CFP: The Architecture of Propositional Thought: From Cognitive Maps to Language and Reasoning

Call for Abstracts

The Architecture of Propositional Thought: From Cognitive Maps to Language and Reasoning

The University of Missouri at Columbia

Oct. 16th-17th, 2026

University of Missouri Organizing Committee:

·         Gualtiero Piccinini (Philosophy — Conference Director)

·         David Beversdorf (Radiology, Neurology, and Psychological Sciences)

·         Nelson Cowan (Psychological Sciences)

·         Clintin Davis-Stober (Psychological Sciences)

·         Brett Froeliger (Psychiatry)

·         Caroline Larson (Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences)

·         Satish Nair (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

·         Timothy Wolf (Occupational Therapy)

Confirmed Speakers:

·         Neil Burgess (University College London)

·         David Corina (University of California—Davis)

·         Nina Kazanina (University of Geneva)

·         Sangeet Khemlani (Naval Research Laboratory)

·         Gary Lupyan (University of Wisconsin—Madison)

·         Earl Miller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

·         Ida Momennejad (Microsoft Research NYC)

·         Manuela Piazza (University of Trento)

·         Charan Ranganath (University of California—Davis)

·         Nicolas Schuck (Universität Hamburg)

Description

One of the most promising routes to understanding the architecture of propositional thought—and cognition more broadly—is to begin with the mammalian navigation system and its associated neural machinery (cognitive maps, place cells, grid cells, path integration, sequence generation, hippocampal replay, and related control mechanisms). Rather than treating navigation as a domain-specific specialization, this approach treats it as an evolutionarily ancient and well-characterized architectural template that may have been replicated, extended, and abstracted to support a wide range of cognitive capacities.

A growing body of work suggests that the hippocampus–entorhinal cortex system is not merely a spatial navigation system, but a general system for managing structured representations and sequences, supporting planning, memory, inference, imagination, and offline simulation. At the same time, complementary research highlights the role of frontoparietal control systems in maintaining, selecting, and flexibly manipulating these representations under task demands. Together, these findings motivate an architectural perspective in which navigation-like mapping and replay mechanisms interact with control, valuation, imagery, and language to support higher cognition.

Accordingly, the guiding idea behind this conference is to explore whether propositional thought itself—across linguistic and non-linguistic forms—can be understood as emerging from the reuse and extension of navigation-like architectures for offline control, simulation, and problem solving.

The conference is also aimed at producing an edited volume on the same topic and foster future research collaborations among participants.

Submissions

A handful of conference slots may be devoted to submitted contributions. We invite submissions of abstracts that complement the conference’s aim of developing accounts of propositional thought as a manifestation of navigation-like cognitive architectures. Submissions should engage with the conference theme in a substantive way (e.g., via computational, neuroscientific, psychological, or philosophical perspectives on map-like architecture, replay/simulation, and language that pertain to propositional thought).

Please submit an abstract of up to 1,000 words (excluding references) as a .doc/.docx or .pdf attachment to [email protected] by April 30, 2026. Please include the paper title, author name(s), affiliation(s), and contact email(s). We will notify authors of decisions by the end of May. Presentations will be at most 30 minutes (including Q&A).

Authors of accepted abstracts should be prepared to attend in person and, in principle, to contribute to the planned edited volume. Invitations to contribute to the volume (if any) will be made after the conference and will be subject to editorial review. Attendance is free, and limited travel support may be available for accepted contributors.

For questions, please contact Nathaniel Stagg at the above email.