2022
Name: Marina Cortês
Institutional Affiliation: University of Lisbon, Perimeter Institute
Title: "Arrow of time and Free will”
Abstract:
In “BioCosmology: towards the birth of a new science”, papers I, II, and III (Cortês, Liddle, Kauffman and Smolin, 2021, appearing) we show that physics needs a total reshaping in order to cross the limitative boundaries of reductionism and move into the new fields of biology and the neurosciences. That reshaping is provided by combinatorial innovation. While free is not possible under the traditional physics methodology of the Newtonian Paradigm and determinism, along with the reductionism assumption, our work shows this must be radically reconsidered.
The integration of a large number of deterministic differential equations of motion for many-body systems fails to explain the system’s behaviour even for very low complexity systems like, for example, the properties of solid sates of matter (Anderson, Laughlin, Leggett).
At high complexity scales - where one can speak of living organisms - this failure is even more manifest, and we argue goes beyond limitative computational performance. We claim that one cannot integrate the equations of motions to predict the genomics of an unborn infant, nor to predict what a person is going to decide.
Further I want to derive the connection between my award-winning work on the quantum gravitational foundations of the arrow of time (Cortês and Smolin, 2013 - Inaugural Buchalter Cosmology Prize) and the non-reducible, emergent phenomena, which operate at the neural science scales where the intense debate of free agency takes place.
BIO: Marina Cortês is currently founding a new scientific field, Biocosmology. It is the first bridge connecting cosmology and biology, scientific areas which were previously disconnected though lack of a common mathematical framework and tools, between the two up till now. Biocosmology allows us to see life through the lens of black holes, dark energy, and dark matter. It is the first quantification, ever, of the value of our planet before the vastness of the cosmos.
Marina Cortês has more than 15 years experience in cosmology. She worked in three continents, including National Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, the Perimeter Institute in Canada, and the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh in the UK, before taking up her current position at the Institute for Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Lisbon, Portugal. She has worked both in large observational collaborations such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and from a purely theoretical perspective.
Her work has influenced our understanding of the Universe’s youngest stages, the mystery of its present acceleration, and especially the fundamental nature of time itself. Her 2013 Phys. Rev. Letters article `Anomalies in an Open Universe’ was selected as Special Highlight by the American Physical Society, an honour given only to less than 1% of all publications in this already exclusive journal. In 2015 her article `The Universe as Unique Events’ was awarded the USD 10,000 Inaugural Buchalter Cosmology Prize, jointly with Lee Smolin.
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/84874415232?pwd=bE5EVkNPR21GZkQvODByYWsyaUd6Zz09 Password: 791779 Or iPhone one-tap: 211202618,84874415232# or 308804188,84874415232# Or Telephone: Dial: +351 211 202 618 (Portugal Toll) or +351 308 804 188 (Portugal Toll) Meeting ID: 848 7441 5232 International numbers available: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/u/kbs64O96CH Or a H.323/SIP room system: H.323: 162.255.37.11 (US West) or 162.255.36.11 (US East) Meeting ID: 848 7441 5232 Password: 791779 SIP: 84874415232@zoomcrc.com Password: 791779
2019 - 2021
From 2019 details of our meetings were placed on the ArgLab and IFILNOVA websites. Links can be found on our frontpage of our site. Eventually we will try to update these here too.
From 2019 details of our meetings were placed on the ArgLab and IFILNOVA websites. Links can be found on our frontpage of our site. Eventually we will try to update these here too.
2018
October 8th (15.30 - 16.30), Klaus Gaertner will present a talk entitled Pre-Reflective Self-awareness: Invariant or Dynamic for the Mind and Reasoning Research in Progress Seminar (Location TA 302, Torre A, FCSH Campus)
Abstract: It is often held that to have a conscious experience presupposes having some form of implicit self-awareness. The most dominant phenomenological view usually claims that we essentially perceive experiences as our own. According to the theory, this so called “mineness” character is not only vital to conscious experience, it also establishes the minimal self. Further, this view holds that this minimal, pre-reflective self constitutes the invariant mode in which experiences are given to us. In this talk, I will analyze this latter claim and show that our sense of pre-reflective self is in part dynamical.
October 8th (15.30 - 16.30), Klaus Gaertner will present a talk entitled Pre-Reflective Self-awareness: Invariant or Dynamic for the Mind and Reasoning Research in Progress Seminar (Location TA 302, Torre A, FCSH Campus)
Abstract: It is often held that to have a conscious experience presupposes having some form of implicit self-awareness. The most dominant phenomenological view usually claims that we essentially perceive experiences as our own. According to the theory, this so called “mineness” character is not only vital to conscious experience, it also establishes the minimal self. Further, this view holds that this minimal, pre-reflective self constitutes the invariant mode in which experiences are given to us. In this talk, I will analyze this latter claim and show that our sense of pre-reflective self is in part dynamical.
2017
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Rob Clowes presents the Mind & Cognition RIP Seminar on, Material Agency and Strong Agency ,
Wed 3rd October, 16:00 - 17:00 (ID Building Room 1.05, Piso 1: MAP to institute)
Despite agency being central to some embodied approaches to human cognition (i.e. versions of enactivism), human agency has proved difficult to fully grasp for cognitive science, 4E or otherwise. Work like Bratman´s ideas on strong agency emphasizes the planfulness, reflectivity and self-regulating character of human agency (Bratman, 2000). Bratman´s captures something important but says little about how and why such capacities arise or why only humans are strong agents. Lambros Malafouris´ Material Engagement Theory (Malafouris, 2013) provides a useful perspective for rethinking strong agency through the prism of human cognitive dependence on material culture. In this talk, I will explore how Bratman properties arise through human creation and interaction with material culture. I will then turn this analysis around to look at the Internet which is a new form of material culture upon which we have become deeply reliant. This talk will explore how a material agency approach may help us grasp this technology and some of the problem generated when considering the “material stuff” of the Internet.
Wed 3rd October, 16:00 - 17:00 (ID Building Room 1.05, Piso 1: MAP to institute)
Despite agency being central to some embodied approaches to human cognition (i.e. versions of enactivism), human agency has proved difficult to fully grasp for cognitive science, 4E or otherwise. Work like Bratman´s ideas on strong agency emphasizes the planfulness, reflectivity and self-regulating character of human agency (Bratman, 2000). Bratman´s captures something important but says little about how and why such capacities arise or why only humans are strong agents. Lambros Malafouris´ Material Engagement Theory (Malafouris, 2013) provides a useful perspective for rethinking strong agency through the prism of human cognitive dependence on material culture. In this talk, I will explore how Bratman properties arise through human creation and interaction with material culture. I will then turn this analysis around to look at the Internet which is a new form of material culture upon which we have become deeply reliant. This talk will explore how a material agency approach may help us grasp this technology and some of the problem generated when considering the “material stuff” of the Internet.
Anna Ciaunica presentsThe Touched Self: Proximal Intersubjectivity and the Self – A Developmental Perspective
Tuesday 19th September, 2017, 16:30 - 18:00
(Room 0.07)
Abstract:
Is minimal selfhood a built-in feature of our experiential life (Gallagher 2005; Zahavi 2005, 2014; Legrand 2006) or a later socio-culturally determined acquisition, emerging in the process of social exchanges and mutual interactions (Fonagy et al. 2004; Prinz 2012; Schmid 2014)? This paper, building mainly on empirical research on affective touch and interoception, argues in favor of a reconceptualization of minimal selfhood that surpasses such debates, and their tacitly “detached,” visuo-spatial models of selfhood and otherness. Instead, the relational origins of the self are traced in terms of fundamental principles and regularities of the human embodied condition, such as the amodal properties that govern the organization of sensorimotor signals into distinct perceptual experiences. Interactive experiences with effects both “within” and “on” the physical boundaries of the body (e.g., skin-to-skin touch) are necessary for such organization in early infancy when the motor system is not as yet developed. Therefore, an experiencing subject is not primarily understood as facing another subject “there.” Instead, the minimal self is by necessity co-constituted by other bodies in physical contact and proximal interaction (Ciaunica & Fotopoulou 2016; Ciaunica 2017; Fotopoulou and Tsakiris 2017).
Tuesday 19th September, 2017, 16:30 - 18:00
(Room 0.07)
Abstract:
Is minimal selfhood a built-in feature of our experiential life (Gallagher 2005; Zahavi 2005, 2014; Legrand 2006) or a later socio-culturally determined acquisition, emerging in the process of social exchanges and mutual interactions (Fonagy et al. 2004; Prinz 2012; Schmid 2014)? This paper, building mainly on empirical research on affective touch and interoception, argues in favor of a reconceptualization of minimal selfhood that surpasses such debates, and their tacitly “detached,” visuo-spatial models of selfhood and otherness. Instead, the relational origins of the self are traced in terms of fundamental principles and regularities of the human embodied condition, such as the amodal properties that govern the organization of sensorimotor signals into distinct perceptual experiences. Interactive experiences with effects both “within” and “on” the physical boundaries of the body (e.g., skin-to-skin touch) are necessary for such organization in early infancy when the motor system is not as yet developed. Therefore, an experiencing subject is not primarily understood as facing another subject “there.” Instead, the minimal self is by necessity co-constituted by other bodies in physical contact and proximal interaction (Ciaunica & Fotopoulou 2016; Ciaunica 2017; Fotopoulou and Tsakiris 2017).
