Philosophy of Mind & Neuroscience
Alfonso Caramazza: Levels of Representation in the Mind/Brain: What Good Are Sensory-Motor Representations?
ABSTRACT In this talk, Dr. Caramazza examines the long debated relationship between the sensorimotor systems and thought. There is a major divide between scientists who reduce sensorimotor representations, and those who consider concepts as too abstract or symbolic for simple reduction to sensorimotor patterns. He will discuss these views through the analysis of various phenomena [...]
William Bechtel: Investigating Neural Representations: The Tale of Place Cells
ABSTRACT While neuroscientists often characterize brain activity as representational, many philosophers have construed this as just a theorist’s gloss on the mechanism. Moreover, philosophical discussions commonly treat neuroscience accounts as finished accounts, not as works in progress. I adopt a different perspective, considering how characterizations of neural activity as representational contributes to the development of [...]
Howard Eichenbaum: The Hippocampus in Space and Time
ABSTRACT In humans, hippocampal function is generally recognized as supporting episodic memory, which is characterized by the organization of experience over time, whereas in rats, many believe that the hippocampus creates maps of the environment and supports spatial navigation. How do we reconcile the episodic memory and spatial mapping views of hippocampal function? Here I [...]
2014 PhilMiLCog Graduate Conference
PhilMiLCog is a three-day graduate conference with a broad and interdisciplinary scope. The conference, now in its 12th year, is recognized as one of the top philosophy graduate conferences in North America, synthesizing research from the Philosophy of Mind, Language, and Cognitive science, including psychology, linguistics, evolution, and computer science. PhilMiLCog provides an opportunity for [...]
Peter Godfrey-Smith: Memory as Communication
ABSTRACT Memory can be seen as communication between stages – communication between an earlier and a later self. This idea only becomes more than a loose analogy, though, if there is a theory of communication that can add something substantial to our understanding of memory. I’ll argue that recent models of communication, developed for quite [...]
Pierre Jacob: What is So Special About Human Social Cognition?
ABSTRACT I will argue for a three-tiered answer to the question. (1) Only humans are able to track the contents of others’ false beliefs. (2) Only humans are able to engage in ostensive cooperative communicative actions. Since I assume that not all, but much, of the answer to the question is likely to come from [...]
2015 PhilMiLCog Graduate Student Conference
PhilMiLCog is a three-day graduate conference with a broad and interdisciplinary scope. The conference, now in its 13th year, is recognized as one of the top philosophy graduate conferences in North America, synthesizing research from the Philosophy of Mind, Language, and Cognitive science, including psychology, linguistics, evolution, and computer science. PhilMiLCog provides an opportunity for [...]
David Chalmers: Spatial Experience and Virtual Reality
Room 100 - Physics and Astronomy Building Physics and Astronomy Building, Western University, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT Do virtual reality devices such as the Oculus Rift produce the illusion of an external reality? Or do they produce non-illusory experiences of a virtual reality? I address this question by starting with an analogous question about mirrors. When one looks in a mirror, does one undergo the illusion that there is someone on [...]
Hugo Critchley: Interoception, Emotion and Self: How the Heart Gates Feelings and Perceptions
Room 1145 - Stevenson Hall Stevenson Hall, Room 1145, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT Information concerning the internal state of the body is arguably the basis for emotional feelings and may serve as the primary reference for the development of self-representation underpinning many aspects of consciousness. The combination of functional and structural neuroimaging, autonomic psychophysiology and patient studies has provided valuable insight into the brain mechanisms though which [...]
Carl Craver: Memory, Time and Agency
Room 100 - Physics and Astronomy Building Physics and Astronomy Building, Western University, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT Individuals with episodic amnesia and deficits in episodic future projection are frequently described as trapped in an eternal present or bound to stimuli in the here and now. I argue that individuals with medial temporal lobe damage and deficits in these capacities nonetheless retain much of their orientation in time and much of their [...]
Carl Craver: Ontic Basis of Network Explanation
Room 1145 - Stevenson Hall Stevenson Hall, Room 1145, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT Network models are increasingly used across the sciences to describe complex relations among a number of individual actors. Philosophers enamored of this modeling approach claim to find in it evidence for non-causal, distinctively mathematical, or non-decompositional explanations. Using examples from contemporary resting state fMRI research, I show that this philosophical work in general misunderstands [...]
