The Senses
CIN Graduiertenkolleg Seminar
Instructors: Catrin Misselhorn and Hong Yu Wong
Winter Semester 2011
Location: CIN Seminar Room, TTR Building, Paul Ehrlich Str. 17, Tuebingen 72070
Schedule: SEE BELOW FOR SPECIFIC DATES
This seminar will cover a number of contemporary themes in the philosophy of mind/psychology/neuroscience with a focus on the treatment of different sense modalities. One particular issue is how attention to sense modalities other than vision challenge orthodox accounts of perception constructed on the basis of vision, and, in particular, whether vision might be the ‘odd one out’ rather than the golden standard. Other themes covered include the phenomenology of action and will, and connections between perception and action. The seminar consists of distinguished guest speakers each conducting 3-5 seminars on important unpublished work they have. Each seminar will be 2 hours long.
Seminar participants will receive copies of the texts to be discussed and are expected to have read the material in advance. Students taking the seminar for credit will have to write a one page (500 word) commentary on the theme of each speaker, to be posted electronically prior to the speaker’s arrival. At the end of the term students will also have to write a 3000 word essay on a topic related to one of the themes of the seminar
Prerequisites:
Students should have taken at least one course on PHILOSOPHY OF MIND/PSYCHOLOGY/NEUROSCIENCE or the FOUNDATIONS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE. Students who do not meet this requirement should contact the instructors.
Attending the Class and Getting the Readings:
STUDENTS WHO WISH TO ATTEND THE COURSE - REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY WISH TO TAKE IT FOR CREDIT OR NOT - SHOULD EMAIL DR. WONG'S RESEARCH ASSISTANT, GREGOR HOCHSTETTER, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AT <gregor-hochstetter@gmx.net> SO THAT THEY CAN GET ACCESS TO THE TEXTS TO BE DISCUSSED.
1. Action and will (Oct 27-29, 2011)
Jerry Valberg (UCL)
This set of seminars will focus on several chapters from Jerry Valberg's new manuscript on action and the will, looking at issues concerning the causation of action and its relation to the phenomenology of the will.
Location: CIN Seminar Room, TTR Building, Paul Ehrlich Str. 17, Tuebingen 72070
Times:
Oct 27: 11.00-13.00, 14.30-16.30
Oct 28: 11.00-13.00, 14.30-16.30
Oct 29: 11.00-13.00
2. Smell, Taste, and Flavour (November 25-27)
Barry Smith (Institute of Philosophy, London)
This set of seminars will focus on how an understanding of flavour perception challenges the standard accounts of the sense modalities, which are often based on the model of the visual system. The seminars will raise the question of what constitutes a sense modality, what the consequences of multi-sensory integration are for understanding the notion of a sense modality, the inidviduation of sense modalities, and the flavour perception system.
Location: CIN Seminar Room, TTR Building, Paul Ehrlich Str. 17, Tuebingen 72070
Times:
Nov 25 (Friday): 11-1
2-5.30 CIN Workshop: A Taste of Flavour
Investigating the flavour perception system from the perspective of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience
Speakers:
Prof Barry Smith (Director, Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London)
Dr Ophelia Deroy (Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CenSes, Institute of Philosophy, University of London)
Prof Charles Spence (Professor of Experimental Psychology, Crossmodal Research Lab, Oxford University)
Nov 27 (Sunday): 11-1, 3-5
READINGS:
Introductory: Philosophical and Scientific Background (read the Auvray and Spence AND either Macpherson or Grice)
Fiona Macpherson "Individuating the Senses" in Macpherson, F. (ed.) The Senses: Classic and Contemprary Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press, 2011.
H.P. Grice "Some Remarks about the Senses"
Malika Auvray and Charles Spence "The Multisensory Perception of Flavour", Consciousness and Cognition 2008.
From Barry: (read BOTH, they are relatively short)
Barry Smith "The true taste of a wine" in Proceedings of Wine Active Compounds 2011.
Barry Smith "Same Compounds: Different Flavours?" in Proceedings of Wine Active Compounds 2008 ed. David Chassagne.
3. Bodily awareness (Jan 19-20, 2012)
Frederique de Vignemont (Institut Jean Nicod/CNRS)
This set of seminars will focus on chapters from Frederique de Vignemont's new manuscript on bodily awareness and body ownership entitled Mind the Body.
Times:
Jan 19: 11.00-13.00, 14.30-16.30
Jan 20: 13.00-16.00
Seminar 1: The sense of body ownership: the agenda
Draft Chapter 1 Mind the body
de Vignemont, F. (2011), Embodiment, ownership and disownership. Consciousness and Cognition.
Seminar 2: Multimodal bodily experiences
de Vignemont, F. (under revision), Multimodal bodily experiences.
Seminar 3: Classifying body representations
de Vignemont, F. (2010), Body schema and body image: pros and cons. Neuropsychologia, 48(3), 669-80.
4. Auditory Perception (Feb 2-3, 2012)
Matthew Nudds (Edinburgh)
This set of seminars will focus on some unpublished papers by Matt Nudds on audition.
Times:
Feb 2: 11.00-13.00, 14.30-16.30
Feb 3: 11.00-13.00, 14.30-16.30
Background reading:
Burge's Origins of Objectivity, ch 3
Bregman's Auditory Scene Analysis, ch 1
Readings:
Seminars 1 & 2: "The problem of auditory perception"
Seminars 2 & 3: "Explaining auditory perception"
Seminar 4:" Is audio-visual perception ‘amodal’ or ‘crossmodal’?"