CFP: 6th International Conference on Philosophy of Mind: Artificial Intelligence (6ICPH)

[Call for Abstracts]

6th International Conference on Philosophy of Mind: Artificial Intelligence (6ICPH)

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

4-8 May 2026 (4-5 May, Online | 6-8 May, in-person)

About: The 6th International Conference on Philosophy of Mind: Artificial Intelligence (6ICPH) brings together researchers, academics, and students working on central problems in philosophy of mind, with this edition placing artificial intelligence at the center of the programme. Hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (Porto, Portugal), the conference invites dialogue across philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and adjacent fields that take AI as both an empirical phenomenon and a conceptual stress-test for our theories of mentality. The guiding aim is to examine what contemporary AI  — especially language-based and multimodal systems — does (and does not) illuminate about understanding, intentionality, representation, rationality, agency, and consciousness. Alongside classic debates (e.g., functionalism, computationalism, connectionism, embodied and enactive approaches), the conference foregrounds questions that have become newly urgent: whether large language models support attributions of semantic competence or merely simulate it; how norms of reasoning and explanation should be reconceived when behaviour emerges from distributed statistical structures; whether artificial systems can participate in social cognition (coordination, trust, testimony, deception) and what this implies for mindreading and second-person interaction; and how reliance on AI tools reshapes human cognition through extended and scaffolded practices (search, writing, memory, attention, and self-interpretation).The event runs in a hybrid format: online sessions on 4–5 May 2026, followed by in-person sessions on 6–8 May 2026 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto.

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AWARD 2026 (in-person talks only): The best-submitted abstract will receive the opportunity to deliver a special Award Talk similar to a keynote talk (note: the selected author will have the fee waived).

The final deadline to submit proposals in different research topics is March 29, 2026.

KEYNOTES SPEAKERS:

·       Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science.

·       Diana I. Pérez is a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and the Director of the IIF–SADAF–CONICET.

·       Paul Thagard is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo, where he founded and directed the Cognitive Science Program.

·       Gloria Andrada is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Philosophy (IFS), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid.

·       Miguel Pais-Vieira is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Sciences at the University of Aveiro (iBiMED).

·       Ângela Leite is a Researcher at the Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies (CEFH) at the Catholic University of Portugal (Braga).

·       Marina Trakas is an Assistant Researcher at CONICET (Argentina) and next year (2026) she will be a FCT Researcher at the Centre for Philosophy at the University of Lisbon.

Topics might include (but are not limited to):

1. Consciousness, Subjectivity, and Artificial Systems

a. Competing theories of consciousness (global workspace, higher-order, predictive processing) and what they imply for AI
b. The “hard problem” and whether AI changes (or merely rephrases) it
c. Machine consciousness: criteria, tests, and the status of “phenomenal” ascriptions to AI

2. Perception, World-Modelling, and Machine Inference

a. Perception as active construction: implications for artificial perception (vision-language models, robotics)
b. Predictive coding, Bayesian perception, and AI as “prediction machines”
c. 4E cognition and AI: embodied agents, sensorimotor contingency, and situated learning

3. Representation, Meaning, and Intentionality in Humans and AI

a. Internalism vs. externalism under contemporary AI (training data, environment, social embedding)
b. From symbols to vectors: what do embeddings represent (if anything)?
c. Artificial intentionality: original vs. derived content; can AI have aboutness or only mimic it?

4. Reasoning, Rational Agency, and Autonomy

a. Reasoning beyond correlation: inference, explanation, and “competence vs. performance” in AI
b. Agency and control in human–AI systems: who acts when decisions are AI-mediated?
c. Bias, rationality, and epistemic norms: when AI recommendations count as reasons

5. The Self, Personal Identity, and Digital Mediation

a. Minimal, narrative, and extended self under AI scaffolding (assistants, recommender systems)
b. Memory, identity, and externalised cognition (search, notes, “AI memory”)
c. Uploading, duplication, and continuity: metaphysics of identity with AI simulations

6. Mind–Brain Relations and Computational Neuroscience

a. Reductionism vs. pluralism: what computational models explain (and what they don’t

b. First-person data in an AI age: experience sampling, neurophenomenology, and modelling

c. AI in neuroscience: limits of decoding, prediction, and mechanistic explanation

7. Explainability, Understanding, and Epistemic Responsibility

a. What counts as an explanation for a mind? Contrast: mechanistic, functional, and narrative explanation
b. Interpretability vs. justification: explanations for users, clinicians, regulators, and researchers
c. Trust, opacity, and epistemic dependence: when reliance on AI is rational (or negligent)

8. Ethics of AI, Neurotechnology, and Cognitive Liberty

a. Brain–computer interfaces and AI: agency, enhancement, and responsibility gaps
b. Neuroprivacy and “mind-reading” claims: conceptual and ethical boundaries
c. Governance of human–AI cognition: auditability, contestability, and moral crumple zones

9. Emotion, Social Cognition, and Human–AI Interaction

a. Affective states and AI: recognition, simulation, and the ontology of “emotion” in machines
b. Empathy, testimony, and trust in conversational AI
c. Moral cognition with AI advisors: persuasion, manipulation, and norm-shaping