Expecting the World: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind
Andy Clark, University of Edinburgh,
Fri 13th October, 16:00 - 15:30 (Room TBA)
Perception, according to an emerging vision in computational and cognitive neuroscience, depends heavily on prediction. Rich, world-revealing perception of the kind we humans enjoy occurs, these stories suggest, when cascading neural activity matches the incoming sensory signal with a multi-level stream of
apt ‘top-down’ predictions. That same story suggests that perception, understanding, and imagination - which we might intuitively consider to be three distinct chunks of our mental machinery - are inextricably tied together, emerging as simultaneous results of that single underlying strategy. Action, surprisingly, may be treated using much of the same apparatus. In the talk, I first introduce this general explanatory schema, and then discuss these (and other) implications. I end by asking what all this suggests concerning the fundamental nature of our perceptual contact with the world.
Andy Clark, University of Edinburgh,
Fri 13th October, 16:00 - 15:30 (Room TBA)
Perception, according to an emerging vision in computational and cognitive neuroscience, depends heavily on prediction. Rich, world-revealing perception of the kind we humans enjoy occurs, these stories suggest, when cascading neural activity matches the incoming sensory signal with a multi-level stream of
apt ‘top-down’ predictions. That same story suggests that perception, understanding, and imagination - which we might intuitively consider to be three distinct chunks of our mental machinery - are inextricably tied together, emerging as simultaneous results of that single underlying strategy. Action, surprisingly, may be treated using much of the same apparatus. In the talk, I first introduce this general explanatory schema, and then discuss these (and other) implications. I end by asking what all this suggests concerning the fundamental nature of our perceptual contact with the world.
XXX/05/2017
Progressive Uploading: Super-selves and alternative routes to personal immortality?
Robert Clowes
Room ID 0.07, 16:00 - 17:00. ID Building
There are problems with the idea of uploading, not least that the model of human beings (or selves, or persons) as computer programmes is a deeply problematic one. Indeed, it may not be possible to upload human beings in anything like the standard sense (Corabi & Schneider, 2014).
And yet, some scrutiny of certain contemporary mass uses of technology indicates we may already be involved in a different (potentially non-destructive) form of uploading. This is the growing tendency for those in the technologically developed world to store ever more personal information and about their lives as digital memory traces or lifelogs. Moreover these traces are already used not just a passive record but to regulate their ongoing cognitive and emotional lives (Clowes, 2015).
Extending our minds (and sense of self) into the Internet does not leave us quite as we were (Clowes, 2012). Such technologies do not provide merely a neutral record of one’s activities but can be viewed themselves as cognitive enhancements (or diminishments) that already have important implications for questions of self and personal identity (Clowes, 2013). Even, such gradual or progressive uploading may have important cognitive consequences.
Some researchers are currently pushing this tendency to its limits. Gordon Bell and his associates for example have attempted to use technologies such as the SenseCam to make a ‘total’ record of the everyday life of individuals (Bell & Gemmell, 2009). Bell has suggested that this information might be used by future artificial intelligence technology to create a version of himself that might communicate with his descendants. I will attempt to assess some of the implications for how we should assess the metaphysical status of such future ‘slow uploads’ particularly paying attention to how human beings already have deeply hybrid minds (Clark, 2003)
Bell, C., & Gemmell, J. (2009). Total recall: how the E-memory revolution will change everything: Dutton.
Clark, A. (2003). Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clowes, R. W. (2012). Hybrid Memory, Cognitive Technology and Self. In Y. Erdin & M. Bishop (Eds.), Proceedings of AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012.
Clowes, R. W. (2013). The cognitive integration of E-memory. Review of Philosophy and Psychology(4), 107-133.
Clowes, R. W. (2015). Thinking in the cloud: The Cognitive Incorporation of Cloud-Based Technology. Philosophy and Technology, 28, Issue 2,(2), 261-296.
Corabi, J., & Schneider, S. (2014). If You Upload, Will You Survive? Intelligence Unbound: Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, The, 131-145.
Progressive Uploading: Super-selves and alternative routes to personal immortality?
Robert Clowes
Room ID 0.07, 16:00 - 17:00. ID Building
There are problems with the idea of uploading, not least that the model of human beings (or selves, or persons) as computer programmes is a deeply problematic one. Indeed, it may not be possible to upload human beings in anything like the standard sense (Corabi & Schneider, 2014).
And yet, some scrutiny of certain contemporary mass uses of technology indicates we may already be involved in a different (potentially non-destructive) form of uploading. This is the growing tendency for those in the technologically developed world to store ever more personal information and about their lives as digital memory traces or lifelogs. Moreover these traces are already used not just a passive record but to regulate their ongoing cognitive and emotional lives (Clowes, 2015).
Extending our minds (and sense of self) into the Internet does not leave us quite as we were (Clowes, 2012). Such technologies do not provide merely a neutral record of one’s activities but can be viewed themselves as cognitive enhancements (or diminishments) that already have important implications for questions of self and personal identity (Clowes, 2013). Even, such gradual or progressive uploading may have important cognitive consequences.
Some researchers are currently pushing this tendency to its limits. Gordon Bell and his associates for example have attempted to use technologies such as the SenseCam to make a ‘total’ record of the everyday life of individuals (Bell & Gemmell, 2009). Bell has suggested that this information might be used by future artificial intelligence technology to create a version of himself that might communicate with his descendants. I will attempt to assess some of the implications for how we should assess the metaphysical status of such future ‘slow uploads’ particularly paying attention to how human beings already have deeply hybrid minds (Clark, 2003)
Bell, C., & Gemmell, J. (2009). Total recall: how the E-memory revolution will change everything: Dutton.
Clark, A. (2003). Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clowes, R. W. (2012). Hybrid Memory, Cognitive Technology and Self. In Y. Erdin & M. Bishop (Eds.), Proceedings of AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012.
Clowes, R. W. (2013). The cognitive integration of E-memory. Review of Philosophy and Psychology(4), 107-133.
Clowes, R. W. (2015). Thinking in the cloud: The Cognitive Incorporation of Cloud-Based Technology. Philosophy and Technology, 28, Issue 2,(2), 261-296.
Corabi, J., & Schneider, S. (2014). If You Upload, Will You Survive? Intelligence Unbound: Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, The, 131-145.
26/04/2017
What to do with Consciousness
Klaus Gaertner & João Cordovil
Room ID 0.07, 16:00 - 17:00. ID Building
In metaphysics it is often held that higher-level properties are grounded in properties of micro-physics. According to many Philosophers, however, phenomenal consciousness resists this grounding relation. Two of the most famous arguments in Philosophy of Mind – namely the zombie argument and the knowledge argument – are especially potent in rejecting the idea that phenomenal properties can be grounded in micro-physical properties. In this paper, we will reflect on this tension. Our aim is to show that there is something wrong with this picture. By introducing a case from particle physics, we will demonstrate that a) micro-physicalism is already in trouble within micro-physics itself; and b) assuming that a) is true, the zombie respectively knowledge argument, do not straight forwardly defeat all types of physicalism.
What to do with Consciousness
Klaus Gaertner & João Cordovil
Room ID 0.07, 16:00 - 17:00. ID Building
In metaphysics it is often held that higher-level properties are grounded in properties of micro-physics. According to many Philosophers, however, phenomenal consciousness resists this grounding relation. Two of the most famous arguments in Philosophy of Mind – namely the zombie argument and the knowledge argument – are especially potent in rejecting the idea that phenomenal properties can be grounded in micro-physical properties. In this paper, we will reflect on this tension. Our aim is to show that there is something wrong with this picture. By introducing a case from particle physics, we will demonstrate that a) micro-physicalism is already in trouble within micro-physics itself; and b) assuming that a) is true, the zombie respectively knowledge argument, do not straight forwardly defeat all types of physicalism.
2016
21/12/2016
On Delusions and Hallucinations
Jorge Gonçalves
Room ?, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Delusions are defined in Psychopathology as an alteration of thought and hallucinations, which are frequently associated with it, as an alteration of perception. In this talk I approach the questions of its nature and why are they consider to be a “pathological” mental state."
On Delusions and Hallucinations
Jorge Gonçalves
Room ?, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Delusions are defined in Psychopathology as an alteration of thought and hallucinations, which are frequently associated with it, as an alteration of perception. In this talk I approach the questions of its nature and why are they consider to be a “pathological” mental state."
XX/ 11 or 12/ 2016
What Can Schizophrenia Teach Us About Emotions?
Dina Mendonça
Room B2.90, 16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Schizophrenia changes emotional life (Sass 2004). People who encounter schizophrenics recognise that it is hard to have a complete emotional understanding and rapport with people who suffer from it (Sass 2007, 352). This presentation will look at the schizophrenic in all of us and take this awkwardness as insightful regarding emotional experience. After describing the way in which emotion in schizophrenics can appear contradictory (Sass 2007, 2004), I show how such similar contradiction can appear as the reasonable thing to do and argue that, at least in some moments, it may be useful to adopt the schizophrenic stance regarding emotions and that sometimes we do. Then, building upon Matthew Ratcliffe’s suggestion of thinking of schizophrenia in relational terms rather than simply as a disorder of the individual, I show that emotional experience requires an ongoing connection with others. Finally I argue that the previous descriptions highlights certain features of our emotional world that are often ignored or treated lightly by emotion theorists, namely that emotions also appear in layers and that each emotional experience requires time to unfold. I conclude the chapter by showing how emotion theory could gain a more complete understanding of emotions by incorporating the insights given by schizophrenic emotional experience. Ultimately, the hope is that if emotion theorists adopt these insights it will be much easier to understand emotional experience of schizophrenic patients and design ways to help them cope with their condition and the world around them.
