1 Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (ZÜF)
2 Department of Contemporary History
3 Last Call for Application
(application deadline January 31)
4 VISU 2002: MIND AND COMPUTATION
Vienna, University Campus, July 15-26, 2002
A two-week high-level summer course on questions about the relation between
mind, brain and computation from a historical and epistemological point of
view, with a special focus on quantum physics.
Main Lecturers:
Brian McLaughlin (Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA)
Michael Hagner (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin,
Germany)
Assistant Lecturers:
Güven Güzeldere (Duke University, Durham, USA)
Paul Ziche (Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Munich, Germany)
Guest Lecturer:
Anton Zeilinger (Department of Experimental Physics, University of Vienna,
Austria)
Since the nineteenth century, experimental, clinical and anatomical studies
of the brain have vastly determined the brain as an organ, in which various
psychological qualities are located in different regions. This has resulted
in a cerebral topography of man that seeks to decipher man beyond the mind-
matter dualism. Thought in itself, perceptions and language, previously
issues of philosophy, have now become an object of the life sciences. At
the same time, however, models of cognition based on the language of
thought have become crucial for the philosophy of mind.
Around the middle of the twentieth century, the brain became conceptualized
as a computer, and this led to numerous fruitful research enterprises. More
recently, however, the equation between brain and computer has been
challenged. One aim of this Summer University is to discuss various shifts
in the relation between mind, brain and computation from historical and
epistemological points of view. Moreover, the Summer University will focus
on the relation between physiological and mental processes, for example the
relation between low-level vision accounts of color perception and their
interaction with theories of visual consciousness.
Topics will include:
- The architecture of the mind: the classicism/connectionism debate.
- The history of the cerebral localization of the mind.
- Minds and machines in the age of cybernetics.
- Metaphors for the brain and its activity.
- Reverse optics and the study of color consciousness.
- Single cells and cerebral architectures: functional units of the brain in
historical perspective.
- Information, observation and consciousness in quantum physics.
International Program Committee
Martin Carrier (Bielefeld), Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara (Florence), Maria
Carla Galavotti (Bologna), Malachi Hacohen (Duke University,
Durham/Raleigh), Rudolf Haller (Graz), Rainer Hegselmann (Bayreuth),
Michael Heidelberger (Tübingen), Elisabeth Leinfellner (Vienna), James G.
Lennox (Pittsburgh), Paolo Mancosu (Berkeley), Paolo Parrini (Florence),
Friedrich Stadler (Vienna), Roger Stuewer (Minneapolis), Thomas Uebel
(Manchester), Jan Wole?ski (Cracow), Anton Zeilinger (Vienna)
Michael Stöltzner (Secretary of the Program Committee, Vienna)
The main Lecturers
Michael Hagner is Senior Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History
of Science in Berlin. His research interests include the history of the
neurosciences, the history of experimentation, and the relation between
history of science and cultural history.
Hagner is the author of Homo cerebralis. Die Lokalisation der geistigen
Eigenschaften und das moderne Verständnis vom Menschen (1997, English
translation in preparation) and has edited Der "falsche" Körper. Beiträge
zu einer Geschichte der Monstrositäten (1995) and Ecce cortex. Beiträge zur
Geschichte des modernen Gehirns (1999). Most recently, he has edited
Ansichten der Wissenschaftsgeschichte (2001)
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Brian McLaughlin is Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA,
where he has taught since 1995.His research is in the fields of cognitive
science, philosophy of mind and analytic philosophy.
McLaughlin is co-editor of Actions and Events: Perspectives on the
Philosophy of Donald Davidson (1985), Perspectives on Self-Deception
(1988), and editor of Dretske and His Critics (1991). He has published
many articles in the forementioned areas of research.
He has held several visiting professorships in the United States and
Germany.
http://www.philosophy.rutgers.edu/
Güven Güzeldere is Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Philosophy at
Duke University, Durham, USA. His research focuses on the conceptual
foundations of psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience, and
artificial intelligence.
Selected Publications:
A Brief History of Consciousness. Oxford University Press, in preparation.
The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates. Co-edited with Ned
Block and Owen Flanagan. MIT Press, 1997.
The Nature and Function of Consciousness: Lessons from Blindsight (with O.
Flanagan and V. Hardcastle) . The Cognitive Neurosciences, Vol. II. M.
Gazzaniga, ed., MIT Press, in press.
The Many Faces of Consciousness: A Field Guide. The Nature of
Consciousness, 1997.
Paul Ziche works at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
(Schelling-Comission), Munich, Germany, where he participates in the
edition of the works of F.W.J. Schelling. His research includes questions
concerning the relationship between philosophy and the sciences, the
history of science and in particular of psychology from the 18th to the
20th century.
Among his publications is an edition of texts on the psychology of
introspection (Introspektion. Texte zur Selbstwahrnehmung des Ichs, 1999)
and a volume on Anthropology and empirical psychology around 1800 (2001,
together with G. Eckardt, M. John and T. van Zantwijk).
http://www.badw.de/englweb/raeaka.htm
Guest Lecturer
Anton Zeilinger is Professor and Director of the Institute of Experimental
Physics at the University of Vienna. He and his group - one of the world's
leading experimental quantum physics research groups - have realized in
experiment many fundamental predictions of quantum theory. Among his many
awards and prizes are membership in the German order Pour le Mérite and the
Senior Humboldt Fellow Prize.
Zeilinger is author and editor of seminal books and many articles on
quantum physics, quantum information and quantum cryptography.
http://www.quantum.univie.ac.at/zeilinger/
4.1 For further information see: http://ivc.philo.at/VISU/
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