Creatures and their Minds. Workshop for a Creature-Based Philosophy of Mind and Action

Call for registration (in-person or online)

Creatures and their Minds. Workshop for a Creature-Based Philosophy of Mind and Action

Thursday, May 22, 2025, University of Southampton

A dominant view in contemporary philosophy of mind and action is that mental states are internal particulars. That is, mental states are components of a creature – whether material or ghostlike. A creature-based philosophy of mind and action opposes this architecture-based philosophy of mind and action. According to a creature-based philosophy of mind and action, mental states are simply states of creatures. A number of significant consequences follow from this view. For example, first, mental causation, if there is such a thing, is not the causation of actions by (parts of) the brain or the mind. Second, dispositionalism about the mental is far more plausible than philosophers of mind typically assume.

Speakers:
Maria Alvarez, KCL
Brice Bantegnie, University of Southampton / UC Riverside
William Hornett, University of Cambridge
John Hyman, UCL
Andrea White, University of Leeds

Workshop program (British Summer Time / UTC +1): 9:30: introduction to the Workshop
9:45 – 11:05: John Hyman – “Action, Integration, and Two-Way Powers.”
11:05 – 11:20 coffee break
11:20 – 12:40: Andrea White – “Non-Relational Theories of Causation and Action Explanation”
12:40 – 13:40 lunch
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13:40 – 15:00: Brice Bantegnie – “On the Analogy between Knowledge and Action”
15:00 – 15:15: coffee break
15:15 – 16:35: William Hornett – “Animal Rationality from Inside Ethics”
16:40 – 18:00: Maria Alvarez – “Agency and Abilities”

Attendance is free and open to all, but numbers for in-person attendance are limited.  For online or in-person registration, please email [email protected] with the subject line “Creature-based philosophy of mind and action workshop: in-person registration” or “Creature based philosophy of mind and action workshop: online registration”.

Full details of location, accessibility, etc., will be circulated in due course. For any inquiry, please contact: [email protected]

We are committed to the BPA/SWiP good practice scheme for conferences and seminar series. This workshop is part of the activities of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Guarantee Fellowship project UNIPHIMIND. It is co-sponsored by the UKRI Postdoctoral Fellowships Guarantee and by the Mind Association.

Workshop organizer: Brice Bantegnie, University of Southampton/UC Riverside