What Can Schizophrenia Teach Us About Emotions?
Dina Mendonça
Room B2.90, 16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Schizophrenia changes emotional life (Sass 2004). People who encounter schizophrenics recognise that it is hard to have a complete emotional understanding and rapport with people who suffer from it (Sass 2007, 352). This presentation will look at the schizophrenic in all of us and take this awkwardness as insightful regarding emotional experience. After describing the way in which emotion in schizophrenics can appear contradictory (Sass 2007, 2004), I show how such similar contradiction can appear as the reasonable thing to do and argue that, at least in some moments, it may be useful to adopt the schizophrenic stance regarding emotions and that sometimes we do. Then, building upon Matthew Ratcliffe’s suggestion of thinking of schizophrenia in relational terms rather than simply as a disorder of the individual, I show that emotional experience requires an ongoing connection with others. Finally I argue that the previous descriptions highlights certain features of our emotional world that are often ignored or treated lightly by emotion theorists, namely that emotions also appear in layers and that each emotional experience requires time to unfold. I conclude the chapter by showing how emotion theory could gain a more complete understanding of emotions by incorporating the insights given by schizophrenic emotional experience. Ultimately, the hope is that if emotion theorists adopt these insights it will be much easier to understand emotional experience of schizophrenic patients and design ways to help them cope with their condition and the world around them.
XX/11/2016
The Ipseity Hypothesis of Schizophrenia, Predictive Processing and Linking the Prodromal and Psychotic Phases of the Disorder
Robert Clowes
Room ID 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
The Ipseity Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH) has been one of the most successful attempts to explain prodromal schizophrenia at a theoretical level (Parnas & Handest, 2003; Sass & Parnas, 2007). Relying heavily on the phenomenological investigation of the illness, researchers have produced the EASE scale which gives a nuanced and articulated sense of the phenomenology of schizophrenia before the illness progresses to its psychotic phase (Parnas et al., 2005). While this model has substantial power in predicting the eventual diagnosis of schizophrenia, it arguably does not explain how the phenomenology of prodromal schizophrenia links to the later development of the disorder, especially in terms of the positive symptoms of delusion and hallucination. This talk will explore a model of the “deep structure” of processing difficulties in schizophrenia in predictive processing (Clark, 2015) and its connections with the IDH, focusing on attempts at explanations of positive symptoms of schizophrenia (Fletcher & Frith, 2009) and of conscious presence (Seth, Suzuki, & Critchley, 2011) in terms of predictive processing. I argue this unification indicates we might finally be approaching a coherent model of what goes wrong in schizophrenia and why the illness progresses in the way it does.
Clark, A. (2015). Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind: Oxford University Press.
Fletcher, P. C., & Frith, C. D. (2009). Perceiving is believing: a Bayesian approach to explaining the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 48-58.
Parnas, J., & Handest, P. (2003). Phenomenology of anomalous self-experience in early schizophrenia. Comprehensive psychiatry, 44(2), 121-134.
Parnas, J., Møller, P., Kircher, T., Thalbitzer, J., Jansson, L., Handest, P., & Zahavi, D. (2005). EASE: examination of anomalous self-experience. Psychopathology, 38(5), 236-258.
Sass, L. A., & Parnas, J. (2007). Explaining schizophrenia: the relevance of phenomenology. Reconceiving schizophrenia, 63-95.
Seth, A. K., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2011). An Interoceptive Predictive Coding Model of Conscious Presence. Frontiers in Psychology, 2.
The Ipseity Hypothesis of Schizophrenia, Predictive Processing and Linking the Prodromal and Psychotic Phases of the Disorder
Robert Clowes
Room ID 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
The Ipseity Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH) has been one of the most successful attempts to explain prodromal schizophrenia at a theoretical level (Parnas & Handest, 2003; Sass & Parnas, 2007). Relying heavily on the phenomenological investigation of the illness, researchers have produced the EASE scale which gives a nuanced and articulated sense of the phenomenology of schizophrenia before the illness progresses to its psychotic phase (Parnas et al., 2005). While this model has substantial power in predicting the eventual diagnosis of schizophrenia, it arguably does not explain how the phenomenology of prodromal schizophrenia links to the later development of the disorder, especially in terms of the positive symptoms of delusion and hallucination. This talk will explore a model of the “deep structure” of processing difficulties in schizophrenia in predictive processing (Clark, 2015) and its connections with the IDH, focusing on attempts at explanations of positive symptoms of schizophrenia (Fletcher & Frith, 2009) and of conscious presence (Seth, Suzuki, & Critchley, 2011) in terms of predictive processing. I argue this unification indicates we might finally be approaching a coherent model of what goes wrong in schizophrenia and why the illness progresses in the way it does.
Clark, A. (2015). Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind: Oxford University Press.
Fletcher, P. C., & Frith, C. D. (2009). Perceiving is believing: a Bayesian approach to explaining the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 48-58.
Parnas, J., & Handest, P. (2003). Phenomenology of anomalous self-experience in early schizophrenia. Comprehensive psychiatry, 44(2), 121-134.
Parnas, J., Møller, P., Kircher, T., Thalbitzer, J., Jansson, L., Handest, P., & Zahavi, D. (2005). EASE: examination of anomalous self-experience. Psychopathology, 38(5), 236-258.
Sass, L. A., & Parnas, J. (2007). Explaining schizophrenia: the relevance of phenomenology. Reconceiving schizophrenia, 63-95.
Seth, A. K., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2011). An Interoceptive Predictive Coding Model of Conscious Presence. Frontiers in Psychology, 2.
02/11/2016
On Situated Knowledge
Nuno Venturinha
Room ID 0.06, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Since the time of Aristotle that man is characterized as a situated being. Every single moment in our lives is already given within the framework of a specific context in the midst of which we understand ourselves and what surrounds us. In the majority of the cases we do not notice that for we are overly absorbed in our everyday practices. It is only when we think about what makes so familiar even the most unfamiliar ambiance that this circumstance becomes manifest. This recognition, far from leaving us unscathed, poses a series of epistemological problems. In effect, are our knowledge attributions dependent on things existing in the world or are they relative to contexts by means of which the world is construed? If the latter is the case, can we actually talk about the world or should we talk instead about worlds being construed by different individual and social perspectives? But if it is so, where is to be found a solid ground for what we call knowledge? Epistemic contextualism has received much attention in contemporary epistemology promising to resolve a number of issues that classic epistemological approaches were unable to deal with. In particular, a contextualist view opens the way to an understanding of those cognitive processes that require situational information to be fully grasped. However, contextualism poses serious difficulties in regard to epistemic invariance, requiring a sophisticated account of what may and may not vary, both from a personal and from an interpersonal point of view. In this talk I shall focus on some aspects that help explain how context-dependence works.
On Situated Knowledge
Nuno Venturinha
Room ID 0.06, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Since the time of Aristotle that man is characterized as a situated being. Every single moment in our lives is already given within the framework of a specific context in the midst of which we understand ourselves and what surrounds us. In the majority of the cases we do not notice that for we are overly absorbed in our everyday practices. It is only when we think about what makes so familiar even the most unfamiliar ambiance that this circumstance becomes manifest. This recognition, far from leaving us unscathed, poses a series of epistemological problems. In effect, are our knowledge attributions dependent on things existing in the world or are they relative to contexts by means of which the world is construed? If the latter is the case, can we actually talk about the world or should we talk instead about worlds being construed by different individual and social perspectives? But if it is so, where is to be found a solid ground for what we call knowledge? Epistemic contextualism has received much attention in contemporary epistemology promising to resolve a number of issues that classic epistemological approaches were unable to deal with. In particular, a contextualist view opens the way to an understanding of those cognitive processes that require situational information to be fully grasped. However, contextualism poses serious difficulties in regard to epistemic invariance, requiring a sophisticated account of what may and may not vary, both from a personal and from an interpersonal point of view. In this talk I shall focus on some aspects that help explain how context-dependence works.
07/10/2016
Mandevillian Intelligence: From Individual Vice to Collective Virtue
Paul Smart
Room ID 1.05, Friday, 12:00-13:00. ID Building
Mandevillian intelligence is a specific form of collective intelligence in which individual cognitive vices (i.e., shortcomings, limitations, constraints and biases) are seen to play a positive functional role in yielding collective forms of cognitive success. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of mandevillian intelligence and review a number of strands of empirical research that help to shed light on the phenomenon. I will also attempt to highlight the value of the concept of mandevillian intelligence from a philosophical, scientific and engineering perspective. Inasmuch as we accept the notion of mandevillian intelligence, then it seems that the cognitive and epistemic value of a specific social or technological intervention will vary according to whether our attention is focused at the individual or collective level of analysis. This has a number of important implications for how we think about the design and evaluation of collaborative technologies. For example, the notion of mandevillian intelligence forces us to take seriously the idea that the exploitation (or even the accentuation) of individual cognitive shortcomings could, in some situations, provide a productive route to collective forms of cognitive and epistemic success.
