10th Barcelona Workshop on Naturalistic Theories of Intentionality

 

10th Barcelona Workshop: Naturalistic Theories of Intentionality

01 – 02 December 2016
Universitat de Barcelona

Schedule

December 1st 

 

9:15- Nicholas Shea (Institute of Philosophy)

 “Content From Directly Explanatory Correlational Information”

10:30- Peter Schulte (Universität Bielefeld)

 “Perceiving the World Outside: How to Solve the Distality Problem for Informational Teleosemantics”

 

 11:45 Coffee Break

12:15 Patrick Butlin (University of Antwerp & Hertford College, Oxford)

 “The Explanatory Significance of Representation: Burge, Rescorla and Schulte on Teleosemantics”

13:30 Lunch

15:30 Rosa Cao (Stanford University)

“TBA”

20:00 Dinner

December 2nd

9:15 Cailin O’Connor (University of California)

 “Games and Kinds”

10:30 Stephen Mann (Australian National University)

 “Natural information and naturalistic intentionality”

11:45 Coffee Break

12:15 Ulrich Stegmann (University of Aberdeen)

 “Animal signals, acquisition conditions and the explanation of behaviour”

13:30 Lunch

 15:15 Amir Horowitz (Open University of Israel)

 “On the very idea of a (natural) intentional relation”

 15:15 David Danks (Carnegie Mellon University)

 “From Brain Circuits to Bridging”

Organized by LOGOS Research Group in Analytic Philosophy

Venue: Montalegre, 4, 4th floor, Sala Gran  – Universitat de Barcelona

There is no registration fee but, if you are planning to attend, please let us know.

Best,

Manolo Martinez & Marc Artiga

Workshop with Karen Neander in Fribourg (Switzerland)

Workshop: “The Natural and the Normative” with Karen Neander (Duke University)

from Friday, 5 July 2013 to Saturday, 6 July 2013 University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

Workshop with Karen Neander (Duke University)

“The Natural and the Normative”

Friday, 5th of July, 09:30 – 18:30 and Saturday, 6th of July, 09:00 – 18:00
University of Fribourg, Miséricorde, Salle Jäggi (MIS04 4112)

Organizer: Prof. Markus Wild, Rebekka Hufendiek, Pietro Snider

***

Please register by sending a message to markus.wild@unifr.ch

***

Friday, 5.6.2013, Salle Jaeggi (room 4112)

09:30-10:00 Karen Neander
Introduction

10:00-11:00 Stephan Schmid (Berlin)
Brentano’s Problem

11:15-12:15 Lena Kästner (Bochum)
Locating Content in Science

14:00-15:00 Raphael Scholl (Bern)
The (SE) Functional Analysis

15:00-16:00 Norman Hammel (Gießen)
The Origins of Content

15:30-17:30 Rebekka Hufendiek (Fribourg)
Norms of Nature

17:30-18:30 Christian Steiner (Zürich) & André Wunder (Zürich)
Functions Update

Saturday, 6.7.2013, Salle Jaeggi (room 4112)

09:00-10:00 Pietro Snider (Fribourg)
Simple Minds

10:15-11:15 Tobias Huber (Basel)
Response Functions

11:15-12:15 Fabian Hundertmark (Bielefeld)
Content Determinacy Challenges

13:30-14:30 Peter Schulte (Bielefeld)
Content Determinacy Challenges

14:30-15:30 Marc Artiga (Barcelona)
Inner Analogs

16:00-17:00 Markus Wild (Fribourg)
Becoming Abstracted

17:00-18:00 Ulrike Pompe-Alama (Stuttgart)
Concepts and Conceptions

***

Contents of Karen Neander’s Book

1. Brentano’s Problem (introduces the traditional philosophical problem of intentionality and gives an overview of what is to come)

2. Locating Content in Science (introduces the related problem concerning representation in philosophy of science, using as an example some research into a visual deficit)

3. The (SE) Functional Analysis (aims to explain the role of the ‘normative’ and teleonomic functions in operational explanations in physiology)

4. The Origins of Content (argues that mental content arises as a theoretical entity in science in talk about information processing/carrying functions)

5. Norms of Nature (argues that psychosemantic norms are not genuinely prescriptive and so it is not a problem if functional norms are not genuinely prescriptive)

