One of the impressive new areas of scientific interest is the science of the brain. New tools and new theoretical approaches have resulted in new insights into how humans get around in the world and understand themselves. But this new science has its roots in broadly philosophical investigations of the mind going back to the classic thinkers from the beginning of modernity. In this conference, we will juxtapose contemporary scientists working on the brain with historians of philosophy and science working on classic figures like Descartes, Hobbes, Locke and Cudworth, among others, to see how the new can illuminate the old, and the old the new.

Presentation

One of the impressive new areas of scientific interest is the science of the brain. New tools and new theoretical approaches have resulted in new insights into how humans get around in the world and understand themselves. But this new science has its roots in broadly philosophical investigations of the mind going back to the classic thinkers from the beginning of modernity. In this conference, we will juxtapose contemporary scientists working on the brain with historians of philosophy and science working on classic figures like Descartes, Hobbes, Locke and Cudworth, among others, to see how the new can illuminate the old, and the old the new.

Conference organized by Patrick Haggard (2016-2017 Paris IAS fellow), Daniel Garber and Giandomenico Iannetti (2017-2018 Paris IAS fellows)

Program

17 May

9:30 Descartes : que savons-nous de nos pensées ?

• Denis Kambouchner (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

10:30 Reflexivity and Salience: the basics of mind

• Giandomenico Iannetti (IEA de Paris / UCL)

11:30 Pause

12:00 Neurocognitive experiments with agency, freedom and choice

• Patrick Haggard (UCL)

13:00 - 14:15   Pause déjeuner

14:15 Hobbes and Spinoza: Involuntary Will, Minimal Consciousness, and the Mechanical Mind

• Daniel Garber (IEA de Paris / Princeton)

15:15 Pause

15:45 Setting the bar for conscious will

• Aaron Schurger (NeuroSpin / CEA-Saclay)

18 May

9:30 The Blindsight Project

• Petra Stoerig (Düsseldorf)

10:30 - Cudworth on Dreaming as a Test Case of Consciousness- Locke on the Continuity of Consciousness

• Martine Pecharman (CNRS / EHESS), Philippe Hamou (Paris Nanterre)

11:30 Pause

12:00 The functional importance (or impotence) of consciousness

• Colin Blakemore (Oxford)

13:00 - 14:30 Pause déjeuner

14:30 - Identité et mémoire: retour sur l’argument de Locke- Une archéologie de la conscience. Modèles philosophiques et scientifiques à l’âge des Lumières

• Michel Malherbe (Nantes), Mariafranca Spallanzani (Bologna)

15:30 Pause

16:00 A hundred years of consciousness

Galen Strawson (U. Texas at Austin)