Archive for September, 2012

Workshop Series ‘Self-Consciousness & Kinds of Self’

7 months ago
by Thomas Jacobi in

WORKSHOP II – 5 & 6 November
———————————————-

(see also Workshop I: 8 — 9 Oct , and Workshop III: 3 — 4 December)

Organised by: Department of Philosophy, University of Fribourg, Avenue de l’Europe 20, Switzerland

http://lettres.unifr.ch/fr/philosophie/philosophie/offredtudes.html

Co-Sponsored by: Olaf Blanke, Laboratory of Neuroscience, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

SPEAKERS
The Affective Self

  • Jan Slaby, Dept. of Philosophy, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • John Lambie, Dept. of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

Personal Identity

  • Eric Olson, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

The Dualistic Self

  • Martine Nida-Rümelin, Dept. of Philosophy, Fribourg University, Switzerland

Self-Knowledge in Agency

  • Lucy O’Brien, Dept. of Philosophy, University College London, London, UK

Everyone welcome | No Registration fee

All enquiries to: thomas.jacobi@unifr.ch

-> For a detailed schedule and the workshop poster, please see:
http://www.philosophie.ch/events/single.php?action=date&eventid=923&month=11&year=2012

VENUE

Salon des Professeurs, Room 2113, Misericorde, Avenue de l’Europe 20, Fribourg, Switzerland

(half-way between first & second floor, by the staircase, same level as cafeteria) http://www.unifr.ch/map/de/misericorde.php

INTRODUCTION

‘Considered as a unitary object, the self is full of apparent contradictions. It is simultaneously physical and mental, public and private, directly perceived and incorrectly imagined, universal and culture-specific’ (p. 35). ‘[These different aspects or selves] are all experienced, though perhaps not all with the same quality of consciousness. And they are all valued (…)’.

Neisser, U. (1988) Five kinds of Self-Knowledge, Phil. Psychol. 1, 35 – 59 (p. 36)

The question of what self-consciousness, and, more specifically, the sense of self might amount to has been at the very centre of inquiries into the human condition across different ages, cultures and academic disciplines. The answers that have emerged in the past not only revealed different theoretical and practical approaches towards the self, depending on what was assumed that we are aware of in self-consciousness, but also importantly indicated that, in being self-conscious, we take ourselves to be aware of sometimes radically different aspects of the self or indeed of altogether distinct selves.

In these interdisciplinary workshops that draw on sources from philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience, we want to explore how self-consciousness, understood broadly, intimates to us these different aspects of the particular self or kind of self we seemingly are and how these diverse self-related elements (or ‘selves’) not only form a unified whole, if they do, but also how the related conceptions of the self integrate with our general theories and assumptions about the world.

To this end, we will be discussing, inter alia, the phenomenology of self-experience; the (dis)unity of the self; self and agency; biological & evolutionary roots of the self; the emotional/affective self; the idea of a minimal self; the self and the brain; the conceptual versus non-conceptual content of self-consciousness; the embodied self; the first-person versus third-person perspective; the psychopathology of the self; the dualistic nature of the self; the problem of self-knowledge; multi-sensory integration and body awareness; the persistence of the self through time; and prospects for a unified theory of self-consciousness and the self.

Participants in the workshops will have an opportunity to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the diverse aspects surrounding the problem of self-consciousness and the self. Being able to discuss core issues with leading experts in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience will alert participants to the challenges and opportunities in this line of research and will, furthermore, demonstrate to them theoretical and practical strategies of how successful theories of self-consciousness and the self can be formulated.

The organisers wish to acknowledge the kind support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF 101115-140203 / 1)

Reconceptions of Action

1 year ago
by Steve Butterfill in

March 23-24 2012

Lyon ENS Descartes Campus 15 Parvis René Descartes, Lyon 7 Métro: Debourg

Organizers:

  • J.M. Roy (ENS-LYON)

  • C. Sinigaglia (Univ. of Milano-Visiting Prof. ENS-LYON)

Open Attendance but Prior Registration needed
Please register with J.M Roy at:
Jean-Michel.Roy@ens-lyon.fr

 

