Chris Viger: Brains and Persons

Chris Viger (University of Western Ontario, Rotman Institute of Philosophy)

Abstract: Is increasing knowledge of how our brains cause behaviour undermining the very conception of freedom that moral and legal responsibilities presuppose? Is our sense of ourselves as persons under assault from science? Must we rethink criminal responsibility? I present contemporary philosophical views of free will and question how they square with neuroscience.

Speaker profile: Chris Viger began his academic training in mathematics and logic and taught mathematics for three years at the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific. He began retraining in philosophy at Carleton University, supervised by Andrew Brook, and then completed his PhD at McGill University, supervised by Paul Pietroski. After graduating, Chris was a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University working with Daniel Dennett, a visiting professor at Dalhousie University, a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow, and a visiting fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center and Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, before joining the faculty at Western. In 2008, he was awarded the Marilyn Robinson Teaching Award for pre-tenured faculty at Western and is currently the assistant department chair and the undergraduate chair (2010-14) and the Rotman Faculty Fellow in Philosophy and Neuroscience (2012-14). He works in philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science, with his research focused on the relation between language and thought.

This is the third lecture in a four-part series held at the Landon Branch Public Library, co-sponsored by the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, The Department of Philosophy at Western University, and the London Public Library. For details on the other library talks, please see: http://www.rotman.uwo.ca/events/the-brain-boom/