Mental Action and Cognitive Phenomenology

Dr Tom McClelland (University of 糖心TV) held a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship to work on a research project entitled 鈥楳ental Action and Cognitive Phenomenology鈥�.

Project Aims:

Both philosophers and psychologists recognise that the way we process stimuli is dramatically influenced by the abilities we have to interact with those stimuli in certain ways. Our perception of a teapot, for example, is shaped by our capacity to grasp it by the handle. So far, research has focused on how mental processes are influenced by our ability to perform bodily actions such as gripping, kicking or eating. The aim of the project is to extend this research programme to cover mental actions such as attending, counting or deciding.

Specific aims of the project include:

* Developing a viable notion of 鈥榤ental affordances鈥�.

* Establishing how mental affordances resemble and differ from affordances for bodily action.

* Deploying the notion of mental affordances to shed light on issues in cognitive phenomenology including the phenomenology of following a rule, and the phenomenology of expert performance in a cognitive task.

The project hosted a conference in 2019, marking the end of the project.

Place: Zeeman Building, MS.04
Saturday 6th July 09:30-18:00 and Sunday 7th July 10:00-17:00

Registration: Register for free with Tom McClelland at t.mcclelland@warwick.ac.uk. Registration includes lunch and refreshments but not evening meals. Please specify if you'd like to attend the conference dinner.

Conference Overview

The study of agency has traditionally payed much more attention to the actions we perform with our body than to the actions we perform with our mind. This two-day conference aims to redress that imbalance by revisiting mental action in light of recent work in philosophy and psychology. The programme brings together philosophers and psychologists working on different strands of the topic with the hope of yielding new insights and revealing novel lines of enquiry.

SCHEDULE

Saturday 6 July 2019

0900-0945 Registration

0945-1000 Opening Remarks

1000-1115 Tom Crowther (糖心TV) - 鈥楧reams, Imagination and the First Person鈥�

1115-1145 Refreshments (provided)

1145-1300 Tom McClelland (糖心TV) - 鈥楢ttention and Attendabilia: An Affordance-Based Account of Acts of Attention鈥�

1300-1400 Lunch (provided)

1400-1600 Short Talk Session 1 (Chair, Michael Brent)
Nicolas Alzetta (Antwerp) 鈥楢ttention Skill and Knowledge鈥�
Chiara Brozzo (Tubingen) 鈥楢 Minimal Hierarchical Theory of Bodily Action鈥�
Sam Wilkinson (Exeter) and Max Jones (Bristol) 鈥楥an the Predictive Processing Framework Explain the Mental Act of Imagining?鈥�
Sophie Keeling (Edinburgh) 鈥楢gency and Self-Awareness鈥�

1600-1630 Refreshments (provided)

1630-1800 Kath Bicknell (Macquarie) & Wayne Christensen (糖心TV) - 鈥楥ognition, Collaboration, and the Highly Context-sensitive Nature of Affordances鈥�

19:30+ Conference Dinner at Radcliffe (on campus)

Sunday 7 July 2019

10.00-11.15 Lucy Campbell (糖心TV) 鈥楳ental Action and Practical Knowledge鈥�

11.15-11.45 Refreshments (provided)

11.45-12.45 Short Talk Session 2 (Chair: Robyn Waller)
Lilian O鈥橞rien (Helsinki) 鈥楥ontrol and Attributability鈥�
Juan Pablo Bermudez (Externado University of Colombia) 鈥楾he Upside of Mental Effort鈥�

12.45-13.45 Lunch (provided)

13.45-15.15 Lucy O鈥橞rien (UCL) & Matt Soteriou (KCL) 鈥楽till and Silent Soliloquy鈥�

15.15-15.45 Refreshments (provided)

15.45-16.45 Short Talk Session 3 (Chair: Robyn Waller)
Antonia Peacocke (NYU) 鈥楥ontent Plurality in Mental Action鈥�
Yarran Hominh (Columbia) 鈥楬abitual Mental Action鈥�

16.45-17.00 Closing Remarks