[PHILOS-L] EmpMind Seminar - Attentional Templates, Mental Imagery, and Rigidity of Imaginative Content - Piotr Kozak (April 2nd)

[Elodie Boissard]

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We are pleased to invite you to the next session of the Empirically Informed Philosophy of Mind online Seminar 

Who: Piotr Kozak (University of Warsaw)
When: Thursday, April 2nd, 2026 — 5–6:30 pm (CET)
Where: Online via Zoom:
https://pantheonsorbonne.zoom.us/j/92782580594?pwd=a5p3WfunQQxJICrjJaUenFJFzmllbx.1
What: Attentional Templates, Mental Imagery, and Rigidity of Imaginative Content


I critically examine the relationship between attentional templates, mental imagery, and perceptual processes. I argue that perceptualism, according to which mental imagery is either a kind of perceptual state or a representation of a perceptual state, is false. I introduce the so-called Rigid Argument, which holds that the content of attentional templates and mental imagery is partly rigid, whereas perceptual content is not. I contend that imaginative content refers to the same imaginative objects across possible worlds, independent of actual perceptual input, while perceptual representations are context-dependent and non-rigid. This distinction challenges the core assumption of perceptualist accounts and suggests that attentional templates and mental imagery cannot be subsumed under perceptual theories.

 
For any questions, please contact:
Sacha Behrend — sachabeh...@gmail.com
Elodie Boissard — Elodie....@univ-paris1.fr


Program

• 17 Sept 2025: Géraldine Carranante — Can we list what we can see?
• 1 Oct 2025: Jérôme Dokic — Two levels of confusion between Imagination and Memory
• 12 Nov 2025: Margherita Arcangeli — Episodic Memory through the lens of Aphantasia
• 3 Dec 2025: James Grayot — How do embodied and extended minds internalize contents?
• 13 Jan 2026: Raphaël Künstler — Is the human mind receptive to reasons? A confrontation with experimental social psychology
• 4 Feb 2026: Constant Bonard — Can a Belief–Desire Theory Explain All Affective States?
• 12 March 2026: Lucie Berkovitch — Psychedelics and the therapeutic potential of altered states of consciousness
• 2 April 2026: Piotr Kozak — Attentional Templates, Mental Imagery, and Rigidity of Imaginative Content
• 13 May 2026: Juliette Vazard — TBA
• 4 June 2026: Francesco Iani — TBA

Organizers:


Sacha Behrend — Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic) / Affiliated Researcher, Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences et des techniques (IHPST), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne


Elodie Boissard — Postdoctoral Researcher, Bordeaux Neurocampus Department / Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine (UMR 5287), Université de Bordeaux, CNRS

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