Tom Polger's talk in The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience
Daniel Kostic
Dear all,
The next session of The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience, will take place on:
24 March 2022 at 15:00-17:00h (Central European Time, i.e. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris)
The talk will be given via Zoom and is open to all. The talk will also be recorded and posted on our webpage in due course.
Please join via the following Zoom Link: https://radbouduniversity.zoom.us/j/85960860177?pwd=OXJzQ1RTV1NQQWVncE8zb0Q2MXNjZz09
Our guest speaker is:
Prof. Polger's talk is entitled:
The abstract:
“According to the multiple realization argument, mental states or processes can be realized in diverse and heterogeneous physical systems; and that fact implies that mental states or processes can not be identified with any one particular kind of physical state or process. In particular, mental processes can not be identified with of brain processes. Moreover, the argument provides a general model for the autonomy of the “special” sciences. The multiple realization argument is widely influential. But over the last thirty years it has also faced serious objections. Despite those objections, most philosophers regard that fact of multiple realization and the cogency of the multiple realization argument as obviously correct. Why is that? What is it about the multiple realization argument that makes it so resilient? One reason that the multiple realization argument is deeply intertwined with a view that minds are, in some sense, computational. But I argue that the sense in which minds are computational does not support the conclusion that they are obviously multiply realized. I argue that the sense in which brains compute does not imply that brains implement computational processes that are multiply realizable, and it does not provide a general model for the autonomy of the special sciences.”
Thomas Polger is Professor and Head of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. He earned his PhD in Philosophy at Duke University and his BA in Cognitive Science from Syracuse University. He is the author of The Multiple Realization Book (Oxford, 2016) with Lawrence Shapiro, and Natural Minds (MIT Press, 2004). His work focuses on the intersection of philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics. He is especially interested in the sciences of the mind and brain, and the things they study; and he approaches those questions through the lens of explanations, models, and entities of various sciences. For more information, see: https://tompolger.com/
For more information about The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience and the program of talks for this semester, please click here.
Daniel Kostic
Dr Daniel Kostic
Radboud Excellence Initiative Fellow
Institute for Science in Society (ISiS)
Radboud University, Huygens Building
Heyendaalseweg 135 6525 AJ, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Web: https://daniel-kostic.weebly.com
Guest editor in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, theme issue: "Unifying the essential concepts of biological networks”.
E-mail: daniel (dot) kostic (at) gmail (dot) com