CANCELLED – ALS: S. Ruphy

THIS TALK HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19 CONCERNS

Science Policies and the Unpredictability of Scientific Inquiry

Stephanie Ruphy, University Jean Moulin

Abstract: What is the appropriate mode of setting the research agenda? The autonomy of science as regards the choice of its priorities is often defended on the ground that limiting scientists’ freedom to follow their curiosity hampers the epistemic fecundity of science. At the core of this traditional defence of scientific autonomy lies the ‘unpredictability argument’. In a nutshell: the development and the results of a research program being unpredictable, setting external (often utilitarian) goals is deemed counterproductive and vain: one should not attempt to predict the unpredictable. In this talk I will first challenge this argument by showing that a scientific inquiry whose agenda is set externally may actually favor the occurrence of the unexpected. Once epistemological room is made for external, interest-based guiding of scientific inquiry, I will discuss what kind of political constraints is legitimate on the setting of the research agenda.

ALS: Wayne Wu

Does Anyone Know What Attention Is?

Wayne Wu, Carnegie Mellon University

Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition

 

ABSTRACT: Despite debate and confusion in the empirical and philosophical literature, we have always known the answer: attention is selection for the guidance of behavior.  I situate this proposal in light of a venerable schema for explanation of psychological capacities due to David Marr. I shall thereby present a concise, clear and up-to-date statement of a theory of attention as selection for guidance of action and explicate its empirical and philosophical implications. Accordingly, I argue for the following claims, among others: that the science of attention already endorses the claim that attention is selection for action, that this provides the correct computational theory for attention, that attention is present in every action, that every instance of attention is for the guidance of action, that attention is not a cause but an effect, and that there is no evidence for attention as necessary for conscious awareness.