Mandevillian Intelligence: From Individual Vice to Collective Virtue
Paul Smart
Room ID 1.05, Friday, 12:00-13:00. ID Building
Mandevillian intelligence is a specific form of collective intelligence in which individual cognitive vices (i.e., shortcomings, limitations, constraints and biases) are seen to play a positive functional role in yielding collective forms of cognitive success. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of mandevillian intelligence and review a number of strands of empirical research that help to shed light on the phenomenon. I will also attempt to highlight the value of the concept of mandevillian intelligence from a philosophical, scientific and engineering perspective. Inasmuch as we accept the notion of mandevillian intelligence, then it seems that the cognitive and epistemic value of a specific social or technological intervention will vary according to whether our attention is focused at the individual or collective level of analysis. This has a number of important implications for how we think about the design and evaluation of collaborative technologies. For example, the notion of mandevillian intelligence forces us to take seriously the idea that the exploitation (or even the accentuation) of individual cognitive shortcomings could, in some situations, provide a productive route to collective forms of cognitive and epistemic success.
06/06/2016
Saliva functional protein networks as a lived body experience
Inês Hipólito & Jorge Emanuel Martins
Room ID 1.05, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
“…there is no whole system without an interconnection of its parts and
there is no whole system without an environment.”
−Francisco Varela (1977)
The bodily self is an enactive phenomenon that is about the organ and the being, the individual and the environment, the species and life. Scientific progress has helped to clarify how the subjective qualities relate to the intentionality of mental states and physiological properties; however, these issues are far from being resolved. One of the questions that still remains is how is it possible to investigate consciousness without fully assuming physicalism? The following hypothesis are taken into account: (1) neurophenomenological approach to the hard problem should not reduce the rich subjective experience of consciousness in brain neural correlates, but rather, take as a major concern, the lived body experience; (2) the lowest level of all, the basic process of metabolism, protein expression and movement, contains already the germ of the highest level of all: reflective consciousness as investigated in phenomenology. Therefore, it is here postulated an exploration of (1) a phenomenological account of the most basic level of consciousness (autopoiesis) and (2) a significant explanation regarding the minimal biological requirements for an intransitive self-consciousness and subjectivity? It is known that brain activity plays a crucial role in life-regulation processes of the whole organism. However, the minimal biological substrate of phenomenal subjectivity seems to be much more than particular brain regions or areas, or even the brain alone. Some crucial subset of autonomous and interactive brain-body systems, possibly the genome-transcriptome- proteome interface, suggested by a phenome/proteome design approach, the key-role played by the whole organism, and, thus, a non- reductionist perspective. An account is given of how the subjectively lived body and the living body of the organism are related via the dynamic sensorimotor activity, through protein expression, and it is shown how this account would help to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and the brain. We would conclude that the living organism is not so much a “thing”, but rather a flow with the particular property of continuously and indefinitely engendering itself biomolecularly.
Saliva functional protein networks as a lived body experience
Inês Hipólito & Jorge Emanuel Martins
Room ID 1.05, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
“…there is no whole system without an interconnection of its parts and
there is no whole system without an environment.”
−Francisco Varela (1977)
The bodily self is an enactive phenomenon that is about the organ and the being, the individual and the environment, the species and life. Scientific progress has helped to clarify how the subjective qualities relate to the intentionality of mental states and physiological properties; however, these issues are far from being resolved. One of the questions that still remains is how is it possible to investigate consciousness without fully assuming physicalism? The following hypothesis are taken into account: (1) neurophenomenological approach to the hard problem should not reduce the rich subjective experience of consciousness in brain neural correlates, but rather, take as a major concern, the lived body experience; (2) the lowest level of all, the basic process of metabolism, protein expression and movement, contains already the germ of the highest level of all: reflective consciousness as investigated in phenomenology. Therefore, it is here postulated an exploration of (1) a phenomenological account of the most basic level of consciousness (autopoiesis) and (2) a significant explanation regarding the minimal biological requirements for an intransitive self-consciousness and subjectivity? It is known that brain activity plays a crucial role in life-regulation processes of the whole organism. However, the minimal biological substrate of phenomenal subjectivity seems to be much more than particular brain regions or areas, or even the brain alone. Some crucial subset of autonomous and interactive brain-body systems, possibly the genome-transcriptome- proteome interface, suggested by a phenome/proteome design approach, the key-role played by the whole organism, and, thus, a non- reductionist perspective. An account is given of how the subjectively lived body and the living body of the organism are related via the dynamic sensorimotor activity, through protein expression, and it is shown how this account would help to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and the brain. We would conclude that the living organism is not so much a “thing”, but rather a flow with the particular property of continuously and indefinitely engendering itself biomolecularly.
30/05/2016
Agent-causation: Fitting agents and freedom into a natural world
Joana Rigato
Room 1.05, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
To act is to be the author of a bodily movement. But if a movement is caused by the agent’s mental states or their neural correlates in the same way as an uncontrollable behavior is brought about in cases of chemical imbalances or neural diseases (e.g. addiction, Tourette’s syndrome or utilization behavior), then it should not be considered an action at all. Therefore, agency as such requires agents to be more than the mereological sum of their mental states and events and to be able to cause their actions themselves, rather than to be the mere locus where the causal chain from reasons to intentions and to actions takes place. Such a view is called agent-causalism, a position that has been unjustly discredited as being anti-scientific. I will show that agent-causalism can be grounded in an emergentist view about the conscious self, which does not imply the break of natural supervenience and requires only two conditions of possibility, both of which I contend are scientifically plausible: that the emergence base works indeterministically and that the physical world is not causally closed.
Agent-causation: Fitting agents and freedom into a natural world
Joana Rigato
Room 1.05, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
To act is to be the author of a bodily movement. But if a movement is caused by the agent’s mental states or their neural correlates in the same way as an uncontrollable behavior is brought about in cases of chemical imbalances or neural diseases (e.g. addiction, Tourette’s syndrome or utilization behavior), then it should not be considered an action at all. Therefore, agency as such requires agents to be more than the mereological sum of their mental states and events and to be able to cause their actions themselves, rather than to be the mere locus where the causal chain from reasons to intentions and to actions takes place. Such a view is called agent-causalism, a position that has been unjustly discredited as being anti-scientific. I will show that agent-causalism can be grounded in an emergentist view about the conscious self, which does not imply the break of natural supervenience and requires only two conditions of possibility, both of which I contend are scientifically plausible: that the emergence base works indeterministically and that the physical world is not causally closed.
23/05/2016
Material Engagement and Immaterial Culture: The Internet as a cognitive artefact
Robert Clowes
Room Tower A, 311, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
I will present work toward an invited talk I will be giving at Keble College, Oxford University in June for Creativity Cluster Workshop around the theme of Creative Evolution: Mind, biosocial plasticity and material engagement.
I am interested in working through the idea that artefacts allow cognitive innovation. In part, this is to try to develop resources for conceptualizing how the internet might allow creative possibilities for human cognition, rather than, necessarily seeing simply “impacting” upon us (Carr, 2008, 2010). (The impact metaphor is frequently used in current discussions, and suggests that human beings are the recipients and technology the agent).
This talk takes the theory of material engagement (Malafouris, 2004) which was in part developed to interpret the archaeological record of bronze age Greece and explain the role of material culture in developing new forms of human thought. I will present some aspects of Malafouris´ analysis of Mycenaean material culture with an aim to exploring an “archaeology of the present´ with respect to current practices of usage around internet and related technologies. Especially, the talk will focus on the relationship between technology and agency and the specificity of internet technology in interpreting this relationship.
Material Engagement and Immaterial Culture: The Internet as a cognitive artefact
Robert Clowes
Room Tower A, 311, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
I will present work toward an invited talk I will be giving at Keble College, Oxford University in June for Creativity Cluster Workshop around the theme of Creative Evolution: Mind, biosocial plasticity and material engagement.
I am interested in working through the idea that artefacts allow cognitive innovation. In part, this is to try to develop resources for conceptualizing how the internet might allow creative possibilities for human cognition, rather than, necessarily seeing simply “impacting” upon us (Carr, 2008, 2010). (The impact metaphor is frequently used in current discussions, and suggests that human beings are the recipients and technology the agent).
This talk takes the theory of material engagement (Malafouris, 2004) which was in part developed to interpret the archaeological record of bronze age Greece and explain the role of material culture in developing new forms of human thought. I will present some aspects of Malafouris´ analysis of Mycenaean material culture with an aim to exploring an “archaeology of the present´ with respect to current practices of usage around internet and related technologies. Especially, the talk will focus on the relationship between technology and agency and the specificity of internet technology in interpreting this relationship.
04/04/2016
Practical Reasons and the Extended Mind Hypothesis
Jamie Buckland
Room 2.18, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
My talk concerns how the extended mind hypothesis can be utilised to split the difference between psychologistic and anti-psychologistic approaches to epistemic reasons for belief. The essential idea being that one’s reasons for belief are constituted by one’s psychological states, some of which literally contain non-psychological items. From these observations I then consider whether or not the same rationale can be applied to the case of one’s practical reasons for action. If successful, the result is a unified conception of practical reasoning uniting the explanatory and normative senses of the word “reason”, with strong affinities to Bernard Williams’s infamous internal reasons constraint.
