Call for Abstracts (+ Best Meme Prize): First Annual Web Conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind

What is the mind, and how does it work? Centuries of philosophical and scientific investigation have shown that these questions are too big to be tackled once and for all with a single explanatory endeavor. The magnitude of this pursuit has necessitated a multidisciplinary approach: several disciplinary fields have tackled the investigation of some facets of the mind from their own perspectives, possibly enriching and complicating the very notion of mind in the process.

In this conference, we seek to bring together many of these perspectives to obtain a comprehensive and multi-scale landscape. In its first-ever web conference, the International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind (ISPSM) invites all philosophers working on any science of the mind (broadly construed) to submit an abstract for a paper or a symposium.

To facilitate participation of scholars from all around the globe, the conference will be spread over several days and time zones.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham, UK)
• Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh, US)
• Gualtiero Piccinini (St. Louis, US – presidential address)
• David Spurrett (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
• Jennifer Windt (Monash, Australia)

A non-exhaustive list of disciplines and topics include:

• Philosophy of psychology
• Philosophy of neuroscience
• Philosophy of artificial intelligence & robotics
• Philosophy of linguistics
• Philosophy of (cognitive) anthropology
• Philosophy of ethology
• Philosophy of biology
• Philosophy of psychiatry
• Philosophy of social sciences
• 4E cognition

Dates

• For abstract submission: May 21st
• Acceptance notification: July 30th
• Conference:
• Fri 24 & Sat 25 November
• Fri 1 & Sat 2 December

Information for submission

Abstracts for papers (about 30 minutes each including Q&A) should be anonymized PDFs between 500 and 1000 words, excluding references and 3-5 keywords. A separate title page reporting the speaker(s)' name, affiliation, and email address should be attached.

Abstracts for symposia (2 hours including Q&A, maximum 5 papers) should be between 1500 and 2000 words, excluding references and 3-5 keywords. Unlike papers, they should not be anonymized: speakers' affiliations and contacts should be included in the main text.

Both kinds of abstracts should be submitted at [email protected] by May 21th.

Venue and fee

The conference will be hosted by Cisco WebEx. Being a fully online conference, no fee is required.

Best meme prize

Many scientific societies have prizes for the best paper. As an online-based society, we instead launch a contest for the best graphic meme regarding the philosophy of the sciences of the mind. According to Collins Dictionary, "A meme is something such as a video, picture, or phrase that a lot of people send to each other on the internet." In this contest, we are interested in memes formed by static images + text.

The contest is open to all those who submit a paper or a symposium at the conference: to participate, simply add up to a .GIF or .JPEG file entitled "ISPSM2023 Best Meme Contest." Memes should aim to elicit a laugh and then a thought (similarly to the Ig Nobel prize) and should abide by the ISPSM code of conduct. The winning meme will be hosted on the society's homepage and social media. The winner will be selected by the Program Committee.

Program Chairs:

Fabrizio Calzavarini (University of Turin)

Marco Viola (Roma 3 University)

Program committee (ISPSM Council members)

Gualtiero Piccinini (University of Missouri, St. Louis)

Inês Hipólito (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Liza Skidelsky (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

Don Ross (University College Cork / University of Cape Town)

Krushil Watene (University of Auckland)

Nir Fresco (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)

Nicole Rust (University of Pennsylvania)

Katsunori Miyahara (Hokkaido University)

Jackie Sullivan (Western University)

Contacts: [email protected], [email protected]