I am pleased to announce this call-for-papers for the first annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference (PCPC), which will be held at the University of Tampa from Friday October 18th-Sunday October 20th, 2013. This conference will be unique in several respects:
To submit a paper to present at the PCPC, please email the following to marvan@ut.edu by July 1, 2013: (1) a blinded (i.e. anonymized) paper, (2) a separate title page with the author's name, contract information, and brief paper abstract, and (3) a statement concerning whether you intend to attend the conference in person or only via Skype. Decision emails indicating whether your paper has been accepted will be sent out around August 1, 2013. Finally, please bear the following in mind:
Kazimierz Dolny, Poland - August 19th to 23rd, 2013

Invited key-speakers
Tad Zawidzki (George Washington)
Call for papers
The theme of the workshop is the significance of wide cognition – which is embodied, enacted, extended, embedded, and distributed cognition – for social intelligence.
Wide cognition has, over the last couple of decades, become more and more widespread in all areas of cognitive science – from neuroscience to cognitive psychology to cognitive linguistics to philosophy to computer science and robotics. Unlike traditional frameworks for cognitive science, these approaches do not explain cognitive phenomena solely in terms of the manipulation of (language-like) internal representations but stress that (1) minds can extend into the environment; (2) agents are cognitive insofar as they are embodied; (3) their cognitive scaffolding is enacted, or constructed, in an active fashion; (4) cognitive phenomena are always interactions with the environment; (5) and cognitive acts are often paradigmatically distributed among multiple agents. The workshop’s aim is to explore the relevance of this body of research for understanding social intelligence. In particular, its reliance on environmental design, bodily interaction, shared cognitive and symbolic tools, and complex schemas of collaboration.
The workshop will also feature discussion of a white paper of the topic that is being prepared in collaboration with the SINTELNET coordination network (sintelnet.eu).
Abstracts
Abstracts of less than 500 words will be accepted till May 30th. All submissions should be made through the easychair website. Abstracts will be evaluated on a first come basis so early submission is strongly encouraged in order to avoid missing out on available spots.
More info on Kazimierz workshops here.
CALL FOR PAPERS
"Pictorial and Spatial Representation"
Special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology
Guest editors: Valeria Giardino and Gabriel Greenberg
Deadline for submissions: 1 August 2013
The Theme
Pictorial and spatial representation play an essential role in a vast range of human communication and reasoning, exemplified by the widespread use of diagrams, maps, pictures, iconic gestures, comics, and film.
In this special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology, we seek to bring together work from philosophy and cognitive science (including psychology, linguistics, and computer science) that breaks new ground in the study of spatial representation generally. Recent developments in these fields set the stage for new and exciting perspectives on this poorly understood, but philosophically and scientifically central subject matter.
The primary subject of this special issue is the public use of pictorial and spatial representations, including uses in a variety of functional roles, such as communication, externalized reasoning and proof, planning, and navigation. We will exclude research on the more familiar subject of spatial cognition, including perception and mental imagery, except insofar as it is related to public representational phenomena. We encourage submissions which pinpoint specific media, but which also address fundamental semantic concepts like content, veridicality, and validity as they apply to the variety of spatial representations. In addition, we welcome contributions which draw connections between contemporary philosophical and scientific research, as well as work which fosters rigorous engagement with empirical results and formal methods.
Potential articles might discuss:
Invited Authors
TArticles by the following authors will be featured:
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 1 August 2013
Target publication date: 31 March 2014
How to submit
Prospective authors should register at: www.editorialmanager.com/
About the journal
The
Review of Philosophy and Psychology (ISSN: 1878-5158; eISSN: 1878-5166)
is a peer-reviewed journal, published quarterly by Springer, which
focuses on philosophical and foundational issues in cognitive science.
The journal's aim is to provide a forum for discussion on topics of
mutual interest to philosophers and psychologists and to foster
interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of philosophy and the
sciences of the mind, including the neural, behavioural and social
sciences. The journal publishes theoretical works grounded in empirical
research as well as empirical articles on issues of philosophical
relevance. It includes thematic issues featuring invited contributions
from leading authors together with articles answering a call for papers.
Contact
For any queries, please email the guest editors: valeria.giardino@
apologies for x-postings
CFP: The Hard Problem of
Consciousness, Special Issue of Topoi
In addition to the below CFP we are also seeking to
expand our pool of reviewers for this issue. If you are available to review a
paper please contact the guest editors named below.