Practical Reasons and the Extended Mind Hypothesis
Jamie Buckland
Room 2.18, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
My talk concerns how the extended mind hypothesis can be utilised to split the difference between psychologistic and anti-psychologistic approaches to epistemic reasons for belief. The essential idea being that one’s reasons for belief are constituted by one’s psychological states, some of which literally contain non-psychological items. From these observations I then consider whether or not the same rationale can be applied to the case of one’s practical reasons for action. If successful, the result is a unified conception of practical reasoning uniting the explanatory and normative senses of the word “reason”, with strong affinities to Bernard Williams’s infamous internal reasons constraint.
29/03/2016
Creativity and the Art of Memory
Luca Baptista
Room 2.17, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
It might seem that memorization and creativity are at opposite ends, but actually the traditional art of memory emphasized the creation of striking images to be put in a fixed and ordered structure of places (loci) to facilitate recall. Those images should not be static, but rather imagines agentes - more like scenes taking place in each of the loci. The unusual, disgusting, beautiful, or amusing character of the scenes would make them stand out not only cognitively, but also emotionally and aesthetically.
The point of the art of memory was not simply recall, but the creation of retrieval systems for ideas, concepts, etc. These retrieval systems could, in turn, be used to aid the composition of new material (be it arguments or even whole philosophical treatises, as Frances Yates and Mary Carruthers argue was the case with Thomas Aquinas). So we have a link between mnemonics, imagination and creativity, operating in two steps. First, creative imagination was to be disciplined in the service of memorization - as 'memory master' Rob Cooke said recently in a conference promoted by Wired magazine, the art of memory is a 'technology of imagination'. Second, new material could be created resorting to the retrieved imagines agentes. Here we have memorization in the service of creativity (this is not a circle; it's more like a positive feedback loop).
But most importantly, it can be more than that. The technology of imagination would involve what Margaret Boden calls 'p-creativity' (psychological) but in certain cases it could help leading to 'h-creativity' (historical), as in the example of Aquinas mentioned above. In fact, this might also be at work in art. In The Art of Memory, Frances Yates speculates that Giotto's paintings of the virtues and vices might have been inspired by stock images/scenes recommended in mnemonic treatises. And in The Gallery of Memory, Lina Bolzoni discusses at length the relationships between medieval and Renaissance iconography and mnemonics. My project is inspired by a quote from Yates: 'The art of memory was a creator of imagery which must surely have flowed out into creative works of art and literature'.
My talk concerns how the extended mind hypothesis can be utilised to split the difference between psychologistic and anti-psychologistic approaches to epistemic reasons for belief. The essential idea being that one’s reasons for belief are constituted by one’s psychological states, some of which literally contain non-psychological items. From these observations I then consider whether or not the same rationale can be applied to the case of one’s practical reasons for action. If successful, the result is a unified conception of practical reasoning uniting the explanatory and normative senses of the word “reason”, with strong affinities to Bernard Williams’s infamous internal reasons constraint.
Creativity and the Art of Memory
Luca Baptista
Room 2.17, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
It might seem that memorization and creativity are at opposite ends, but actually the traditional art of memory emphasized the creation of striking images to be put in a fixed and ordered structure of places (loci) to facilitate recall. Those images should not be static, but rather imagines agentes - more like scenes taking place in each of the loci. The unusual, disgusting, beautiful, or amusing character of the scenes would make them stand out not only cognitively, but also emotionally and aesthetically.
The point of the art of memory was not simply recall, but the creation of retrieval systems for ideas, concepts, etc. These retrieval systems could, in turn, be used to aid the composition of new material (be it arguments or even whole philosophical treatises, as Frances Yates and Mary Carruthers argue was the case with Thomas Aquinas). So we have a link between mnemonics, imagination and creativity, operating in two steps. First, creative imagination was to be disciplined in the service of memorization - as 'memory master' Rob Cooke said recently in a conference promoted by Wired magazine, the art of memory is a 'technology of imagination'. Second, new material could be created resorting to the retrieved imagines agentes. Here we have memorization in the service of creativity (this is not a circle; it's more like a positive feedback loop).
But most importantly, it can be more than that. The technology of imagination would involve what Margaret Boden calls 'p-creativity' (psychological) but in certain cases it could help leading to 'h-creativity' (historical), as in the example of Aquinas mentioned above. In fact, this might also be at work in art. In The Art of Memory, Frances Yates speculates that Giotto's paintings of the virtues and vices might have been inspired by stock images/scenes recommended in mnemonic treatises. And in The Gallery of Memory, Lina Bolzoni discusses at length the relationships between medieval and Renaissance iconography and mnemonics. My project is inspired by a quote from Yates: 'The art of memory was a creator of imagery which must surely have flowed out into creative works of art and literature'.
My talk concerns how the extended mind hypothesis can be utilised to split the difference between psychologistic and anti-psychologistic approaches to epistemic reasons for belief. The essential idea being that one’s reasons for belief are constituted by one’s psychological states, some of which literally contain non-psychological items. From these observations I then consider whether or not the same rationale can be applied to the case of one’s practical reasons for action. If successful, the result is a unified conception of practical reasoning uniting the explanatory and normative senses of the word “reason”, with strong affinities to Bernard Williams’s infamous internal reasons constraint.
14/03/2016
Insights from Emotional Depth
Dina Mendonça
Room 2.17, Monday, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Though we may easily state that what makes a difference between deep versus shallow emotions is the way certain emotions are connected to crucial and deep structures of people’s life and that they drastically format the meaning of lives as opposed to the shallow ones. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of what deep emotions mean beyond this certainty of their crucial importance. It begins by putting forward what has been said about emotions depth, pointing out the criteria for depth pointed out by previous authors (Dewey 1887, Cataldi 1993, Pugmire 2005). Given the crucial connection of emotional depth to self-identity the paper puts forward some of the insightful gain of holding a situated approach to emotions by identifying some of the various ways in which emotional depth is present in a situation. Then the paper examines the way depth can be better understood within a narrative because it provides a structure to better describe how persons distinguish deep and shallow in various situations both in the events as in the selves that are part of them in light of how deep interpretation works (Danto 1981).Finally, the paper points out how emotional depth provides a further understanding of emotional norms and insights into shared emotions.
Insights from Emotional Depth
Dina Mendonça
Room 2.17, Monday, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
Though we may easily state that what makes a difference between deep versus shallow emotions is the way certain emotions are connected to crucial and deep structures of people’s life and that they drastically format the meaning of lives as opposed to the shallow ones. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of what deep emotions mean beyond this certainty of their crucial importance. It begins by putting forward what has been said about emotions depth, pointing out the criteria for depth pointed out by previous authors (Dewey 1887, Cataldi 1993, Pugmire 2005). Given the crucial connection of emotional depth to self-identity the paper puts forward some of the insightful gain of holding a situated approach to emotions by identifying some of the various ways in which emotional depth is present in a situation. Then the paper examines the way depth can be better understood within a narrative because it provides a structure to better describe how persons distinguish deep and shallow in various situations both in the events as in the selves that are part of them in light of how deep interpretation works (Danto 1981).Finally, the paper points out how emotional depth provides a further understanding of emotional norms and insights into shared emotions.
22/02/2016
Pre-reflective self-consciousness and the phenomenology of agency,
Mariaflavia Cascelli (Visiting from Università degli Studi Roma Tre (Rome, Italy)
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
The contemporary debate on self-consciousness ranges from epistemological issues (i.e. the problem of self-knowledge), to metaphysical issues (i.e. what is a self), to moral issues (i.e. the problem of agency and of the autonomy of the will). In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the possibility that a minimal, pre-reflective form of self-consciousness precedes the introspective self-consciousness. Several attempts to argue that this “thin” notion of self-consciousness is a necessary prerequisite of consciousness have been provided. After briefly considering the semantic and epistemological issue concerning the first-person pronoun, this talk refers to the literature that investigates the exceptions to the immunity of error through misidentification principle from the point of view of the phenomenology of agency. The connection between the epistemological and the phenomenological issue has the purpose of questioning the idea that self-consciousness is an essential component of every conscious experience, even and mostly when it is amended as a minimal form of self-consciousness. The phenomenology of self-attribution of agency seems to suggest that self-consciousness corresponds to an extended rather than a minimal self, namely to a reflective rather than a pre-reflective self-consciousness.
Pre-reflective self-consciousness and the phenomenology of agency,
Mariaflavia Cascelli (Visiting from Università degli Studi Roma Tre (Rome, Italy)
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
The contemporary debate on self-consciousness ranges from epistemological issues (i.e. the problem of self-knowledge), to metaphysical issues (i.e. what is a self), to moral issues (i.e. the problem of agency and of the autonomy of the will). In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the possibility that a minimal, pre-reflective form of self-consciousness precedes the introspective self-consciousness. Several attempts to argue that this “thin” notion of self-consciousness is a necessary prerequisite of consciousness have been provided. After briefly considering the semantic and epistemological issue concerning the first-person pronoun, this talk refers to the literature that investigates the exceptions to the immunity of error through misidentification principle from the point of view of the phenomenology of agency. The connection between the epistemological and the phenomenological issue has the purpose of questioning the idea that self-consciousness is an essential component of every conscious experience, even and mostly when it is amended as a minimal form of self-consciousness. The phenomenology of self-attribution of agency seems to suggest that self-consciousness corresponds to an extended rather than a minimal self, namely to a reflective rather than a pre-reflective self-consciousness.
