Humphrey, Nicholas

Nicholas Keynes Humphrey (born 27 March 1943) is an English neuropsychologist and writer whose work has focused on the evolution of consciousness and social intelligence. He carried out early research on visual perception after cortical damage in monkeys and collaborated with Lawrence Weiskrantz in research that led to the discovery of blindsight. He moved into ethology and, after doing fieldwork with mountain gorillas, was one of the first to formulate the social intelligence hypothesis. His more recent research, in collaboration especially with Daniel Dennett, has concentrated on the science and philosophy of phenomenal consciousness. His work builds towards a materialist theory of conscious experience in humans and animals, that explains it as a life-affirming illusion. These ideas, popularised in books including A History of the Mind (1992), Seeing Red (2006), Soul Dust (2011) and Sentience (2023), have had considerable impact but remain controversial. Humphrey has held academic posts at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, The New School for Social Research in New York, and the London School of Economics. He has presented television series on the development of the human mind and topics such as nuclear disarmament and belief in the supernatural.