Flickers of Freedom

Free Will and Science in Padua

Andrea Lavazza has alerted me to what should be a great special session on free will and neuroscience coming up in Padua. It's a really nice town, if you feel like popping over... If you can't the event will be live streamed. Details below the  fold.

Grad Student Conference on Free Will and Responsibility at FSU

The Philosophy Graduate Student Association (PGSA) of Florida State University is now accepting submissions for their graduate conference on free will and moral responsibility.

The conference will take place at Florida State University on September 28 and 29, 2012. Keynote speakers will be:

• Robert H. Kane, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
• Alfred R. Mele, William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University

Those interested in submitting high quality papers related to free will and moral responsibility (including papers on the wider notion of agency) should email their submissions to fsupgsa@gmail.com. Papers should fulfill the following criteria:

• Prepared for blind review
• No more than 4,000 words
• Suitable for 25-minute presentation
• Preceded by an abstract of 150-250 words

Along with the paper, please also submit a cover page with the following information:

• Presenter’s name
• Institutional affiliation
• Contact information (email address or phone number)
• Title of paper
• Abstract of the paper
• Word count

The deadline for submissions is July 1. We will notify those whose papers have been accepted by August 12.

For questions or further information, please contact Kyle Fritz (kgf10@fsu.edu), Dan Miller (djm09@fsu.edu), or Robyn Waller (rar09h@fsu.edu).  

 

Intentions: Philosophical and Empirical Issues

Call for papers: Topoi conference and special issue 
Intentions: Philosophical and Empirical Issues 
Rome, Italy, 29-30 November 2012

We are proud to announce that the first Topoi Conference will be held in Rome in November 2012. This will be the first in a series of conferences, to be held every 2 years, sponsored by Topoi: An International Journal of Philosophy (http://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/11245).

In analogy with the journal format, each conference will focus on a specific theme (topos), and contributions presented to the conference will later appear in an issue of the journal dedicated to the same topic.

INVITED SPEAKERS 
Marcel Brass (Ghent) 
Cristiano Castelfranchi (Rome) 
Elisabeth Pacherie (Paris) 
Corrado Sinigaglia (Milan)

SUBMITTED PAPERS 
Submissions of unpublished papers are welcome on any topic relevant to the conference theme (see below). Submitted articles should be in English, not exceed 5.000 words in length (including references), and be prepared for blind reviewing. Only original papers (i.e., not published or submitted for publication elsewhere) will be considered, since the authors of accepted contributions will be invited to submit a revised longer version of their papers for a special issue of Topoi, edited by Markus Schlosser (Leiden) and Fabio Paglieri (Rome).

Submission of papers by e-mail to: Fabio Paglieri (fabio.paglieri@istc.cnr.it) 
Accepted file formats: .doc, .rtf., .odp, .pdf 
Deadline for submission (full papers): 31 August 2012

RATIONALE AND THEME 
Theorizing about human action has a long history in philosophy, and the nature of intention and intentional action has received a lot of attention in recent analytic philosophy. At the same time, intentional action has become an empirically studied phenomenon in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Many results obtained in these areas have been incorporated within the current philosophical debate, while at the same time scientists have often adopted in their experiments and models philosophical assumptions on the nature of intention and intentional action. As a result, the study of intentions is nowadays a thriving enterprise, where both conceptual and empirical issues are discussed in a dialogue across disciplines.

The Manipulation Argument Conference: Extended Deadline

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL 15
MARCH, 2012. 

This is a call for postgraduate respondents for an upcoming conference on
the Manipulation Argument.

The conference will be held in Budapest in early June 2012. Deadline for
applications: 15 March, 2012. Please find details below.

***

Conference Title: The Manipulation Argument
Place: Central European University (Budapest, Hungary)
Date: 7-9 June, 2012

Confirmed invited speakers:
- Ish Haji (University of Calgary)
- Michael McKenna (University of Arizona)
- Al Mele (Florida State University)
- Derk Pereboom (Cornell University)
- Paul Russell (University of British Columbia)

Organizers:    
- Michael McKenna & Andras Szigeti (Lund University/CEU)

Crowd-sourcing my SPA Remarks

At the annual International Free Will Conference (you know, the Pacific APA), the Society for the Philosophy of Agency is having its inaugural meeting. There’s going to be a panel discussion on the State of the Field, and I’m tasked with talking about free will. Among the things I’m supposed to be ready to talk about are the current central issues in debates about free will, interesting developments, and emerging topics over the next 5+ years.