6. Functions Update (summarizes and updates my view on functions)

7. Simple Minds (closely based on my “Content for Cognitive Science”, concerns toads and argues for stimulus-based rather than benefit-based visual contents)

8. Response Functions (argues that there can be functions to respond to something and that there can be information carrying functions on a causal construal of information)

9. The Content Determinacy Challenges (explains how a causal version of teleosemantics meets the various content determinacy challenges)

10. Inner Analogs (makes room for a role for 2nd-order similarity in the content determining conditions for perceptual representations)

11. Becoming Abstracted (discusses strategies for meeting Berkeley’s problem of abstraction)

12. Concepts and Conceptions (discusses the relation between referential/intentional content and intensional content).

Organiser(s):Prof. Markus Wild, Rebekka Hufendiek, Pietro Snider

Burge and Teleosemantics

Agustin Vicente (University of Basque Country) authorized me to post this draft on the blog. In this paper,  he analizes Burge’s recent arguments against teleosemantics in Burge (2010) The Origin of Objectivity, chapter 8. Comments are very welcome!

Teleosemantics and Mental Conditionals

Another paper: I have just finished a draft of a paper on Teleosemantics and Conditionals. It is a written-up version of a presentation I gave at the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association. The main purpose of the paper is first to develop clearly the problem of conditionals for Millikan’s theory, second to show why existing approaches to conditional semantics face serious challenges from a teleosemantic perspective, and finally to offer an account of the function of conditionals that meets the requirements of Millikan’s theory. In the end we end up not only with a solution to a standing problem for teleosemantics, but also with a novel avenue for research in conditional semantics.

I would very much appreciate any comments!

Click to access teleosemanticsmentalconditionals.pdf

The Myth of Pushmi-Pullyu Representations

I have just finished a first draft of a paper on Pushmi-Pullyu representations. Here is the abstract:

One of the main tenets of current Teleosemantic theories is that simple representations are Pushmi-pullyu states, i.e they carry descriptive and imperative content at the same time. In this paper, I argue that Teleosemantics can not warrant imperative content to simple representations and hence, that there are no such things as Pushmi-pullyu representations. In the last part of the paper, I address some concerns that such a position may raise.

Any comment, suggestion, question, etc. will be very welcome!!

Discussion at ‘Brains’

There has recently been a very interesting discussion on Teleosemantics at the blog on philosophy of mind Brains. Here is the link.

Workshop on Teleological Theories of Mental Content

Workshop on Teleological Theories of Mental Content

Monday, April 20, 2010

Agenda

10:30-12:00 Manolo Martinez: “Norm Triplism –The Common structure“

12:00-12:15 Coffee Break

12:15-13:45 Miguel Ángel  Sebastián:  “I feel _!! A Non-Etiological Naturalistic Theory of the Content of Experience”

Lunch

15:00-17:00 Marc Artiga: “Teleosemantics, Perception and Concepts”

Location

Departament de Lògica, Història i Filosofia de la Ciència
Universitat de Barcelona
Montalegre, 6-8, 4ª planta.
08001 Barcelona

Ruth Millikan- Lecture at New England Institute

I just found this video from Millikan’s Lecture at the New England Institute (22/4/2009):

http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/new-england-institute-lectures/id418566747

I have not had time to take a look at it yet, but looks interesting!

 

Norm Triplism: The Common Structure

I’ve been putting together a draft in which I argue that a certain kind of pluralism about norms of assertion is a sensible theoretical position. In the process, I draw some parallels with the situations in the debate in normative ethics, and naturalistic accounts of mental content.

This paper is in a very early stage, so comments constructive and destructive are most welcome.

Teleosemantics and Productivity

This paper of mine — of which I had posted previous drafts here and here — has been accepted for publication in Philosophical Psychology. The first link is to the accepted version. The abstract:

There has been much discussion of so-called teleosemantic approaches to the naturalisation of
content. Such discussion, though, has been largely confined to simple, innate mental states with
contents such as There is a fly here. Even assuming we can solve the issues that crop up at this
stage, an account of the content of human mental states will not get too far without an account of
productivity: the ability to entertain indefinitely many thoughts.
The best-known teleosemantic theory, Millikan’s biosemantics, offers an account of productivity in
thought. This paper raises a basic worry about this account: that the use of mapping functions in the
theory is unacceptable from a naturalistic point of view.

It’d be cool to know what you guys think about it!