Events

Workshop Series ‘Self-Consciousness & Kinds of Self’

8 months ago

by Thomas Jacobi in Events

WORKSHOP II – 5 & 6 November
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(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)

Perceptual Ephemera

1 year ago

by Clare Mac Cumhaill in Calls for Conference Papers, Events, Posts

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

Perceptual Ephemera

University of Geneva

24th/25th September 2012

Call for Papers:

When considering the objects of perception, many philosophers have been tempted to place their theoretical focus primarily, if not exclusively, on opaque, material objects, what J.L. Austin once described as “moderate-sized specimens of dry goods” – tables, chairs, pens and so on. Call such objects ‘canonical’ objects of perception. Yet, as Austin also noted, it hardly meshes with our naïve take on our perceptual lives to suppose that this is all we perceive. “Does the ordinary man believe that what he perceives is (always) something like furniture?” Of course not. Rather we take ourselves to perceive, in addition, and for example: flames, soap-bubbles, glimmers, highlights, reflections, echoes, shivers, atmospheric phenomena like rainbows and mirages, shadows, after-images, voices, constellations, and arguably too affordances and values. Call such entities non-canonical objects of perception. This conference aims to open discussion on such less canonical objects and, in particular, those objects the mereological, topological, material and temporal profile of which marks them out as, loosely speaking, ‘ephemeral’.

Unlike material objects, ‘ephemeral’ objects are those whose autonomous existence in the world has, for various reasons, seemed more difficult to vouchsafe, perhaps because they are ontologically dependent in some way (as shadows are on their casters), typically short-lived (soap-bubbles, flames), or more critically, because they appear in someway mind-dependent (as constellations do, or in a somewhat different way mirages, reflections and echoes). The goal of the conference is to isolate peculiar challenges that such objects hold for standard philosophical theories of perception.

Papers that treat any one (or family) of such phenomena are welcomed. As a guideline, the following philosophical questions might also be considered:

How should we individuate non-canonical and ephemeral objects of perception? Are some such objects intensionally individuated – that is, do they depend, for their individuation, on the presence, in the subject, of some mental attitude or state? If so, must a theorist advocating a thin view of perceptual content (for example) rule out certain putatively non-canonical or ephemeral objects as admissible objects of perception? Must a theorist advancing a relational theory of perception likewise rule out as admissible any intensionally individuated non-canonical object? Do non-canonical and ephemeral objects have particularity? Are they particulars in a Strawsonian sense? How does a representational theory of perception reconcile the inefficaciousness of certain perceptual ephemera with the possibility of their being perceived? How can a subject be perceptually related to an ephemeral object? How do empirical treatments of non-perceptual objects of perception mesh with such philosophical accounts?

Papers are also welcomed on the ephemeral in art, as well as in the history of ideas.

Keynote

Roy Sorensen (Washington University)

Invited Speakers and Discussants

István Aranyosi (Bilkent University)
Roberto Casati (Institut Jean Nicod)
Thomas Crowther (Heythrop College)
Martine Nida-Rümelin (University of Fribourg)
Matthew Nudds (University of Edinburgh)

Submission Details

Extended abstracts of no more than 1000 words should be prepared for blind review – specify on a separate page name, affiliation and e-mail address.
Submit as a .pdf, .doc or .rtf attachment to clare.maccumhaill@unige.ch by 1^st June, 2012. Please put ‘Conference Paper Submission’ as the subject of your email.
An acknowledgment of reception will be sent.
Each speaker will be allowed a maximum of 45 minutes for presentation and 45 minutes for discussion.
Successful applicants will be notified by 20^stJune, 2012.
A maximum of eight papers will be accepted.
Speaker accommodation costs will be covered.
It is envisaged that the proceedings of the conference will be published in an edited volume. Authors should thereby be aware that, if selected, their manuscript should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.