15/02/2016
Perception of Time: A discussion of postdictive phenomena
Teresa Pedro
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
In recent years, direct realism about time perception has become popular among philosophers. It is assumed that perception of temporal properties and, more specifically, of temporal order, is best described as the instance wherein experiential properties mirror the properties of the objects of perceptual experience. The most important objections to mirroring concerning temporal order come from philosophers who are concerned with the way the brain represents time. (Dennett 1991, Grush 2005, 2007, 2009). Both Dennett and Grush claim that the brain processes temporal information in a non-passive manner. They support their claim by referring to the “postdictive phenomena”, in which a stimulus presented later affects the perception of an initial stimulus presented earlier. The mirroring theorist, though, does not seem to be moved by such evidence (Phillips 2014). In my talk, I argue that the mirroring theorist fails to accommodate the postdictive phenomena in his theory.
D. C. Dennett (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston MA: Little Brown & Co.
R. Grush (2005). Brain Time and Phenomenological Time. In Cognition and the Brain. The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement, ed. A. Brook and K. Akins, 160-207. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
--- (2007). “Time and Experience. In Philosophie der Zeit, ed. T. Müller, 27-44. Frankfurt: Klosterman.
--- (2009). Some Recent Directions in the Philosophy and Psychology of the Temporal content of Perceptual Experience. In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, ed. J. Symons and P. Calvo, 592-606. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
I. B. Phillips (2014). The Temporal Structure of Experience. In Subjective Time: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Temporality, ed. D. Lloyd and V. Arstila, 139-158.Cambridge/MA: MIT Press.
Perception of Time: A discussion of postdictive phenomena
Teresa Pedro
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
In recent years, direct realism about time perception has become popular among philosophers. It is assumed that perception of temporal properties and, more specifically, of temporal order, is best described as the instance wherein experiential properties mirror the properties of the objects of perceptual experience. The most important objections to mirroring concerning temporal order come from philosophers who are concerned with the way the brain represents time. (Dennett 1991, Grush 2005, 2007, 2009). Both Dennett and Grush claim that the brain processes temporal information in a non-passive manner. They support their claim by referring to the “postdictive phenomena”, in which a stimulus presented later affects the perception of an initial stimulus presented earlier. The mirroring theorist, though, does not seem to be moved by such evidence (Phillips 2014). In my talk, I argue that the mirroring theorist fails to accommodate the postdictive phenomena in his theory.
D. C. Dennett (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston MA: Little Brown & Co.
R. Grush (2005). Brain Time and Phenomenological Time. In Cognition and the Brain. The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement, ed. A. Brook and K. Akins, 160-207. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
--- (2007). “Time and Experience. In Philosophie der Zeit, ed. T. Müller, 27-44. Frankfurt: Klosterman.
--- (2009). Some Recent Directions in the Philosophy and Psychology of the Temporal content of Perceptual Experience. In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, ed. J. Symons and P. Calvo, 592-606. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
I. B. Phillips (2014). The Temporal Structure of Experience. In Subjective Time: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Temporality, ed. D. Lloyd and V. Arstila, 139-158.Cambridge/MA: MIT Press.
25/01/2016
The Philosophy of Extended Memory
Robert Clowes
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
This talk will focus on some ideas developed while writing a chapter on extended memory for the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. It arises from discussion of extended mind. In their original article (Clark & Chalmers, 1998) claim that an artefact or person being beyond the barrier of the skin poses to problem for inclusion as part of an agent’s extended mind. One of the most important test cases has been memory.
In this talk I will explore Michaelian’s (2012) contention that the original conditions set out for the extended mind are not met by biological memory let alone extended memory cases. In particular, we do not always automatically endorse the deliverances of biological memory, but consider whether our recollections are accurate. To try to elucidate this case further I will consider the nature of epistemic feelings (Arango-Muñoz, 2012) and how these may play a role in meta-memory. I will then consider what implications these ideas have in two types of concrete cases:
1. The cases of transactive memory (Wegner, 1987)and collaborative recall (Sutton, Harris, Keil, & Barnier, 2010), especially amongst older couples.
2. The case of electronic memory when used through mobile devices (Clowes, 2013).
By considering the differences and similarities in these cases I will try to show that both putative examples of extended memory should be seen as cases of extended cognitive activity even though they do not meet the original criteria set out by Clark & Chalmers.
Arango-Muñoz, S. (2012). The nature of epistemic feelings. Philosophical Psychology(ahead-of-print), 1-19.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The Extended Mind. Analysis, 58, 10-23. Retrieved fromhttp://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/extended.html
Clowes, R. W. (2013). The cognitive integration of E-memory. Review of Philosophy and Psychology(4), 107-133.
Michaelian, K. (2012). Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1154-1165.
Sutton, J., Harris, C. B., Keil, P. G., & Barnier, A. J. (2010). The psychology of memory, extended cognition, and socially distributed remembering. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 521-560.
Wegner, D. M. (1987). Transactive memory: A contemporary analysis of the group mind. In B. Mullen & G. R. Goethals (Eds.), Theories of group behavior (pp. 185-208). New York: Springer-Verlag.
The Philosophy of Extended Memory
Robert Clowes
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
This talk will focus on some ideas developed while writing a chapter on extended memory for the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. It arises from discussion of extended mind. In their original article (Clark & Chalmers, 1998) claim that an artefact or person being beyond the barrier of the skin poses to problem for inclusion as part of an agent’s extended mind. One of the most important test cases has been memory.
In this talk I will explore Michaelian’s (2012) contention that the original conditions set out for the extended mind are not met by biological memory let alone extended memory cases. In particular, we do not always automatically endorse the deliverances of biological memory, but consider whether our recollections are accurate. To try to elucidate this case further I will consider the nature of epistemic feelings (Arango-Muñoz, 2012) and how these may play a role in meta-memory. I will then consider what implications these ideas have in two types of concrete cases:
1. The cases of transactive memory (Wegner, 1987)and collaborative recall (Sutton, Harris, Keil, & Barnier, 2010), especially amongst older couples.
2. The case of electronic memory when used through mobile devices (Clowes, 2013).
By considering the differences and similarities in these cases I will try to show that both putative examples of extended memory should be seen as cases of extended cognitive activity even though they do not meet the original criteria set out by Clark & Chalmers.
Arango-Muñoz, S. (2012). The nature of epistemic feelings. Philosophical Psychology(ahead-of-print), 1-19.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The Extended Mind. Analysis, 58, 10-23. Retrieved fromhttp://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/extended.html
Clowes, R. W. (2013). The cognitive integration of E-memory. Review of Philosophy and Psychology(4), 107-133.
Michaelian, K. (2012). Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1154-1165.
Sutton, J., Harris, C. B., Keil, P. G., & Barnier, A. J. (2010). The psychology of memory, extended cognition, and socially distributed remembering. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 521-560.
Wegner, D. M. (1987). Transactive memory: A contemporary analysis of the group mind. In B. Mullen & G. R. Goethals (Eds.), Theories of group behavior (pp. 185-208). New York: Springer-Verlag.
11/01/2016
Empathy and altered states of consciousness
Jorge Gonçalves
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
We usually consider empathy not just as the ability to understand other people’s mental states but also to experience something of them (Mathew Ratcliffe). To a major or lesser degree, we all have that ability. There are, though, altered psychiatric states on which that ability is compromised, the subject feeling as though he is disconnected from the shared world of others. Can a normal subject empathize with these mental states of psychiatric patients? In order to approach this question I will first go through a brief revision of the type of theories existing on the knowledge of others. Then, I will approach the forms of empathy that Ratcliffe proposes in order to understand mental disturbances such as depression and schizophrenia. Following the line of phenomenology (Gallagher, Zahavi and others), he considers that empathy is not always a first person simulation of the other’s mental states, as it is held by the theorists of the so-called Simulation Theory. According to his analysis, there are three forms of empathy centered upon the second person, being that two of them do not involve simulation. One of these forms is processed through the way of narratives, a theory which has been developed by Gallagher and Hutto for empathy in general, not just empathy to the mental states of psychiatric subjects. This way, Ratcliffe intends to acknowledge the necessary opening to both help and understand psychiatric patients.
Empathy and altered states of consciousness
Jorge Gonçalves
Room 3.16, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
We usually consider empathy not just as the ability to understand other people’s mental states but also to experience something of them (Mathew Ratcliffe). To a major or lesser degree, we all have that ability. There are, though, altered psychiatric states on which that ability is compromised, the subject feeling as though he is disconnected from the shared world of others. Can a normal subject empathize with these mental states of psychiatric patients? In order to approach this question I will first go through a brief revision of the type of theories existing on the knowledge of others. Then, I will approach the forms of empathy that Ratcliffe proposes in order to understand mental disturbances such as depression and schizophrenia. Following the line of phenomenology (Gallagher, Zahavi and others), he considers that empathy is not always a first person simulation of the other’s mental states, as it is held by the theorists of the so-called Simulation Theory. According to his analysis, there are three forms of empathy centered upon the second person, being that two of them do not involve simulation. One of these forms is processed through the way of narratives, a theory which has been developed by Gallagher and Hutto for empathy in general, not just empathy to the mental states of psychiatric subjects. This way, Ratcliffe intends to acknowledge the necessary opening to both help and understand psychiatric patients.
