John Vervaeke
University College, 15 King's College Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 3H7
Campus: St. George
John Vervaeke is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness.
In addition, he taught a course in the Buddhism, Psychology, and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science for fifteen years. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students’ Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award.
He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is the first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century crisis which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.
Education
- PhD, University of Toronto
- BSc, University of Toronto
- MA, University of Toronto
- HBA, McMaster University
Research Interests
- Thinking and reasoning
- Insight problem solving
- Cognitive development with a focus on the dynamical nature of development
- Higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the psychology of wisdom
Publications
- Juensung Kim, Stephanie Morris, Philip Rajewicz, Michel Ferrari & John Vervaeke. ‘Walking wisdom’s path: contributions of faith, age, personal wisdom to ideas of cultivation wisdom’ Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging.
- John Vervaeke. ‘How a philosophy of meditation can explore the deep connections between mindfulness and contemplative wisdom’. In Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation. Rick Repetti (ed.).
- John Vervaeke and Christopher Mastropietro. ‘Dialectic into Dialogos and the Pragmatics of Nothingness in a Time of Crisis’. Eidos; a journal for the philosophy of culture.
- Dan Chiappe and John Vervaeke. ‘Distributed cognition and the experience of presence in the Mars Exploration Rover mission’. Frontiers in Psychology.