Final conference hosted by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, 2-4 October 2009
Background and Objective
The ESF European Collaborative Research (EUROCORES) Programmes offer researchers from Europe and beyond an opportunity to collaborate on basic research questions that are best addressed on a pan-European scale.
The leading idea behind the EUROCORES programme “Consciousness in a Natural and Cultural Context (CNCC)” is that consciousness is both a cultural and a biological phenomenon. This implies overcoming the debate between dualism and neuro-physiological reductionism. There is more to consciousness than just brain activity, but this does not make consciousness something apart from physical reality. On the contrary, we must broaden the scope of our theoretical and empirical models, investigating consciousness as emergent from complex interactions across different dimensions: the neurophysiology of consciousness is embedded in skillful body activity, ongoing interactions with relevant features of both natural and social environments, and processes of cultural transformation.
All CNCC Collaborative Research Projects share this novel perspective on consciousness, and have developed it in greater details tackling specific features of conscious experience. These large-scale interdisciplinary projects, involving 33 research teams from 11 countries and running for 3 years (November 2007 – November 2009), constitutes one of the major research initiatives on consciousness studies ever attempted. The CNCC Final Conference brought these projects together for the last time in order to present the outcomes of the programme to the CNCC community.
Structure of the conference programme
Throughout the running time of the programme, the CNCC members have been very actively engaged in creating synergy among the various CNCC Collaborative Research Projects. An important outcome of the CNCC programme as a whole is indeed that the programme has proven to be more than the sum of its parts. To present this added value, the CNCC Final Conference was structured around 5 sessions that each addressed a research question that lies on the interface of various CNCC projects. In each session, speakers from two or more Collaborative Research Projects presented their views.
Session 1: Subjects, others and objects
Lead CRP: BASIC
Organiser: Andreas Roepstorff
Session 2: Spatial and language processing for action
Lead CRP: CEWR
Organisers: Yann Coelllo and Angela Bartolo
Session 3: Externalising metacognition
Lead CRP: METACOGNITION
Organiser: Joëlle Proust
Session 4: The Uncertain Mind
Lead CRP: Boundaries
Organiser: Tjeerd Jellema
Session 5: What are the connections between social cognition and individual consciousness?
Lead CRP: CONTACT
Organisers: Cristiano Castelfranchi and Fabio Paglieri
The final schedule can be downloaded here.
Abstracts of presentations and posters are available.
