Workshop on the Philosophy of Neuroscience
July 5, 2011
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
All are welcome!
Alle sind willkommen!
Organised by the CIN Philosophy of Neuroscience Group
Location:
CIN Seminar Room
Centre for Integrative Neuroscience
Paul-Ehrlich-Str. 17
72076 Tübingen, Germany
Speakers:
Liz Irvine (Edinburgh)
Evaluating ‘mental’ concepts: The role of scientific practice
Taking seriously the goal of integrating philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific work entails that concepts at all of these levels of analysis should be open to revision. This revision is the natural result of the research heuristics found in interdisciplinary integrative research, such as the role played by dissociation methods in testing and generating frameworks to interpret dissociated phenomena, the role played by identity statements in highlighting inconsistencies between the ‘identified’ concepts and generating new research questions (e.g. McCauley & Bechtel, 2001), and the role of experimental interventions in exploring causal structure, mechanisms, and (perhaps) natural kinds (Woodward, 2008, Craver, 2007, Boyd, 1999). By considering several case studies I will argue that contemporary cognitive and computational neuroscience show how major changes are needed in the way we describe and categorise ‘mental’ phenomena. These sometimes radical changes are entirely to expected from progressive interdisciplinary research, and I will argue that they should be taken seriously not only by scientists working with these concepts, but also by those working in philosophy of mind.
Anders Nes (CSMN Oslo)
Can there be entirely unconscious agents? The case of decorticated rats and cats
Most philosophers and neuroscientists these days accept that some goal-directed actions are unconscious, with examples ranging from unusual neurological syndromes to everyday automatisms. However, such unconscious actions often seem to be either abnormal for the agents in question, or else (as in the case of many automatisms) to be carried out in pursuit of a more over-arching goal that is consciously pursued. Such examples of unconscious action do not, then, directly refute the thesis that there cannot be agents all of whose goal-directed agency is unconscious. In this talk, I first sharpen the version of the thesis I will be focusing on, viz. one that invokes a broadly 'accessibility' notion of consciousness, and then note some lines of thought implicit or explicit in the philosophy of mind in its favour. I go on to observe that decorticated rats and cats, i.e. animals whose cerebral cortex has been removed, engage in what arguably should be recognised as goal-directed action. These animals thus leave us with one of two options: either reject the target thesis, or accept the view, currently controversial in neuroscience, that consciousness, in the relevant 'accessibility' sense, at least sometimes is realised entirely at subcortical levels.