2015
16/12/2015
Imagining a version of REC
Klaus Gaertner
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
In recent years Radical Enactivists (RECkers) spent much of their energy to show that conservative Cognitive Science has no viable theory to naturalize content and therefore cannot ground representations. As far as we can see, however, REC has never been spelled out explicitly.
Imagining a version of REC
Klaus Gaertner
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building
In recent years Radical Enactivists (RECkers) spent much of their energy to show that conservative Cognitive Science has no viable theory to naturalize content and therefore cannot ground representations. As far as we can see, however, REC has never been spelled out explicitly.
09/12/2015
Functional or structural explanations in cognitive science? The quest for a conciliatory move
João Fonseca
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
One of the most basic questions in the field of cognitive sciences asks what kind of relationship neuroscientific/structural explanations maintain with psychological /functional ones: are the latter reducible to the former? If so, does psychology maintains any explanatory role at all? Or, on the contrary, is psychology not reduced to neuroscience and, therefore has to remain as a special autonomous science?
Traditionally, authors who defend the autonomous status of psychology rely on the Multiple Realizability premise: one and the same mental kind is realized by different and multiple physical kinds (for instance ‘Pain’ is realized by different neural structures depending on species). On the other end of the spectrum, some authors question the truth of the Multiple Realizability premise itself and, accordingly, claim against the autonomy of psychological explanation and, in the limit, ask for its elimination.
In this talk I will suggest a middle ground between these two extremes and discuss how actual cases of Multiple Realizability happening in nature supports a view according to which neuroscientific/structural explanations are intrinsically dependent on psychological/functional ones and vice-versa.
Functional or structural explanations in cognitive science? The quest for a conciliatory move
João Fonseca
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
One of the most basic questions in the field of cognitive sciences asks what kind of relationship neuroscientific/structural explanations maintain with psychological /functional ones: are the latter reducible to the former? If so, does psychology maintains any explanatory role at all? Or, on the contrary, is psychology not reduced to neuroscience and, therefore has to remain as a special autonomous science?
Traditionally, authors who defend the autonomous status of psychology rely on the Multiple Realizability premise: one and the same mental kind is realized by different and multiple physical kinds (for instance ‘Pain’ is realized by different neural structures depending on species). On the other end of the spectrum, some authors question the truth of the Multiple Realizability premise itself and, accordingly, claim against the autonomy of psychological explanation and, in the limit, ask for its elimination.
In this talk I will suggest a middle ground between these two extremes and discuss how actual cases of Multiple Realizability happening in nature supports a view according to which neuroscientific/structural explanations are intrinsically dependent on psychological/functional ones and vice-versa.
25/11/2015
Mind the Brain: Can Mental Phenomena Modulate the Nervous System?
Inês Hipolito
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
When a Post correspondent interviewed Albert Einstein about his thought process in 1929, Einstein did not speak of careful reasoning and calculations. Instead he said, “imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world” (1929). According to Thomas Nagel, imagination makes possible all our thinking about what is, what has been, and perhaps most important, what might be. Here, I will consider the idea that all aspects of higher-order levels of imaginative information processing interact with existing systems, and eventually expand beyond to form new systems. Imagination appears fundamental for humans to operate flexibly and effectively in highly complex social groupings, to contemplate complex plans for possible (and impossible) future action; and to envisage the consequences without enacting them. On an historical background, the science of imagination has evolved, coalesced, and split apart in keeping with changing philosophical and epistemological worldviews. With some contributions from philosophy in respect to imagination’s metaphysical aspects, science has made some progress regarding the cognitive functions correlated with human imagination. Key questions for future research should include how the capacity for imagination evolved, how it is expressed and how imagination operates in thinking and learning. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has helped us understand how sensory inputs and imagination are not as distinct as they seem. Using imaging techniques, scientists have found that the same cells are activated during sensory perception and imaginative recall. In this presentation, I will explore the question of whether mental simulation could modulate brain’s activity. If so, could a mental experience of pure thought be a doorway to brain enhancement?
Mind the Brain: Can Mental Phenomena Modulate the Nervous System?
Inês Hipolito
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
When a Post correspondent interviewed Albert Einstein about his thought process in 1929, Einstein did not speak of careful reasoning and calculations. Instead he said, “imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world” (1929). According to Thomas Nagel, imagination makes possible all our thinking about what is, what has been, and perhaps most important, what might be. Here, I will consider the idea that all aspects of higher-order levels of imaginative information processing interact with existing systems, and eventually expand beyond to form new systems. Imagination appears fundamental for humans to operate flexibly and effectively in highly complex social groupings, to contemplate complex plans for possible (and impossible) future action; and to envisage the consequences without enacting them. On an historical background, the science of imagination has evolved, coalesced, and split apart in keeping with changing philosophical and epistemological worldviews. With some contributions from philosophy in respect to imagination’s metaphysical aspects, science has made some progress regarding the cognitive functions correlated with human imagination. Key questions for future research should include how the capacity for imagination evolved, how it is expressed and how imagination operates in thinking and learning. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has helped us understand how sensory inputs and imagination are not as distinct as they seem. Using imaging techniques, scientists have found that the same cells are activated during sensory perception and imaginative recall. In this presentation, I will explore the question of whether mental simulation could modulate brain’s activity. If so, could a mental experience of pure thought be a doorway to brain enhancement?
11/11/2015
Epistemic Agency and the Extended Mind
Robert Clowes
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
Contemporary mobile internet technology as embodied in our smart phones and apps appears to easily meet the original criteria set out for an artefact to count as part of an agent´s ExtendedMind (Chalmers, 2007; Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Indeed, it appears to make it too easy, the original “trust & glue” conditions now incorporating a raft of technology which threatens a reductio ad absurdum. Are our minds destined to seem ever more bloated? Sterelny´s (2010) ideas about entrenchment and personalisation might be one way of staving off cognitive bloat. However I will introduce a new thought experiment involving “Cloud Otto” that casts doubt on this. Finally I will review ideas that an agent´s epistemic character can also be extended by technology and artefacts (Pritchard, 2010) and look at whether this might give us new insights into the idea of theextended mind and its practical implications.
Epistemic Agency and the Extended Mind
Robert Clowes
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
Contemporary mobile internet technology as embodied in our smart phones and apps appears to easily meet the original criteria set out for an artefact to count as part of an agent´s ExtendedMind (Chalmers, 2007; Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Indeed, it appears to make it too easy, the original “trust & glue” conditions now incorporating a raft of technology which threatens a reductio ad absurdum. Are our minds destined to seem ever more bloated? Sterelny´s (2010) ideas about entrenchment and personalisation might be one way of staving off cognitive bloat. However I will introduce a new thought experiment involving “Cloud Otto” that casts doubt on this. Finally I will review ideas that an agent´s epistemic character can also be extended by technology and artefacts (Pritchard, 2010) and look at whether this might give us new insights into the idea of theextended mind and its practical implications.
28/10/2015
Neuroscience, psychology and mechanistic explanations
João Fonseca
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
In several places(Bickle, 2003, 2006), John Bickle claims that current neuroscientific practice provides actual cellular/molecular reductions of certain psychological states. He cites the case study of memory consolidation switch as an example where recent findings suggest that this psychological state/process can be reduced to the molecular cAMP-PKA-CREB Pathway. Taking this example, Bickle ‘waves the eleminativist flag’ by claiming that psychological explanations lose their pertinence (or, as he says, “become otiose”) once a cellular/molecular explanation replaces them.
In the philosophy of neuroscience community there is a consensus that neuroscientific explanations are mechanistic explanations, i.e, explanations where the explanation of a phenomenon Ψ is a description of the (relevant aspects of the) mechanism that produces that phenomenon. More specifically this explanation depicts a (finite) set of components
(Φs) and activities (Ωs) organised in such a way as to produce the role or effect (Ψ).
Assuming that neuroscientific explanations are mechanistic ones and that Craver & Piccinini (2011) are right in claiming that functional explanations are mechanisms sketches I argue that if neuroscientific (mechanistic) explanations are to be relevant and robust, two conditions have to be met: 1- psychological states have to be correlated/reduced to specific causal-neural mechanisms and 2- such functionally defined psychological states hold an important methodological-heuristic role even when a causal-neural explanation is in place. This latter consequence directly challenges one of Bickle’s ruthless reductionism explicit aims: to show that cellular-molecular explanations render previous functional/psychological explanations otiose.