Workshop Argument


Both in philosophy and in cognitive science, the study of action has received central attention since the middle of last century. It is however arguable that this undeniably consequential transformation of the study of action has not resulted yet in any clear overall picture of the nature and functioning of action. As a result, a legitimate need to clarify where we stand with respect to the scientific understanding of action is currently emerging, that can be summarized with the following questions: What are the most significant transformations that took place in the field of action ? What aspects of our traditional undertstanding of action have they modified ? To what extent do they radically alter this undertanding ? To use an expression that philosopher Nelson Goodman coined for a different but not irrelevant field, to what extent do they amount to a “Reconception” of action?
Clear echoes of this concern can be detected in a series of recent book publications, both on the philsophical side [e.g.: Aguilar, J., & Buckareff, A. (2009). Philosophy of action: 5 questions. Cambridge; Aguilar, J., & Buckareff, A. (2010). Causing Human actions: New perspectives on the causal theory of action. Cambridge; Aguilar, J., Buckareff, A., & Frankish, K. (2011). New waves in philosophy of action. Cambridge: Palgrave Mcmillan.] and on the neurocognitive side [e.g.:Morsella, E., Bargh, J., & Gollwitzer, P. (2009). Oxford Handbook of Human Action. Oxford University Press.]
This general interrogation on the deep significance of the transformations taking place in action theory for our understanding of what action is and how it functions, is also guided by a more specific concern about their meaning for the relevance of a pragmatist perspective on cognitive explanation. Accordingly, the workshop is organized in the context of the Sino-French research operation Knowledge and Action Lab, conducted under the auspices of the Joint Research Institute Scientific for Science and Society of the East China Normal University of Sanghaï and the Ecole Normale Supérieur of Lyon. This research operation is directed by Professors Zhengua Yu(ECNU, Shanghaï), and Prof. J.M Roy (ENS Lyon).

Participants:

· Gabriella BOTTINI, Psychology Department, University of Pavia, Pavia,
· Stephen BUTTERFILL, Department of Philosophy, Warwick University
· Alessandro FARNE, Espace & Action Laboratory, INSERM, Lyon
· Yves ROSSETTI, Physiology, Lyon Medical School Lyon-Est & Espace & Action
Laboratory, INSERM, Lyon
· Angela SIRIGU, Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives, Lyon
· Corrado SINIGAGLIA, Department of PhilosophyUniversity of Milan
· J.M. ROY, CESC, Lyon ENS

Open Attendance
Prior Registration needed

Please register with J.M Roy at:
Jean-Michel.Roy@ens-lyon.fr

From fMRI to Philosophy of Mind

1 year ago
by Nick Shea in

Workshop

April 21, 2012            
St. Catherine’s College, Oxford

John-Dylan Haynes (Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin)
Brain Reading” with MRI: Decoding Mental States from Human Brain Activity

Michael Anderson (Franklin & Marshall)
What Psychology tells us about the Brain, and Vice-Versa: Two Approaches to Interpreting Neuroimaging Data

Adina Roskies (Dartmouth College)
From Brainreading to Mindreading: Desiderata, Prospects, and Problems

Martin Davies (University of Oxford)
TBA

Attendance is free but you must register in advance of the workshop by emailing: <tim.bayne@gmail.com>. A £5 sandwich lunch will be provided for those who request it when registering (please indicate if you prefer vegetarian food).

More information: http://bit.ly/ACKoRa

 

Special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology: Distributed cognition and memory research

1 year ago
by Mark Sprevak in

Guest editors: Kourken Michaelian and John Sutton

Call for Papers

Deadline for submissions: July 15, 2012

According to the extended mind hypothesis in philosophy of cognitive science and the related distributed cognition hypothesis in cognitive anthropology, remembering does not always occur entirely inside the brain, but can also be distributed across heterogeneous systems combining neural, bodily, social, and technological resources. Much of the critical debate on these ideas in philosophy has so far remained at some distance from relevant empirical studies. But claims about extended mind and distributed cognition, if they are to deserve wider acceptance, must both make sense of and, in turn, inform work in the cognitive and social sciences. Is the notion of extended or distributed remembering consistent with the findings of empirical memory research? Can such a view of memory usefully inform empirical work, suggesting further areas of productive enquiry or helping to make sense of existing findings?

This special issue will bring together supporters and critics of extended and distributed cognition, to consider memory as a test case for evaluating and further developing these hypotheses. Submitted papers should thus address both memory and distributed cognition/ extended mind: ideally, papers should aim simultaneously to make contributions to relevant debates in both philosophy and psychology or other relevant empirical fields. While primarily theoretical papers are welcome, they should make direct contact with empirical findings. Similarly, while empirically-oriented papers might draw on evidence from a range of areas, including the cognitive psychology of transactive memory and collaborative recall, cognitive anthropology and cognitive ethnography, science studies and the philosophy of science, the history of memory practices, and the cognitive archaeology of material culture, they should seek to advance the theoretical debate over extended mind and distributed cognition, rather than simply presenting findings from these fields.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

Relations between biological memory and external memory

How do forms of representation and storage in neural and external memory differ, and why do such differences matter? Can theories of distributed cognition deal with the existence of multiple memory systems? For example, does the expert deployment of exograms in certain external symbol systems affect working memory? How might the development and operation of distributed memory systems affect neural memory processes? Is evidence for neuroplasticity relevant for assessing claims about distributed remembering? Given plausible links between memory and self, what might distributed memory systems imply about identity and agency? What happens when distributed memory systems fail or break down?

