Thought Sharing in Action (TSA) approaches communication and indexicality from fresh naturalistic perspectives.
Project carried out with a 2025 Leonardo Grant for Scientific Research and Cultural Creation from the BBVA Foundation, based at the Department of Humanities, Pompeu Fabra University.
https://www.upf.edu/web/thought-sharing-in-action/tsa-colloquium-february-26th
Loading...
SALZBURG WORKSHOP ON INNER SPEECH: WHAT IS IT AND WHAT IS IT FOR?
The Salzburg Workshop on Inner Speech will take place from Thursday, May 21, through Saturday, May 23, 2026, on the campus of the University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
The workshop will feature speakers and posters from philosophy, psychology, cognitive science and linguistics. They will address various questions concerning the nature of the silent use of spoken language in thought.
There will presentations from the following speakers:
Dorit Bar-On, University of Connecticut, Philosophy,
Daphne Bernués, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Philosophy,
Guy Dove, University of Louisville, Philosophy,
Daniel Gregory, University of Valencia, Philosophy
Nikola Kompa, Universität Osnabrück, Philosophy,
Johanne Nedergaard, University of Copenhagen, Cognitive Science,
Shivam Patel, Florida State University, Philosophy,
Hannes Rakoczy, Universität Göttingen, Psychology,
Daniel Stoljar, Australian National University, Philosophy,
Martina Wiltschko, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Linguistics,
Bo Yao, Lancaster University, Cognitive Neuroscience,
In addition, there will be poster presentations from the following doctoral candidates:
Mathijs Geurts, University of Salzburg, Philosophy,
Jonida Kodra, University of Osnabrück, Philosophy,
Daniel Müller, Universtiy of Osnabrück, Philosophy,
Viktoria Groiß, University of Vienna, Linguistics,
Xiaomeng Sun, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Linguistics,
There will be no contributed papers, but all lectures and the poster session will be free and open to the public. Visitors are welcome to attend. All talks will be held in person. This will not be an on-line or hybrid event. If you would like to attend the workshop, please send an email to Prof. Christopher Gauker (christoph…@plus.ac.at) before April 23. He will send you more information about the schedule and campus locations when the information becomes available.
This event is part of a joint project, “How can we think in a language?”, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (Christopher Gauker PI, I 6219-G) and the German DFG (Nikola Kompa PI). Additional support is provided by the Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie (GAP).
We are excited to announce that Ashley Shaw is going to visit ECOM in Fall 2024!
Ashley Shaw is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. He received his PhD from UCL in 2019. He works in the Philosophy of Mind and Action; in particular, on the nature of desire, rational agency, reasons for action, and how they are related. He is currently working on a book on the nature of desire in rational agents, as well as related projects on need, self-control, and self-knowledge of desire.
We are excited to announce that Mark Jary is going to visit ECOM in Fall 2024!
Mark Jary is currently a María Zambrano Research Fellow at the Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies in the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). He is also Emeritus Professor in Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Roehampton (London, UK), where he taught Linguistics and Philosophy of Language for over 20 years. He received his PhD in Linguistics from University College London and has written extensively on subjects relating to linguistic mood, speech acts and associated topics. As well as articles in journals such as Mind and Language and Linguistics and Philosophy, he has published three books: Assertion (Palgrave, 2010), Imperatives (CUP, 2014 – co-authored with Mikhail Kissine) and Nothing is Said (OUP, 2022).
A paper on transformative rationality by Michael Hegarty has been accepted for publication in Erkenntnis!