Bickle, J._(2003). Philosophy and Neuroscience. (Kluwer Academic Publishers)
Bickle, J. (2006). Reducing Mind to Molecular Pathways: Explicating the Reductionism Implicit In Current Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience. Synthese, 151, 411-434
Craver, C. & Piccinini, G. (2011) Integrating Psychology and Neuroscience: Functional Analyses as Mechanism Sketches. Synthese, 183, 283-311
Neuroscience, psychology and mechanistic explanations
João Fonseca
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
In several places(Bickle, 2003, 2006), John Bickle claims that current neuroscientific practice provides actual cellular/molecular reductions of certain psychological states. He cites the case study of memory consolidation switch as an example where recent findings suggest that this psychological state/process can be reduced to the molecular cAMP-PKA-CREB Pathway. Taking this example, Bickle ‘waves the eleminativist flag’ by claiming that psychological explanations lose their pertinence (or, as he says, “become otiose”) once a cellular/molecular explanation replaces them.
In the philosophy of neuroscience community there is a consensus that neuroscientific explanations are mechanistic explanations, i.e, explanations where the explanation of a phenomenon Ψ is a description of the (relevant aspects of the) mechanism that produces that phenomenon. More specifically this explanation depicts a (finite) set of components
(Φs) and activities (Ωs) organised in such a way as to produce the role or effect (Ψ).
Assuming that neuroscientific explanations are mechanistic ones and that Craver & Piccinini (2011) are right in claiming that functional explanations are mechanisms sketches I argue that if neuroscientific (mechanistic) explanations are to be relevant and robust, two conditions have to be met: 1- psychological states have to be correlated/reduced to specific causal-neural mechanisms and 2- such functionally defined psychological states hold an important methodological-heuristic role even when a causal-neural explanation is in place. This latter consequence directly challenges one of Bickle’s ruthless reductionism explicit aims: to show that cellular-molecular explanations render previous functional/psychological explanations otiose.
Bickle, J._(2003). Philosophy and Neuroscience. (Kluwer Academic Publishers)
Bickle, J. (2006). Reducing Mind to Molecular Pathways: Explicating the Reductionism Implicit In Current Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience. Synthese, 151, 411-434
Craver, C. & Piccinini, G. (2011) Integrating Psychology and Neuroscience: Functional Analyses as Mechanism Sketches. Synthese, 183, 283-311
30/09/2015
Does Embodied Cognitive Science need RECtifying?
Rob Clowes
Room 2.17, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
It builds on some matters arising from the recent workshop Arguing with Dan Hutto and look at some questions at the idea of RECTIFICATION in philosophy of science.
Does Embodied Cognitive Science need RECtifying?
Rob Clowes
Room 2.17, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
It builds on some matters arising from the recent workshop Arguing with Dan Hutto and look at some questions at the idea of RECTIFICATION in philosophy of science.
16/09/2015
On Imagination
Nuno Venturihna
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
In this talk the concept of imagination is discussed in connection with those of illusion, memory, perception and truth. It is argued that mental projections make use of a complex imagery that renders somehow indistinct imagination content and memory content.
On Imagination
Nuno Venturihna
Room 0.03, 16:00-17:00. ID Building ???
In this talk the concept of imagination is discussed in connection with those of illusion, memory, perception and truth. It is argued that mental projections make use of a complex imagery that renders somehow indistinct imagination content and memory content.
29/05/2015
Privileged Self-knowledge about the Phenomenal: The Problem of Acquaintance
Klaus Gaertner
Room 0.06, Thursday, 12:00-13:00. ID Building
Epistemology in the area of Philosophy of Mind is a difficult endeavor. We often assume that knowledge about our own minds is privileged, or in other words, that there is an asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of the world. But this intuition is not harmless. To maintain this assumption we better have good reasons. Now, not all mental states qualify for this kind of privileged knowledge.
Contemporary philosophers assume that a great deal of our mental life passes without being noticed and therefore this intuition does not apply. However, when we want to study the mystery of Consciousness, we deeply rely on this assumption. We want to know how and why we know our conscious experiences so well and solve the mystery. In this context, it is mostly assumed that, at least, our access to our current conscious experiences and their phenomenal properties should count in some sense as privileged. To secure this so called privileged access, many contemporary philosophers of mind defend the unmediated observation model, often based on acquaintance.
The task of this paper is to have a closer look at this model, especially at the proposed acquaintance relation. After clarifying how this relation achieves epistemic superiority, I want to dismantle its myth that dazzled philosophers for decades.
Privileged Self-knowledge about the Phenomenal: The Problem of Acquaintance
Klaus Gaertner
Room 0.06, Thursday, 12:00-13:00. ID Building
Epistemology in the area of Philosophy of Mind is a difficult endeavor. We often assume that knowledge about our own minds is privileged, or in other words, that there is an asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of the world. But this intuition is not harmless. To maintain this assumption we better have good reasons. Now, not all mental states qualify for this kind of privileged knowledge.
Contemporary philosophers assume that a great deal of our mental life passes without being noticed and therefore this intuition does not apply. However, when we want to study the mystery of Consciousness, we deeply rely on this assumption. We want to know how and why we know our conscious experiences so well and solve the mystery. In this context, it is mostly assumed that, at least, our access to our current conscious experiences and their phenomenal properties should count in some sense as privileged. To secure this so called privileged access, many contemporary philosophers of mind defend the unmediated observation model, often based on acquaintance.
The task of this paper is to have a closer look at this model, especially at the proposed acquaintance relation. After clarifying how this relation achieves epistemic superiority, I want to dismantle its myth that dazzled philosophers for decades.
27/05/2015
Radical Enactivism and Paul Churchland’s Philosophy of Science
João Fonseca
Room 0.03, 13:00-14:00. ID Building ???
In this talk my aim is to show how the embodied/enactive revolution in cognitive science can be defined in two main axis: the ‘content axis’ and the ‘scope axis’. Daniel Hutto pushes the content axis forward by claiming that contentfull representations play no role but restrains the scope axis to what he calls ‘basic minds’. On the other hand, Churchland puts the emphasis on the scope axis of the revolution by claiming that even science should be understood in embodied/enactive terms whereas, in what concerns representations, Churchland would be considered ‘conservative’ by Hutto. The question thus is: how far can we advance in claiming for one axis without compromising the other? How incompatible are these two axis?
Radical Enactivism and Paul Churchland’s Philosophy of Science
João Fonseca
Room 0.03, 13:00-14:00. ID Building ???
In this talk my aim is to show how the embodied/enactive revolution in cognitive science can be defined in two main axis: the ‘content axis’ and the ‘scope axis’. Daniel Hutto pushes the content axis forward by claiming that contentfull representations play no role but restrains the scope axis to what he calls ‘basic minds’. On the other hand, Churchland puts the emphasis on the scope axis of the revolution by claiming that even science should be understood in embodied/enactive terms whereas, in what concerns representations, Churchland would be considered ‘conservative’ by Hutto. The question thus is: how far can we advance in claiming for one axis without compromising the other? How incompatible are these two axis?
20/05/2015
Can we understand a person with schizophrenia?
Jorge Gonçalves
Room 2.17, 13:00-14:00. ID Building
First I put the question what “understanding” means? Traditionally in psychiatry this question dates back to Karl Jaspers who introduced to the field the distinction between “to understand” and “to explain” . As is well known, Jaspers held we cannot understand schizophrenia, only explain it. To illustrate Jasper’s notion of “understanding” I examine the criticism he has made of psychoanalysis, (that also intended to understand schizophrenia) which he considered a kind of “fictionalism”.
I argue that we can understand a person with schizophrenia, but we must take a new notion of understanding more based in theoretical imagination and not so intuitive and direct as in Jaspers. I support this by analyzing approaches to schizophrenia’s understanding from psychoanalysis, Louis Sass and Enactivism.
Can we understand a person with schizophrenia?
Jorge Gonçalves
Room 2.17, 13:00-14:00. ID Building
First I put the question what “understanding” means? Traditionally in psychiatry this question dates back to Karl Jaspers who introduced to the field the distinction between “to understand” and “to explain” . As is well known, Jaspers held we cannot understand schizophrenia, only explain it. To illustrate Jasper’s notion of “understanding” I examine the criticism he has made of psychoanalysis, (that also intended to understand schizophrenia) which he considered a kind of “fictionalism”.
I argue that we can understand a person with schizophrenia, but we must take a new notion of understanding more based in theoretical imagination and not so intuitive and direct as in Jaspers. I support this by analyzing approaches to schizophrenia’s understanding from psychoanalysis, Louis Sass and Enactivism.
06 and 13/ 05/2015
Hutto and Myin´s Enactivism: Problems of Mediational Knowledge
Fehler! Linkverweis ungültig
Room 2.17, 13:00-14:00. ID Building ???
Continued discussion of some of Dan Hutto´s recent work as a curtain raiser for the forthcoming conference Arguing with Dan Hutto. It will focus on Hutto´s radical enactivism and how this differs from other version´s such as Alva Noë´s. It will suggest some of the main challenges this version of enactivism puts to cognitivist cognitive science and will also present some challenges that Hutto´s position in turn faces.
Hutto and Myin´s Enactivism: Problems of Mediational Knowledge
Fehler! Linkverweis ungültig
Room 2.17, 13:00-14:00. ID Building ???
Continued discussion of some of Dan Hutto´s recent work as a curtain raiser for the forthcoming conference Arguing with Dan Hutto. It will focus on Hutto´s radical enactivism and how this differs from other version´s such as Alva Noë´s. It will suggest some of the main challenges this version of enactivism puts to cognitivist cognitive science and will also present some challenges that Hutto´s position in turn faces.