How do distributed memory systems work?

What is socially distributed remembering, and does it offer any support to revived ideas about group cognition, or to a naturalized understanding of collective memory? Can theories of extended or distributed cognition encompass socially distributed remembering in addition to artifacts and other forms of memory scaffolding? What are the implications of experimental studies of collaborative recall and transactive memory for theories of distributed cognition? How do such theories deal with memory practices and rituals, and with the roles of the non-symbolic material environment?

Distributed memory and embodied cognition

How central in theories of extended or distributed memory should be the study of skill acquisition and of expertise in the deployment of external resources? What accounts of embodied skills, procedural memory, and smooth or absorbed coping are required to support such theories? How do distributed memory systems work in specific contexts of embodied interaction, from conversation to music, dance, performance, and sport?

Guest authors

The issue will include invited articles authored by:

  • Robert Rupert, University of Colorado (Boulder)

  • Deborah Tollefsen, University of Memphis, and Rick Dale, University of California (Merced)

  • Mike Wheeler, University of Stirling

Important dates

  • Submission deadline: July 15, 2012

  • Target publication date: December 15, 2012

How to submit

Prospective authors should register at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/ropp to obtain a login and select Distributed cognition and memory research as an article type. Manuscripts should be approximately 6,000 words. Submissions should follow the author guidelines available on the journal’s website.

About the journal

The Review of Philosophy and Psychology (ISSN: 1878-5158; eISSN: 1878-5166) is a peer-reviewed journal published quarterly by Springer and focusing on philosophical and foundational issues in cognitive science. The aim of the journal is to provide a forum for discussion on topics of mutual interest to philosophers and psychologists and to foster interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of philosophy and the sciences of the mind, including the neural, behavioural and social sciences. The journal publishes theoretical works grounded in empirical research as well as empirical articles on issues of philosophical relevance. It includes thematic issues featuring invited contributions from leading authors together with articles answering a call for paper.

Contact

For any queries, please email the guest editors: kmichaelian@bilkent.edu.tr, john.sutton@mq.edu.au

Thinking with Shaun Gallagher

1 year ago
by Mark Sprevak in

Workshop on Philosophy of Embodiment, Self and Agency

March 1-2, 2012
New University of Lisbon

This workshop will use the work of Shaun Gallagher, especially from his 2005 book How the Body Shapes the Mind as a jumping off point to discuss important themes in contemporary philosophy, namely questions around embodiment, self and agency.

Gallagher will give two talks at the workshop as follows:

  • 11.00 to 12.30, March 1st: Embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended mindreading

In this presentation I’ll review some ongoing interdisciplinary debates in social cognition, offer some critiques of the standard and dominant Theory of Mind approaches, and outline an alternative theory framed in terms of recent work on embodied and enactive cognition. The alternative account explains the earliest forms of interaction in infancy and offers a narrative (rather than a folk psychology or simulationist) model of mature social understanding.

  • 10.30 to 12.00, March 2nd: Misidentifying the self in experimental and pathological situations

In this presentation I’ll review a number of pathological and experimental situations in which either the sense of agency or the sense of ownership is disrupted. I’ll defend the view that immunity to error through misidentification (IEM) is nonetheless sustained in all of these cases to the extent that the first-person perspective is sustained. I’ll discuss at least one case, however, in which the first-person perspective in experience seems to be problematic and IEM seems to be clearly challenged.

The way workshop is structured is that Gallagher will give a talk each morning and then researchers from the IFL´s Cognitive Foundations of the Self project will use Gallagher´s ideas, especially from his 2005 book How the Body Shapes the Mind, as a jumping off point for further exploration of the themes of the conference. João Fonseca, Alexander Gerner, Robert Clowes, Jorge Gonçalves and Dina Mendonça will all present their ongoing work around the main conference themes. For more detail on papers and abstracts see: http://foundationsoftheself.squarespace.com/shaun-gallagher-workshop/. The workshop timetable allows plenty of time for extended discussion.

Participation at this workshop is open to other researchers although will be limited to around 20 participants. The session on the first morning however is a public lecture. Those who would like to participate at the workshop are invited to send email to Robert Clowes to register their interest. The conference language is English.

Location: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences (New University of Lisbon), I&D Building – Room M3, 4th Floor

Entrance to the workshop is free but to register please send email to robertc@sussex.ac.uk.