Transformative Rationality and the Problem of ‘Creeping Rationalism’
According to ‘transformative’ theories of rationality, human rational mental capacities cannot be completely explained using the theories and concepts of natural science because rational mental states stand to one another in irreducibly normative relations of justification. Certain transformative theorists propose that a capacity counts as rational if a ‘Why?’ question is applicable to some exercises of that capacity. But ‘Why?’ questions are in principle applicable to any intentional action, like walking over there, or deliberately holding one’s breath. Transformative rationality therefore seems to entail that capacities for walking or breathing are rational and hence escape complete scientific explanation. Yet it would be surprising to learn that physiology, medicine, and biology could not completely explain such capacities. Given the ‘Why?’ question criterion for a rational capacity, there is a danger of ‘rationality’ creeping into capacities that (one might think) should submit to scientific explanation, and even into sub-individual processes. This is the ‘Problem of ‘Creeping Rationalism’’. After introducing the problem, I consider potential ways a transformative theorist could try to avoid the problem by limiting the scope of what capacities are ‘transformed’ by rationality. I argue that initially promising proposals to do this are either circular or are incompatible with core commitments of the theory.
Congratulations, Michael!
Our research group manager Utku presented his paper “Islands of Rationality and Push-mi Pull-yu Representations Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC27) conference.
The GoodAttention project is pleased to announce a workshop on the Functions of Attention, 16-17 February, 2024, to be held in Oslo, Norway. Please find details on the workshop and a call for abstracts below. The CFA can also be found on the GoodAttention webpage and on philevents.
Attention has long been a major research focus in cognitive science. While there is a wealth of empirical research on attention, some foundational questions remain unsettled. Recent philosophical work has made progress by advancing accounts of the nature of attention. Philosophers have also recently been engaged with normative questions about attention, including moral, political, epistemic, and rational norms of attention, in connection with recent concerns about the ‘attention economy’ and manipulation of attention in our digital environments.
The goal of this workshop is to contribute to a better understanding of attention by investigating another set of foundational questions, concerning the functions and natural norms of attention. Attention is involved in the operation of various other mental capacities—but how does attention contribute to the functioning of other capacities, and what is the function of attention itself? Prioritizing questions about attentions function can help in developing accounts of its nature; for to understand what a thing is, we will want to know what it does, or what it is for. In addition, identifying the function(s) of attention will enable us to say what it is for attention to function well or poorly as such, or to provide natural norms for attention. This has the potential to ground explanations of what is ‘disordered’ about attention, if anything is, in conditions such as ADHD and addiction. Moreover, considering the function of attention can contribute to an understanding of its natural origins, by identifying the effects that attentional mechanisms have had in evolutionary history for which attention may have been selected.
This workshop will bring together researchers interested in a variety of areas to discuss the functions of attention. The workshop will have a mix of invited and contributed presentations. We invite submissions of abstracts that speak to some aspect of the workshop themes, broadly understood.
Call for Abstracts
We invite submissions of abstracts of no more than 500 words (excluding notes and references), broadly connected to the workshop themes. Presentations will be 30-35 minutes, with 15-20 minutes Q+A, for 50 minutes total.
Abstracts should be prepared for anonymous review. Please remove all identifying information from the abstract, and include a separate title page with presentation title, name, contact email, and institutional affiliation.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to,
Please submit abstracts as a word or pdf document to linehth@student.sv.uio.no with subject line “Function of Attention Workshop Submission”.
Deadline for submission: 15 October, 2023.
Notification of acceptance: 15 November, 2023.
We would prefer that those giving presentations attend the workshop in person, but an option for remote participation will also be available. Some funds are available to cover accommodation (but not flights) during the workshop for accepted papers. Please contact linehth@student.sv.uio.no or d.d.johnson@ifikk.uio.no for questions concerning travel arrangements.
If you are interested to participate remotely, please contact d.d.johnson@ifikk.uio.no or linehth@student.sv.uio.no for a zoom link.
This workshop is funded by the GoodAttention project (ERC Consolidator Grant 2020, grant agreement no. 101003208)
ECOM’s Research Group manager, Aliyar, will present his paper ‘Descriptions, Representations, and Prepositional Attitudes in Animals’ at New Mexico-Texas Philosophical Society’s 73rd Annual Meeting in El Paso, Texas.
Our research group manager Aliyar will present his paper ‘Third-Person to First-Person: Understanding Others’ Mental States’ at First-Person Science of Consciousness (Witten/Germany) between May 11 – 13, 2023.
Our member Nimra Arif will present her research at The Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2023. Congratulations Nimra!
Reload document 
Open in new tab