neuroscience

    Tony Cheng

    Asia-Pacific Philosophy of Science Association 

    Presentation date： 2025.06

  • Why Empirical Psychologists Should Care and Worry about IIT

    Tony Cheng

    Presentation date： 2025.06

  • The Many Problems of IIT

    Tony Cheng

    Watanabe Lab Psychology Seminar 

    Presentation date： 2025.05

  • McDowellian Naturalism and Strong Emergence

    Tony Cheng

    Phenomenology and the Pittsburgh School 

    Presentation date： 2025.05

  • On the Very Idea of an Olfactory Field

    Tony Cheng

    Tahoe Smell Workshop 

    Presentation date： 2025.05

  • The Reality of Sensible Reality

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Toward a Contextual Realism 

    Presentation date： 2025.03

  • Yes and No to Molyneux’s Questions

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Neuroscience Talk Series 

    Presentation date： 2025.02

  • Causation in Neuroscience

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    WIAS Homecoming Event 

    Presentation date： 2025.01

  • Psychocerebrophenomenology: A Manifesto

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Phenomenology and Consciousness Studies 

    Presentation date： 2025.01

  • Molyneux’s Question: The Conceptual vs. Clinical Cases

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Monthly Spotlight 

    Presentation date： 2024.12

  • Transcendental Arguments in the 21st Century

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Waseda Philosophy Research Group Monthly Meeting 

    Presentation date： 2024.11

  • Tactile Field: An Empirical Hypothesis and Its Conceptual Implications

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Ho Haptic Lab 

    Presentation date： 2024.10

  • Perceiving Perspectival Properties

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Midsummer Mind Workshop 

    Presentation date： 2024.07

  • Perspectival Properties in Perception: A Critical Review

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Keio University Philosophy Talk Series 

    Presentation date： 2024.06

  • Theoretical Psychology in Action

    Tony Cheng  [Invited]

    Psychology Seminar, Watanabe Lab 

    Presentation date： 2024.04

▼display all

 

Syllabus

 

Sub-affiliation

  • Faculty of Science and Engineering   Graduate School of Fundamental Science and Engineering

  • Faculty of Political Science and Economics   School of Political Science and Economics