This workshop is part of the Portuguese Government funded project on the Cognitive Foundations of the Self: http://foundationsoftheself.squarespace.com/shaun-gallagher-workshop/

Pre-reflective and Reflective Processing in Social Interaction

1 year ago
by Mark Sprevak in ,

March 12-14, 2012
Elton Room, Clare College, University of Cambridge

This meeting will bring together neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers interested in the mechanisms underlying social behaviour with the aim of exploring the role of pre-reflective/implicit and reflective/explicit processes of social interaction. In particular, the meeting will combine researchers dedicated to more traditional Theory of Mind accounts, who have largely focused on reflective processes in social cognition, with proponents of an approach that emphasises pre-reflective enactment and engagement in social interactions. The workshop focuses on the conceptual and theoretical contributions of these two approaches to our understanding of social interactions. In addition, the meeting aims to explore whether different theoretical assumptions are needed to understand cooperative and competitive interactions.

Please note: The capacity of the workshop is limited to 35 participants. Priority will therefore be given to those who are actively involved in relevant research and who will present a poster. Details on poster submission can be found below.

Invited Speakers:

  • Ian Apperly (Birmingham)
  • Louise Barrett (Lethbridge)
  • Harold Bekkering (Nijmengen)
  • Stephen Butterfill (Warwick)
  • Chris Frith (Aarhus/Oxford)
  • Bence Nanay (Antwerp)
  • Søren Overgaard (Copenhagen)
  • Natalie Sebanz (Nijmegen)
  • Marc Slors (Nijmegen)

Registration/Poster submission:

If you would like to present a poster at the workshop please submit a short abstract of no more then 500 words to Christoph Teufel (crt35@cam.ac.uk) by February 15th (note deadline in two weeks). If you would like to attend the workshop without presenting a poster please send an e-mail to the above address, indicating how your research is relevant to the topic of the workshop. Successful applicants will be sent an invitation to attend by February 20th. We regret that we cannot subsidise travel or accommodation for poster presenters. However, there will be no conference fee and you will be invited to the dinner at Clare College on Tuesday, March 13th.

This meeting is organised by Vivian Bohl, Marion Godman, Mog Stapleton, Christoph Teufel, Wouter van den Bos, and Marijn van Wingerden.

It is funded by the Volkwagen Foundation as part of a network grant from the European Platform for Life Sciences, Mind Sciences, and the Humanities.

4th Online Consciousness Conference

1 year ago
by Mark Sprevak in ,

February 17 – March 2, 2012

The Invited Program includes:

  • Bernard Baars, The Neurosciences Institute

Special Session on Attention, Awareness, and Expectation organized by the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior featuring:

  • Floris P. de Lange, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior
  • Jackie Gottlieb, Columbia
  • David Heeger, NYU
  • Marisa Carrasco, NYU

Special Session on Action Consciousness organized by Myrto Mylopoulos, The Graduate Center CUNY; participants TBA

Special Session on the Social Conditions of Self Consciousness organized by James Dow, Hendrix College; participants TBA

Call for papers

Papers in any area of consciousness studies are welcome. Papers should be roughly 3,000-4,000 words and subsequent presentations, should the presenter choose to make one, should be about 20 minutes (though longer papers/presentations are acceptable).

Submissions, suitable for blind review,should be sent to consciousnessonline@gmail.com by December 5th 2011. Those interested in being referees or commentators should also contact me. Authors of accepted papers are urged to make, or have made, some kind of audio/visual presentation (e.g. narrated powerpoint or video of talk) though this is not required to present.

For more information visit the conference website at http://consciousnessonline.com

Find Consciousness Online on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Consciousness-Online/361010842469

The Nature of Phenomenal Qualities

1 year ago
by Mark Sprevak in

March 29th – April 1st, 2012
University of Hertfordshire

The final conference in the AHRC supported project. The conference will focus on the ontological nature of phenomenal qualities, the role and location of phenomenal qualities in perceptual experience, the relation of phenomenal qualities to the representational aspects of experience, the connections between phenomenal qualities, bodily states and the sensible properties of the objects of perception, and other allied topics.

Speakers:

  • Ned Block
  • Dave Chalmers
  • Paul Coates
  • Sam Coleman
  • Ophelia Deroy
  • Tim Crane
  • Philip Goff
  • Jonathan Lowe
  • Fiona Macpherson
  • Tony Marcel
  • Mike Martin
  • Michelle Montague
  • David Papineau
  • Ron Rensink
  • Howard Robinson
  • Susanna Schellenberg
  • Paul Snowdon
  • Galen Strawson
  • Michael Tye

The conference will take place at the de Havilland Campus, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield.

There will be a special reduced registration fee for Postgraduate students.

Further details for delegates about registration and accommodation arrangements will follow.

Paul Coates, Sam Coleman
Co-Investigators, The Phenomenal Qualities Project

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