Persons as Animals: Understanding the Animal Bases of Agency, Perceptual Knowledge and Thought

Details:

We are delighted to announce a forthcoming conference organised by the ‘Persons as Animals’ project based at Leeds University.

The conference is linked to an AHRC Fellowship held by Professor Helen Steward, entitled ‘Persons as Animals: Understanding the Animal Bases of Agency, Perceptual Knowledge and Thought’. The project aims to investigate ways in which a proper understanding of human beings as animals might help in resolving a range of philosophical problems which have traditionally been considered with little or no reference to our animal nature – in particular, the free will problem, epistemological scepticism about the external world, and the question of meaning (how anything can come to stand for something else). The project is being carried out in collaboration with the new ‘Islands project’ at Chester Zoo.

Programme (abstracts available soon):

(Keynote) Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis):  ‘Social Interactions in Non-Human and Human Animals’

Léa Salje (University of Leeds): ‘Talking Our Way to Systematicity’

Rory Madden (University College, London): ‘Animal Self-Awareness’

Ali Boyle (University of Cambridge): ‘Mapping the Minds of Others’

Andrew Moss (Chester Zoo): ‘The Human Value of the Zoo: What do people get from being close to Zoo Animals?’

Helen Steward (University of Leeds): ‘Dis-contented Animals’

Denis Buehler (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México): ‘Guidance of Visual Attention: Animal Origins of Human Agency’

Matthew Ratcliffe (University of Vienna): 'Animal Certainty'

Filip Mattens (University of Leuven): ‘Touchy Animals: From the Skin We’re in to Human Dexterity’

Naomi Eilan: (University of Warwick): ‘On Being with Other Animals’