28-29 Nov 2019
Bochum, Germany
CFP: Mental Representations in a Mechanical World (Bochum, 28.-29.11.2019) Date: 28.-29.11.2019 Venue: Beckmanns Hof, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany Description: The concept of representation is ubiquitous in cognitive science and in the philosophy of mind. It seems to play two roles: on the one hand, neural representationsare postulated by neuroscientists to explain sub-personal phenomena such as the processing of visual information in the brain. On the other hand, mental representations are taken to explain person-level phenomena, such as imagination, or consciousness. Mental representations are used to make sense of beliefs and other propositional attitudes and posits of folk psychology. Non-representationalists contend that postulating representations of any sort is unnecessary or problematic. Especially the traditional objection against representationalism, the causal impotence of representational content, gets new force in the light of the new-mechanical approach to explanation in life sciences. According to the new mechanists, to explain a phenomenon is to show how it is produced by an underlying mechanism. The challenge for representationalists is to explain how representations can figure in these mechanisms and show that mental representations have a place in a mechanical world. One core question of this workshop is whether the status of neural and mental representation is equally problematic. While sub-personal phenomena seem to be less resistant to mechanistic explanation, many personal-level mental phenomena seem to be ?representation hungry?. A second core question concerns the relationship between neural and mental representations. It is often assumed that the former are needed to account for the latter. However, naturalising neural representations, and accounting for their explanatory utility in a mechanistic neuroscience proves difficult. How intertwined are beliefs and desires with neural representations? Do they only come together, or is a conceptual repertoire including one but not the other a coherent possibility? Speakers: Joe Dewhurst (LMU) Carrie Figdor (Iowa) Jolien Francken (Amsterdam) Matej Kohar (RUB) Beate Krickel (RUB) Marcin Milkowski (Polish Academy of Sciences) Karina Vold (Cambridge) Call for Papers: A number of further presentation slots have been reserved for interested scholars selected by double-blind peer review process. The contributions should be suitable for a 30 minute presentation. To apply, submit an anonymised abstract of 1000 words making the thesis and argument of your contribution transparent by 16th June via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mrmw2019. Selected participants will be notified by the end of August. Call for Registration: Participation is free but space is limited. Please register by Nov. 1 by filling in the form on http://meta4e.com/workshop-registration/. Organisation: Matej Kohár, Dr. Beate Krickel (as part of Meta4E [www.meta4e.com]) Financial support: Ruhr-University Research School PLUS, funded by Germany?s Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/3], DFG Research Training Group ?Situated Cognition?, and Prof. Dr. Albert Newen. -- [LOGIC] mailing list http://www.dvmlg.de/mailingliste.html Archive: http://www.illc.uva.nl/LogicList/ provided by a collaboration of the DVMLG, the Maths Departments in Bonn and Hamburg, and the ILLC at the Universiteit van Amsterdam