Does Philosophy Need Cognitive Science? The Case of Concepts, Tadeusz Ciecierski

The lecture “Does Philosophy Need Cognitive Science? The Case of Concepts” of Tadeusz Ciecierski delivered during the conference “Explaining the Mind. Perspectives on Explanation in Cognitive Science”.

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind from the perspectives of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and anthropology. Due to its comprehensiveness and the possible impact of its results, it is perhaps one of the fastest developing sciences today. On the other hand, there is still no agreement as to how to unify the various outlooks of particular disciplines which constitute cognitive science. Different and often incompatible proposals have been put forth to resolve this issue.

The goal of the conference will be to consider the methods of explaining mental phenomena, in particular in relation to normative abilities (morality, language, rule-following), as well as the limits of such explanations and their philosophical presuppositions and consequences. The speakers include philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists.

The conference Explaining the Mind. Perspectives on Explanation in Cognitive Science is a part of the Copernicus Center's for Interdisciplinary Studies research project The Limits of Scientific Explanation, which is financed through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The conference will be the summing-up event of the project