Much work in the philosophy of consciousness begins
with the premise that consciousness offers a uniquely Hard Problem. This
premise can lead to radical speculative metaphysics such as pan-protopsychism
(Chalmers) or epiphenomenal property dualism (early Jackson). It can also be
used by researchers to justify ignoring advances in consciousness studies from
other disciplines. However, not everyone agrees that consciousness poses a Hard
Problem and instead offer explanations of consciousness in general (Clark,
Dennett, Irvine, O'Brien and Opie, Prinz) or particular conscious experiences
(G.Carruthers, de Vignemont, Frith and Hohwy). Given that the existence of a
Hard Problem is controversial and that it is supposed to lead to radical metaphysical
conclusions we would expect that advocates of the existence of a Hard Problem
would have considerable arguments in favour of their view. Often, however, the
nature of problem is treated as self-evident and not argued for, despite the
controversy. In this issue we wish to ask what arguments, if any, can
be put forward that consciousness really does pose a uniquely hard problem and
how they fare in the face of conceptual and empirical scrutiny.
Additionally work in developing theories of
consciousness has led to a proliferation of hypotheses regarding the nature of
consciousness. These hypotheses are motivated by empirical discoveries in
numerous fields such as attention (Prinz), psychophysics (Dennett, Clark) and
delusions research or psychiatry more broadly (Frith and Hohwy). As these
hypotheses are developed implications for how consciousness is to be
characterised emerge.
These considerations suggest a variety of questions
to be posed regarding the existence of a Hard Problem. Here are some (non-prescriptive examples):
Are there good a priori reasons to
believe that consciousness offers a uniquely “Hard Problem” and so demands a
radically different explanation to other mental phenomena?
Is the characterisation of consciousness as ‘Hard’
plausible in light of theoretical advances? If not how is the problem of
consciousness to be characterised; i.e. what is the explanatory target of a
theory of consciousness?
What do various empirical discoveries about
consciousness tell us about the nature of the problem we are investigating? Is
it plausible that consciousness poses a hard problem in light of discoveries in
attention, psychophysics or any other research?
For this issue we are interested in papers which
address the status of the Hard Problem as a characterisation of consciousness
from a rigorous multi-disciplinary perspective. Contributions should be
accessible to anyone within the broad (multi-disciplinary) field of
consciousness studies. We are open to new empirical and theoretical advances
that specially address the status of the Hard problem. The guiding question for
the issue is only: is the characterisation of consciousness as posing a
uniquely Hard Problem reasonable?
Deadline for initial submission of papers February
28 2014
Submissions must be made using Topoi’s online
submission system at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/topo/
When submitting your paper, please make sure to
select “S.I.: Hard problem of consciousness (Carruthers/Schier)” in the
scroll-down menu for Article Type. In preparing your article for submission,
follow the guidelines available from the journal website, http://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/11245 , under
Information for Guest Editors and Authors –> Manuscript Preparation.
If you have any questions please contact the guest
editors:
Glenn Carruthers: glenn.rj.carruthers@gmail.com
Elizabeth Schier: lizschier@gmail.com
President Obama on Tuesday will announce a broad new research initiative, starting with $100 million in 2014, to invent and refine new technologies to understand the human brain, senior administration officials said Monday.Sounds like an issue that philosophers should be funded to think about!A senior administration scientist compared the new initiative to the Human Genome Project, in that it is directed at a problem that has seemed insoluble up to now: the recording and mapping of brain circuits in action in an effort to “show how millions of brain cells interact.”
It is different, however, in that it has, as yet, no clearly defined goals or endpoint. Coming up with those goals will be up to the scientists involved and may take more than year.
...As part of the initiative, the president will require a study of the ethical implications of these sorts of advances in neuroscience.
While news of the announcement has been greeted with enthusiasm by many researchers in fields as diverse as neuroscience, nanotechnology and computer science, there are skeptics.
“The underlying assumptions about ‘mapping the entire brain’ are very controversial,” said Donald Stein, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. He said changes in brain chemistry were “not likely to be able to be imaged by the current technologies that these people are proposing.”
Emphasizing the development of technologies first, he said, is not a good approach. “I think the monies could be better spent by first figuring out what needs to be measured and then figuring out the most appropriate means to measure them.” he said. “In my mind, the technology ought to follow the concepts rather than the other way around.”
Workshop on "What is cognition?" in Bochum, June 27-29, 2013
The workshop invites contributions exploring any and all issues that can move us toward an answer to the question, “what is cognition?”. Contributions are welcome to address a particular view already championed in the literature or bring forward original suggestions on how we might produce an adequate notion of cognition in philosophy and the cognitive sciences.
PhD-students and Post-Docs are invited to submit papers or posters. Master students are also invited to submit posters.
Paper submissions must be appropriate for short talks of 20 min. for a total 30 min session. Papers may not exceed 1500 words, including an abstract of 150 words.
Posters should be directly submitted or be described by an abstract of
500 words.
http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/philosophy/cognition/call.html
*Submission deadline: May 1st , 2013*
The conference invites proposals for talks that address the inter- or intratheoretic relations of specific theories or provide precise notions of such relations for the application in the sciences.
