A History of Distributed Cognition

Workshop 1: From Early Greece to Late Antiquity
In philosophy and cognitive science a range of recent theories argue that the mind is not just brain-based but is distributed across the brain, body and world. This workshop series, part of a larger, AHRC-funded project, explores the historical expression of related notions of the mind as distributed.    In Workshop 1 the focus will be on the period from early Greece to late antiquity. Twelve participants will each present a 25 minute paper and join in roundtable discussions. It is expected that the workshop participants will have watched and will engage with the project's eight specially created virtual seminars by influential philosophers working on current debates and hypotheses on distributed cognition, and will reflect on the expression of these notions in their own period. We invite abstracts of 250-500 words before 5pm (UK time) on 31 October 31 2014 on topics which can be closely related to the foci of the project and the virtual seminars (below). Please submit your abstract along with a 250 word biography to both [email protected] and [email protected]. Please also address any queries to these email addresses.

Workshop 1 will be held over two days from Thursday 30 April to Friday 1 May 2015 at Abden House, Edinburgh. We shall invite papers of a suitable standard to be revised and submitted for publication.

This workshop may be of interest to, and we invite applications from, scholars working on the history of medicine, history of science, intellectual history, history of ideas, literary studies, history of art, and archaeology. Three places have been reserved for early career postdoctoral scholars for whom funding towards travel and accommodation costs will be provided.

We expect submissions to engage with one or more topics (or related aspects of distributed cognition) that will be covered in the virtual seminar series. The seminar series will cover the following topics:

1. 'Distributed Cognition in the Continental & Analytical Traditions', Prof Michael Wheeler (University of Stirling)

2. 'Embodied Cognition', Prof Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis)

3. 'The Extended Mind', Prof Andy Clark (University of Edinburgh)

4. 'Enactivism', Prof Ezequiel di Paolo (Ikerbasque, San Sebastián)

5. 'Emotions in the Body and World', Prof Giovanna Colombetti (University of Exeter)

6. 'Memory as a Test Case for Distributed Cognition', Prof John Sutton (Macquarie University)

7. 'The Phenomenological We', Prof Dan Zahavi (Centre for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen)

8: 'Social Cognition', Prof Deborah Tollefsen (University of Memphis)

Confirmed speakers for Workshop 1 are: John Bintliff (University of Edinburgh), Felix Budelmann (University of Oxford), Christopher Gill (University of Exeter), David Konstan (New York University), Nick Lowe (Royal Holloway, University of London).