CFP: Agency and Intentions in Language 4

Agency and Intentions in Language 4 (AIL4)

Fourth Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop

Harvey Mudd College

January 10–12, 2024 (virtual)

The fourth annual Agency and Intentions in Language workshop (AIL4) will bring together scholars in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology interested in questions related to agency and intentions, broadly construed. Please consider submitting your work (details below), or attending the workshop, to advance the scholarly understanding of ideas central to multiple academic disciplines.

Our sense of agency and ability to distinguish between intentional and accidental actions are fundamental for social interaction. They allow us to plan and perform joint actions and assign responsibility for our own actions and those of others. Research on the nature of agency and intentions has been very fruitful over the last few decades in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. However, interdisciplinary discussion has rarely taken place.

Invited speakers:

- Bridget Copley (CNRS/Paris 8)

- John Schwenkler (Florida State University)

- Mikayla Kelley (University of Chicago)

- Robert Truswell (University of Edinburgh)

On the linguistic side, we welcome submissions examining any grammatical phenomena sensitive to the degree of agency or interpretation of an action as intentional versus accidental, such as controller choice, subjunctive obviation, licensing of polarity items, aspect choice in Slavic, case marking in ergative split languages and ‘out-of-control’ morphology. Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following: ways in which natural languages manifest different degrees of agency or the distinction between intentional and accidental actions (morphological marking, syntactic structures, semantic denotations of verbs and adverbials, pragmatic and contextual differences); connections between agency, intentions, and event structure; relations between agency, intentions, and causation.

On the side of philosophy, we welcome submissions addressing any aspect related to philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, the nature of agency, intentions, and acting intentionally. Both theoretical and empirical research are welcome as they contribute to debates on various theories of action, free will, moral responsibility, nature of reasons, and practical rationality.

On the side of psychology, we welcome submissions that deal with agency, intentions, moral responsibility, and other related topics, broadly construed. Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following: issues in developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, clinical psychology (the sense of agency in individuals with schizophrenia, OCD, etc.), and adults' perception of agency and responsibility.

Submissions:

Anonymous abstracts, not exceeding 2 pages single-spaced (including references and examples), with font no less than 11 Times New Roman, and 2 cm margins (or .8 inch margins), should be uploaded to the AIL4 EasyChair site here: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ail4. We expect to notify authors of their acceptance by December 16, 2023. Presentations will be allotted 30-minute slots with 15 minutes for Q&A. Additionally, there will be opportunities for some submitters to present their work in a poster session.

Important dates:

- Submission deadline: November 20, 2023

- Notification of acceptance: December 16, 2023

- Workshop: January 10–12, 2024 (9h–13h New York time; 15h–19h Berlin time)

Contact:

- Kyle Thompson (Harvey Mudd College): email [email protected] with workshop questions

- Julie Goncharov (University of Göttingen): email [email protected] with workshop questions

Find more details and workshop registration for AIL4 at https://ail-workshop.github.io/AIL4-Workshop/index.html

What did it take for Wittgenstein to screw in a light bulb?

A linguistic turn.