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.