Language, Languages and Post-Cognitivism

The CLAVeS Research Center (www.unive.it/claves, English version www.unive.it/claves-eng) is pleased to announce that the 1st “Language, Languages, and Post-Cognitivism” conference will be held at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy, on Thursday 14th and Friday 15th July 2022.

What is “a language"? Could languages possibly be a natural kind? Are languages relevant for our day-to-day (inter)actions in the world, and how? How to rethink language altogether under the new sciences of the mind? Can the linguistics of languages be integrated with, e.g., ecological-enactive paradigms? How to overcome the difficulties of explaining language under a non-mechanistic view of the mind and still be able to account for patterns of regularities? How is the empirical study of linguistic relativity changing nowadays? And how can philosophical reflection inform such studies? Are notions like that of “languaging” capable of taking into account linguistic diversity and its effects? Should the very notion of “language” be radically rethought, in favor of wider models of human interaction? How is cognitive psychology to address the challenges of ecological validity in the empirical study of language? Moreover, is there a way in which literary works of fiction that are built around the difference of languages can enter this debate? Can they shed a different – but needed – kind of light on our understanding of linguistic diversity beyond the cognitive?

The conference, organized by CLAVeS (Cognition, Language, Action and Sensibility Venetian Seminar) at Ca’ Foscari University, aims to provide to these and other questions about the ontology of languages, the definition of language, the role of linguistically mediated interaction in our lives. The aim is to gather philosophers, psychologists, linguists, and literary scholars to address a common theme that can and should be studied in an ever-growing strict collaboration between complementary disciplinary approaches.

Confirmed invited speakers include (in alphabetical order):

-        Panos Athanasopoulos (Lancaster)

-        Anna Borghi (Rome Sapienza)

-        Stephen J. Cowley (Southern Denmark)

-        Beatrice Occhini (IISF Naples)

-        Alfredo Paternoster (Bergamo)

-        Savina Raynaud (Catholic University of Milan)

-        more TBA

Abstracts must be sent via e-mail, in PDF or equivalent format, BOTH to llpc.venice@gmail.com AND filippo.batisti@unive.it. They should be between 400 and 800 words long, including a mandatory list of references (at least 5). Abstracts need not be anonymized. Authors are encouraged to state in their e-mail, along with their affiliation, whether they belong to a underrepresented group. Authors should also state whether they are PhD/MA students.

The language of the conference will be English. We support the Barcelona Principles for a Globally Inclusive Philosophy, meaning that abstracts will not be evaluated on their conformity to standardized varieties of native English, but rather on their intrinsic quality, relevance to the conference, and overall intelligibility.

Selected abstracts will get a presentation + discussion slot of 20+10 minutes.

Submissions must be sent before April 30th, 2022 at 23.59 UTC+2 (Rome time).

Acceptance will be communicated in early May.

There will be no registration fee for accepted speakers, although they will have to pay for their own accommodation, meals, and travel.