Please submit both a short abstract (max. 100 words) and an extended
abstract (500-1000 words) through the automatic submission system by 15
May 2013. Please prepare your abstracts for blind review, and save your
extended abstract as a PDF file.
The conference language is English.
http://www.reductionandemergenceinscience.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/call_for_papers/index.html
Continuing the theme of providing popular summaries of my papers today I’d like to talk a little about anosognosia for hemiplegia and some implications the disorder has for understanding how we represent our own bodies.
Given the very pompous nature of the name “anosognosia for hemiplegia” [MD’s are even better than philosopher’s at playing power games by making up words
] I doubt that its meaning is at all transparent. ‘Anosognosia’ refers to a patient’s lack of knowledge about some problem with their body. In the medical context the most striking examples pick out patients who seem to lack knowledge of a disorder so overwhelming and severe that it is baffling how they could miss it. The most shocking case being Anton’s syndrome or “blindness denial” sufferers of which although clearly blind nevertheless claim to be able to see perfectly well. “Hemiplegia” means half paralysis and refers to cases where either the left or right side of the body is paralysed. I take it that you know what ‘for’ means, so by now you may have guessed that ‘anosognosia for hemiplegia’ refers to patients who lack knowledge about their paralysis- they are paralysed down one side of their body but they do not know this to be the case. The name, of course, comes from Babinski of defecating Maxwell fame (yes I watch the big bang theory; no I don’t think it is offensive to nerds).
So the important thing is that patients suffering from ansognosia for hemiplegia (AHP) are paralysed but they don’t know it. When asked why they are in hospital they don’t mention their paralysis, when asked if they can move they say that of course they can (‘how else could I scratch my right arm?’ (Fotopoulou et al. 2008). They also act as if they are not paralysed; when asked to lift a try of glasses they typically grab the tray from one side, as if to lift with both hands. Patients who are paralysed but aware of this problem grab the try at the centre when asked to perform such actions.
Overall a scary situation to be in, made all the worse by the fact that AHP is one of the least serious symptoms such patients experience following stroke. This is not to say that the symptom isn’t dangerous, it is, but it typically remits after days or weeks. After it remits patients say different things about their experience. Some patients claim that they knew they were paralysed all along and deny their previous denials, so to speak. What are we to make of this? Did they know they were paralysed or not?
The answer, I suspect, is both. To see why we need to look more closely at what patients say about their paralysis. Whilst it is defining of AHP that patients deny their paralysis, it is also true that in some circumstances they temporarily acknowledge that they are paralysed. They do so when repeatedly confronted on their inability to perform tasks which require the use of both hands or when cold water is squirted in their ears (the reason for this is complex, for now suffice to say it changes how patients can direct their attention). When patients do come to acknowledge that they are a paralysed this insight only lasts a short amount of time, 20 minutes or so. Very quickly AHP patients seem to lose this knowledge about the state of their body. What these examples suggest is that somewhere in there is the knowledge that they are paralysed, but this knowledge isn’t used in most circumstances.
Why don’t they access this knowledge? Well in fact I think this isn’t quite the right question, because in one sense they’re not failing to access this knowledge about the current condition of their body, because no one would check the current condition of their body in this circumstance. If I ask you right now if you are paralysed you don’t need to check to find out. You can answer based on knowledge of what your body is usually like. This is what the AHP patient does. When asked if they are paralysed the AHP patient asks based on this knowledge- they’ve not been paralysed before so why would they think they are paralysed now?
We have then a different question to ask about the AHP patient. Why doesn’t knowledge about the current condition of their body, which we know they have- at least when they temporarily acknowledge their paralysis, help them learn that they are paralysed? Why doesn’t this update their knowledge of what their body is usually like?
If we can answer this I think we will have done a huge part of the work needed to understand why people with AHP don’t know that they are paralysed. There is also, as it turns out, a lot more work we can do with this distinction between knowing what your body is like now and knowing what it is usually like. But we can get to that next time.
With love
DrNPC
My paper on this is: Carruthers, G. (2008). “Types of body representation and the sense of embodiment.” Consciousness and Cognition 17(4): 1302-1316.
And others using this distinction: Carruthers, G. (2009). “Is the body schema sufficient for the sense of embodiment? An alternative to de Vignemont’s model.” Philosophical Psychology 22(2): 123-142.
Carruthers, G. (in press). “Toward a Cognitive Model of the Sense of Embodiment in a (Rubber) Hand.” Journal of Consciousness Studies.
Reference:
Fotopoulou, A., M. Tsakiris, P. Haggard, A. Vagopoulou, A. Rudd and M. Kopelman (2008). “The role of motor intention in motor awareness: an experimental study on anosognosia for hemiplegia.” Brain 131(12): 3432-3442.