Rotman 2016 Annual Conference: Rethinking the Taxonomy of Psychology
Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre 551 Windermere Road, London, Ontario, CanadaWORKSHOP DESCRIPTION This workshop focused on an emerging research project in the cognitive neurosciences wherein the traditional scientific approach of using psychological investigations to enhance our understanding of the brain has been flipped, and instead scientists are using neuroscientific investigations to challenge and change the conceptual foundations of psychology. Specifically, it has become possible, using [...]
2016 PhilMiLCog Graduate Student Conference
PhilMiLCog is a three-day graduate conference with a broad and interdisciplinary scope. The conference, now in its 14th year, is recognized as one of the top philosophy graduate conferences in North America, synthesizing research from the Philosophy of Mind, Language, and Cognitive science, including psychology, linguistics, evolution, and computer science. PhilMiLCog provides an opportunity for [...]
Catherine Stinson: The Body in ‘Mental Illness’
Martha Bishop Community Room - Landon Library 167 Wortley Road, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT If mental and physical are separate domains, “mental illness” should not involve the body. But bodily symptoms are common among people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. Examples are altered perceptions of hot and cold, and hallucinations of touch. Overlooking the body may contribute to the stigma of psychiatric diagnosis. SPEAKER PROFILE Catherine Stinson is a [...]
Jackie Sullivan: Understanding Mental Illness: Will a Single Explanatory Model Do?
Martha Bishop Community Room - Landon Library 167 Wortley Road, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT The medical model of mental illness is often characterized as assuming that mental illness is a disorder of the brain. In contrast, the biopsychosocial model allows for the possibility that mental illness is caused by a combination of biological, psychological and environmental causes. Which model is superior for understanding, explaining and treating mental illness? [...]
Chris Viger: Brains and Persons
Martha Bishop Community Room - Landon Library 167 Wortley Road, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT Is increasing knowledge of how our brains cause behaviour undermining the very conception of freedom that moral and legal responsibilities presuppose? Is our sense of ourselves as persons under assault from science? Must we rethink criminal responsibility? I present contemporary philosophical views of free will and question how they square with neuroscience. SPEAKER PROFILE [...]
Louis Charland: Why Neuroscience Needs “Passion”
Martha Bishop Community Room - Landon Library 167 Wortley Road, London, Ontario, CanadaABSTRACT After a brief review of the history of affective neuroscience and the theoretical status of emotion in contemporary neuroscience, it will be argued that present day neuroscience suffers from a serious theoretical limitation that is largely due to its focus on short-term observation and reliance on laboratory measurement technologies that restrict it to the [...]
The Social Impact of Medicalizing Psychiatry
Dr. David S.H. Chu International Student Centre International and Graduate Affairs Building, Western University, London, Ontario, CanadaWORKSHOP DESCRIPTION Psychiatry is increasingly being influenced by research in neuroscience and mainstream medicine. There is a push to reform psychiatry’s diagnostic categories to reflect increasing knowledge about the brain structures and neural mechanisms associated with psychopathology. Pharmaceutical treatments are quickly replacing talk therapies. Getting funding for psychiatric research increasingly requires a focus on cellular [...]
Hanna Pickard: Why Do Addicts Use? Getting Real about Drugs, Identity, and Adversity
Room 2020 - Social Science Centre Social Science Centre, Western University, London, Ontario, CanadaRead the interview with Hanna Pickard conducted during her visit to the Rotman Institute. ABSTRACT The mainstream view of addiction is that it is a neurobiological disease of compulsion. Yet the evidence is overwhelming that addicts retain choice and a degree of control over drug consumption. This talk explores the power of the neurobiological myth [...]
2017 PhilMiLCog Graduate Student Conference
Room 1145 - Stevenson Hall Stevenson Hall, Room 1145, London, Ontario, CanadaPhilMiLCog is a three-day graduate conference with a broad and interdisciplinary scope. The conference, now in its 15th year, is recognized as one of the top philosophy graduate conferences in North America, synthesizing research from the Philosophy of Mind, Language, and Cognitive Science, including psychology, linguistics, evolution, and computer science. PhilMiLCog provides an opportunity for graduate students with common interests from [...]