DATE: May 11th 2012, 9.30 to 18.00
PLACE: Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen
ATTENDANCE: All welcome, but please send a message to cdutilhnovaes at yahoo dot com if you intend to come.
In recent discussions on the notion of embodied/extended cognition and the extended mind hypothesis, the idea of a ‘mark of the cognitive’ has received quite some attention. Both among the proponents and among the critics of Extended Mind, many authors agree that the project of formulating a principled demarcation for what is to count as cognitive is imperative, not only with respect to this specific debate but more generally as a fundamental question for the philosophy of cognitive science. A few dissident voices, however, have considered the possibility of this question being neither crucial nor answerable, for example by relying on anti-essentialist conceptions of cognition.
Against this background, the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen is hosting a one-day workshop to discuss the very idea of the mark of the cognitive, in particular but not exclusively with respect to the concept of embodied/extended cognition. How should the question be formulated? Is it a matter of stipulating a definition, or are we after a substantive theory of what cognition is? Is 'the cognitive' a natural kind? How important is it to delineate a mark of the cognitive for different projects in philosophy of mind and cognitive science? These and other questions will be addressed during the talks and discussions at the workshop.
SPEAKERS AND TITLES
Kenneth Aizawa (Centenary College): Operationalism gives the Mark of the Cognitive?
Julian Kiverstein (University of Amsterdam): Intentionality as the mark of the cognitive?
Fred Keijzer (University of Groningen): The need for a mark of something that we should call cognition
Catarina Dutilh Novaes (University of Groningen): Second-wave Extended Mind does not need a mark of the cognitive
