Modelling the Mind. Seminar Series in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science

What do cognitive scientists explain when they explain a behaviour, and what would count as having explained it? How do computational, mechanistic, representational and dynamical accounts of the same phenomenon relate — do they compete, complement one another, or answer different questions? Where do the methods and models of empirical research come from, and how well do they fit what they are meant to describe? What, if anything, do artificial systems teach us about biological minds?

Questions of this kind keep coming up because there is no shortage of findings about the mind. What is scarce is a clear account of how they hang together, or whether they do. Modelling the Mind is a seminar series for working that out in the open, one talk at a time. The aim is to contribute to an empirically informed philosophical understanding of the mind and of the methods by which it is studied.


Upcoming talks:

Fri 9 October 2026 - Silvano Zipoli Caiani (Università degli Studi di Firenze)

Fri 16 October 2026 - Matteo Colombo (Tilburg University)

Thu 12 November 2026 - Dimitri Coelho Mollo (Umeå University)

Thu 10 December 2026 - Beate Krickel (Technische Universität Berlin)

Mon 18 January 2027 - Nina Poth (Radboud University)

Thu 11 February 2027 - Andrew Richmond (University of Otago)

Wed 3 March 2027 - Gualtiero Piccinini (University of Missouri)

Wed 31 March 2027 - Grace Lindsay (New York University)

Wed 21 April 2027 - Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Edinburgh)

Fri 7 May 2027 - Danielle Williams (New York University)

Thu 27 May 2027 - Alfredo Paternoster (Università degli Studi di Bergamo)

Each session pairs a 45-minute talk with an extended discussion. Each talk of the seminar series is in hybrid form. Attendance is free, in person and remotely, and everyone is welcome at any career stage.

For info on abstracts, Zoom links, times of the talks (in UTC) and to subscribe to the mailing list - in order to receive by email all of the above information and reminders of the talks - visit our website at the link below.