It is our pleasure to announce the conference

PHENOMENAL MINDREADING: ATTRIBUTING CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCES TO ONESELF AND OTHERS

Thursday, 21th November - Saturday, 23nd November, 2013
Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Venue: GA 04 / 187 (Mercator Seminar Room)
Organization: Kevin Reuter, Luca Barlassina, Albert Newen, Markus Werning

 

Conscious experiences occupy a central position in our mental lives. Imagine how our lives would be impoverished if we cannot see colors, smell odors, experience emotions, etc. Analogously, third-person phenomenal mindreading, i.e., the ability to attribute conscious experiences to other individuals, plays a fundamental role in understanding others. Indeed, the ability to recognize whether someone is feeling pain, or is experiencing disgust is arguably as important as the ability to attribute beliefs and desires. Importantly, human beings are also able to attribute conscious experiences to themselves. For example, when an adult human being experiences sadness, she is also typically able to recognize that she is having such an experience. In a nutshell, human beings also perform first-person phenomenal mindreading. The aim of this conference is to investigate first-person and  third-person phenomenal mindreading from an interdisciplinary point of view that combines philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. In doing so, we intend to address some of the most puzzling and open questions and problems in this area.


KEYNOTE SPEAKERS


Anil Gomes (Philosophy, University of Oxford)

Kurt Gray (Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Joshua Knobe (Philosophy, Yale University)

Catrin Misselhorn (Philosophy, University of Stuttgart)

Shaun Nichols (Philosophy, University of Arizona)

Olga Pollatos (Psychology, University of Ulm)