Workshop Ankündigung: Evidence for Animal Minds 2016

An Interdisciplinary Symposium

This three-day workshop, sponsored by Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study as part of its 2015-16 Evidence theme, will examine the problem of evidence in accounting for the phenomenon of ‘animal minds’ – the existence and character of (broadly conceived) mental phenomena in non-human animals. This controversial question offers a rich case for exploring the meanings of ‘evidence’ from a range of disciplinary perspectives. For more detail see the project’s objectives and framework.

The symposium will take place in the Pemberton Building, Palace Green, Durham, DH1 3EP, on 18-20 April 2016. It will assemble philosophers of mind and of knowledge, experimental psychologists and ethologists, evolutionary biologists and biological anthropologists, neuroscientists and specialists in artificial intelligence, social anthropologists and historians of science, humanities scholars with expertise in visual culture and literature, as well as those working on relevant aspects of religious history and theology.

External speakers and discussants are likely to include: Kim Sterelny (Australian National University), Cecilia Heyes(Oxford), Mattei Candea (Cambridge), Nicky Clayton (Cambridge), Katie Slocombe (York), Amanda Seed (St Andrews), Alex Thornton (Exeter), Alex Mesoudi (Exeter), Kim Bard (Portsmouth), Dominic Dwyer (Cardiff), Candy Rowe (Newcastle), Melissa Bateson (Newcastle), and others.

Organisers: Dr Andy Byford (MLAC), Dr Rachel Kendal (Anthropology), Dr Anthony McGregor (Psychology).

Advisory committee: Professor Robert Barton (Anthropology), Professor Janet Stewart (MLAC), Professor David Herman (English), Dr Matthew Eddy (Philosophy), Professor Madeline Eacott (Psychology), Dr Benedict Douglas(Law), Professor Gary Marvin (Social Anthropology).

For further information contact: andy.byford or zoo.psy