For the talk, I thought about consulting my intuitions on the matters. However, I’ve been told that my intuitions are generally defective. So, I thought I should do some Serious Experimental work and just ask you, dear blog reader, what you think about these matters. I can’t promise that I will use your remarks in my talk, but I can’t promise that I won’t. I can promise that I won't run a regression analysis on the frequency of various remarks.

So I bleg of you: what do you think is Big Time in free will, what’s new and exciting to you, and what do you think will be Big Time in 5+ years? 

Problems of the Self at CEU

Central European University’s summer school (http://summer.ceu.hu/self-2012) invites applications from graduate students, junior faculty and researchers from all over the world. 

The course aims to present the state of the art in research on the self from philosophy, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, sociology, and cognitive anthropology. Themes revolve around the nature of the self, as revealed through self-consciousness, body perception, action and joint action, and its embedding in society and culture. Historical and developmental perspectives provide other angles on the self. The course presents a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary discussion on the self from multiple perspectives. It is directed at advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty working in philosophy, psychology, cognitive neuroscience and cognate disciplines.

Course Directors:
Natalie Sebanz, Cognitive Science Department, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary/Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Raboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands; Hong Yu Wong, Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Philosophy of Neuroscience Group, University of Tubingen, Germany

Faculty:
Peter Callero, Department of Sociology, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, USA; Guenther Knoblich, Department of Cognitive Science, CEU, Budapest, Hungary; Beatrice Longuenesse, Department of Philosophy, New York University, USA; Christopher A. B. Peacocke, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York, USA; Phillipe Rochat, Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, USA; Paul Snowdon, Department of Philosophy, University College London, UK; Manos Tsakiris, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; 

Guest Speakers:
Maurice Bloch, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics, UK; Gyorgy Gergely, Department of Cognitive Science/Cognitive Development Centre, CEU, Budapest, Hungary

The application deadline is February 15, 2012 (late applications will be reviewed until all course places have been filled).

Financial aid is available.

Metaphysical Mayhem!

Metaphysical Mayhem is back! Rutgers University will be hosting a 5-day summer school for graduate students May 14-18, 2012. John Hawthorne, Katherine Hawley,  Ted Sider, Jonathan Schaffer, and Dean Zimmerman will lead the seminars on a variety of topics in metaphysics, including: natural properties, composition as identity, grounding, metaphysical explanation, and stuff like that...

For more information, see:

http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/mbenton/mayhem.html

APA Commentary

If anyone is interested in commenting on a paper on blame at the 2012 Pacific APA, contact me offlist. Can't be on the main program already!

CEU Conference: The Manipulation Argument

This a call for postgraduate respondents for an upcoming conference on the Manipulation Argument.

The conference will be held in Budapest in early June 2012. Deadline for applications: 29 February, 2012. Please find details below.

***

Conference Title: The Manipulation Argument
Place: Central European University (Budapest, Hungary)
Date: 7-9 June, 2012

Confirmed invited speakers:
- Ish Haji (University of Calgary)
- Michael McKenna (University of Arizona)
- Al Mele (Florida State University)
- Derk Pereboom (Cornell University)
- Paul Russell (University of British Columbia)

Organizers:    
- Michael McKenna & Andras Szigeti (Lund University/CEU)

The event forms part of 'What it is to be human?' project (http://humanproject.ceu.hu/) hosted by the Philosophy Department of Central European University (http://philosophy.ceu.hu/) and funded by the National Development Agency/MAG Zrt.

NEH Institute in X-Phi, Summer 2012

Ron Mallon asked me to post the following announcement:

Shaun Nichols and I are happy to be reprising the NEH Summer Institute in Experimental Philosophy this July in Tucson.  Details are here: 

 

http://epi.arizona.edu/ 

 

Applications are due March 1st.  

 

Institutes are designed for teachers of American undergraduate students.  Because of recent changes to the program, now up to three spaces may be awarded to graduate students in the humanities.

 

We hope you'll consider applying!