The Foundations of Representational Content

We are pleased to announce the conference “The Foundations of Representational Content,” which will take place at the University of Milan on the 4th and 5th of September 2023. 

Confirmed speakers: 

• Max Deutsch (University of Hong Kong)
• Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm University)
• Angela Mendelovici (University of Western Ontario)
• David Papineau (King’s College London)
• Adam Pautz (Brown University)
• Olivia Sultanescu (Concordia University)
• J Robert G Williams (University of Leeds)

Conference Topics:

The aim of the conference is to explore new directions in contemporary work on the determination of representational content in the philosophy of mind and language. The focus will be on the foundational issue of how mental representations come to have the meaning or content they do. 

In other words, the central questions of this event will concern the broader mystery of intentionality: how is it possible for thought, belief, and language to be about things? And how is it possible that they are about specific, determinate things? What links a representation and its object? How crucial is our understanding of misrepresentation to an adequate theory of content? How have advances in the natural sciences affected answers to the foundational question of representation? Is there hope for naturalistic approaches to representation? What is the role of the notion of function when representation is concerned? How does representational content relate to phenomenal character? 

Conference information:

The conference will be held in person. 

Details about the program of the conference will be updated and found on the conference's website, sites.unimi.it/representation.

If you have any questions, please contact the organizers at [email protected].