10. Extended, Embedded, and Collective Minds in the Age of AI

a. Where does cognition end? LLMs as cognitive artefacts and “thinking with tools”
b. Language as a social technology: AI-driven standardisation and normative drift
c. Collective epistemology: AI, group cognition, and the reshaping of public reason

11. Psychiatry, Classification, and Algorithmic Diagnosis

a. Mental disorder: natural kinds, social constructs, and algorithmic categories
b. Prediction vs. understanding in computational psychiatry and clinical AI
c. Identity, stigma, and self-interpretation under diagnostic AI systems

12. Evolution, Cognition, and Artificial Minds

a. Evolutionary perspectives on intelligence: what AI lacks (development, embodiment, niche construction)
b. Modularity and architectures: are LLMs “general,” or just wide?
c. Language evolution and AI language: what “fluency” shows (and what it can’t show)

13. Attention, Salience, and Control in Humans and Machines

a. What is attention? Comparative models: neural attention vs. transformer “attention”
b. Control, distraction, and optimisation: how AI systems capture and steer attention
c. Situated attention: organism–environment loops, interfaces, and cognitive ecology

Special Track I: Artificial Intelligence and the Philosophy of Mind

This track explores the philosophical implications of AI, cognitive models, and the nature of artificial cognition. Topics may include:

a.       Can AI be conscious? Theories of artificial consciousness

b.       Computational models of thought and mental representation

c.        AI and intentionality: can machines have beliefs and desires?

d.       The problem of explainability in AI

e.       LLMs, ChatGPT, DeepSeek: philosophical approaches

Special Track II: Conceptualizing Polysemy

The focus of this panel is on ways of capturing polysemy at the conceptual level. Work on the nature, structure and role of concepts expressed or encoded by polysemic words is welcome. Topics may include:

a.       Arguments for “rich” or “thin” theories of lexical meaning of polysemous words

b.       Approaches to co-predication

c.        Accounts of communication with polysemous words

d.       Mechanisms of sense-selection or alternatives to it

e.       Experimental studies that bear on polysemy and have impact on the debate

f.         Applications of the polysemy idea to less-discussed or novel expressions

FEES (accepted speakers)

·       Early Stage (until 10 April 2026)

·       Professionals (posdoc, professor, tenure-track): € 160,00

·       Students: (Master, PhD): € 100,00

·       Later Stage (10April – 30 April 2026)

·       Professionals (posdoc, professor, tenure-track): € 220,00

·       Students: (Master, PhD): € 150,00

FEES (attendance)

·       Online Segment (4-5 May 2026, Microsoft Teams)

·       Professionals (posdoc, professor, tenure-track): € 30,00

·       Students: (Master, PhD): € 20,00

·       In-Person Segment (6-8 May 2026, FLUP)

·       Professionals (posdoc, professor, tenure-track): € 30,00

·       Students: (Master, PhD): € 20,00

·       Both Segments (4-5May 2026, Microsoft Teams + 6-8 May 2025, FLUP)

·       Professionals (posdoc, professor, tenure-track): € 50,00

·       Students: (Master, PhD): € 30,00

Languages of the colloquium: English and Portuguese.

SUBMISSIONS:

·       IMPORTANT: you should clearly state if you are submitting for the online segment (OS) (4-5 May) or the in-person segment (PS) (6-8 May). If online, you need to provide a preferred day (4 or 5 May) and time schedule (Morning: 9h30-12h30; Afternoon: 14h00 – 18h) considering the Lisbon Time Zone.

·       In-person submissions have a higher chance of being accepted (more slots available) and are automatically registered for the Philosophy of Mind Award 2026.

·       Proposals should include two files: (in word. format: pdf. formats will not be accepted):

o   (1) a cover page with identification, clear academic affiliation (if several, choose the main)

o   (2) an anonymized title and abstract (maximum 250 words, up to 10 references)

o   (3) sent to [email protected]

·       Paper duration: 30 minutes (20 minutes presentation + 10 minutes for discussion);

·       Notification Info: in order to facilitate the request for funding of the accepted talks so speakers can prepare their travel in advance, notification of acceptance or rejection will be given in a 7-10 days period (review) after the submission;

·       Publications: Some of the papers presented at the conference are expected to be published in several projects (edited volume, special issue, etc.; the publication process will be independent and optional; more details after the conference);

·       Any doubts or concerns can be addressed to: [email protected]

Venue: Faculty of Humanities of the University of Porto (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto) | Address: Via Panorâmica, s/n: 4150-564, Porto, Portugal.

Organization: Mind, Language and Action Group | Institute of Philosophy | University of Porto

Organizing Committee

Steven S. Gouveia (Chair)

Sofia Miguens

Dan Zeman

Rafael Antunes Padilha

Jéssica Azevedo

Maria Luiza llenaco

Thales Maia

Inês Silva

Support:

CEEC Project by FCT 2022.02527.CEECIND

TL Modern & Contemporary Philosophy

RG Mind, Language and Action Group (MLAG)

Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto – UID/00502

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)