Workshop
COSTS AND BENEFITS OF IMPERFECT COGNITIONS
Birmingham, 8-9th May 2014
Aim
The Workshop was one of the means by which the interim results of our project on the Epistemic Innocence of Imperfect Cognitions were disseminated to an interdisciplinary audience, and promoted exchange between philosophers and psychologists on the potential pragmatic and epistemic benefits and costs of beliefs, memories, implicit biases, and explanations.
It was also a venue for Imperfect Cognitions network members to meet and talk about their research, and think about potential areas for future collaboration.
Organisers
Ema Sullivan-Bissett and Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham)
Location
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston Campus
Worcester Room, Hornton Grange, 53 Edgbaston Park Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2RS.
Closest railway station: University (a short walk away, see map and directions).
Funding
The workshop was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. We also acknowledge the support of the Analysis Trust for awarding the workshop bursaries for graduate students to attend.
Programme
8th May
10:00-10:20 - Arrival and registration with tea and coffee served
10:20-10:30 - Welcome by Lisa Bortolotti
Chairperson: Ema Sullivan-Bissett
10:30-11:30 - Ryan McKay (Royal Holloway) and Maarten Boudry (University of Ghent): "In Defence of False Beliefs?"
11:30-11:40 - Comfort break
11:40-12:40 - Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham): "Epistemic Costs and Benefits of Delusional Beliefs".
12:40-14:00 - Lunch
Chairperson: Lisa Bortolotti
14:00-15:00 - Katerina Fotopoulou (University College London): "Inferring the Self: Neurological Exaggerations of Normally Imperfect Inferences about the Body"
15:00-16:00 - Martin Conway (City University London): "Memory, Reality, and Consciousness in the Remembering-Imaging System"
16:00-16:30 - Tea and coffee
Chairperson: Kengo Miyazono
16:30-17:30 - Ema Sullivan-Bissett (University of Birmingham): "The Epistemic Status of Confabulatory Explanations"
9th May
Chairperson: Jussi Suikkanen
9:30-10:30 - Petter Johansson and Lars Hall (University of Lund): "Choice Blindness and the Flexibility of Attitude Formation: Why not Knowing why might be a Good Thing"
10:30-11:00 - Tea and coffee
Chairperson: Sarah-Louise Johnson
11:00-12:00 - Jules Holroyd (University of Nottingham): "Implicit Bias, Awareness Conditions, and Epistemic Innocence"
12:00-13:00 - Miranda Fricker (University of Sheffield): "Fault and No-fault Epistemic Responsibility for Implicit Prejudice"
13:00-14:00 - Lunch
End of conference
Workshop reports
On the Imperfect Cognitions blog, by Sarah-Louise Johnson, 15 May 2014
On the AHRC Science in Culture blog, by Lisa Bortolotti, 27 May 2014.