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Pitt-London Workshop in Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience

Pitt-London Workshop in Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience. A meeting held at Birkbeck College London under the auspices of The London Consortium, a Masters and Doctoral Programme in Humanities and Cultural Studies. Organisers: Colin McCabe, Nancy Condee and Peter Machamer.

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Pitt-London Workshop in Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience

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  1. Pitt-London Workshop in Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience A meeting held at Birkbeck College London under the auspices of The London Consortium, a Masters and Doctoral Programme in Humanities and Cultural Studies. Organisers: Colin McCabe, Nancy Condee and Peter Machamer

  2. “What we talk about when we talk about causality” Jim Bogen (Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh) argued that mechanistic explanations depend on descriptions of activities rather than counterfactual regularities, using examples from recent neuroscience. (Chair: Peter Machamer, HPS, Pittsburgh)

  3. One hour discussions followed short presentations of pre-circulated papers David Papineau (Philosophy, Kings College) and John Dúpre (Philosophy, Exeter)

  4. “Leveling reduction” Peter Machamer & Jackie Sullivan (HPS, Pittsburgh) presented an analysis of reduction emphasizing the search for mechanisms and drawing on examples in the neurosciences.

  5. “The Causes of Adaptation and the Unity of Biology” Dennis Walsh (Philosophy, Edinburgh) discussed the role of adaptation and developmental constraint in the explanation of evolutionary novelty and criticized interpretations of evolutionary theory as a theory of interacting forces

  6. Opening night Dinner

  7. “The ‘role’ a Concept plays in Science: the case of Homology” Ingo Brigandt (HPS, Pittsburgh) used the history and current diversity of homology concepts in biology to argue that causal theories of theories of reference fail to explain the nature of conceptual change in science

  8. Ingo Brigandt and John Hodge (Leeds) in the discussion

  9. Homology in Genomics Katherine Kendidg (Philosophy, Birkbeck) argued that a strictly phylogenetic homology concept defined at the level of populations of organisms is inadequate for the needs of molecular biology (Alan Love in discussion)

  10. “Extinction concepts put to work in philosophy of biology” Joe Cain (Philosophy, Birkbeck) led the group through a series of exercises designed to highlight decisions that must be made to arrive at a determinate concept of extinction

  11. “The Evolution of Means-End Cognition: Why Animals ain't Smart” David Papineau (Philosophy, Kings College) presented a modification of his pre-circulated text, and argued for a critical role for visual imagination in the evolution of distinctively human cognitive abilities

  12. Infra-human cognition David Papineau’s paper generated lively discussion which was continued the next morning with two papers on this topic

  13. “Anthropomorphism: Cross-species modeling” Sandra Mitchell (HPS, Pittsburgh) presented an analysis of the conditions under which anthropomorphic reasoning can be used to illuminate animal behavior and cognition

  14. “Putting Anthropomorphism in Context” Karen Arnold (HPS, Pittsburgh) examined the social and political consequences of using anthropomorphic language to describe animal behavior, using the term ‘rape’ as a case study

  15. John Dupré commented on Mitchell and Arnold’s papers

  16. “Evo-Devo Meets the Mind: Towards a Developmental Evolutionary Psychology” Paul Griffiths (HPS, Pittsburgh) suggested that evolutionary psychology could benefit from theoretical innovations in evolutionary developmental biology

  17. “Bringing Life to the Mind” Karola Stotz (Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh) spoke on recent work in cognitive science emphasizing bodily experience, situated activity, and the environmental embeddedness of cognition

  18. Peter Machamer requests clarification… One of the highlights of the conference was the extensive time available for discussion and the emergence of themes among a consistent group of participants over four days

  19. “Non-genetic inheritance and cultural evolution” Gianmatteo Mameli (Philosophy, Kings College) questioned the validity of standard arguments linking adaptive evolutionary change essentially to change in genetic heredity

  20. “History and Philosophy of Science: A Phylogenetic Approach” Jim Lennox (HPS and Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh) described how issues in current science can be illuminated by studying the historical emergence of the key concepts involved

  21. “Evolutionary morphology and the integration of evolution and development” Alan Love (HPS, Pittsburgh) used the ‘phylogenetic’ approach to enrich our understanding of current moves to reintegrate developmental and evolutionary biology

  22. John Hodge (Leeds) commented on the papers by Lennox and Love

  23. In conclusion, Colin McCabe gave his impressions of the conference as a whole

  24. Closing Dinner and speeches

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