GENERAL INFORMATION

Interactivist Summer Institute 2017
July 21 - 24, 2017
Ohrid, Macedonia


The Interactivist Summer Institute is dedicated to exploring the frontiers of understanding of life, mind, and cognition. There is a growing recognition - across many disciplines - that phenomena of life and mind, including cognition and representation, are emergents of far-from-equilibrium, interactive, autonomous systems. In such a view, mind and biology, mind and agent, are re-united. The classical treatment of cognition and representation within a formalist framework of encodingist assumptions is increasingly recognized as a fruitless maze of blind alleys. From neurobiology to robotics, from cognitive science to philosophy of mind and language, dynamic and interactive alternatives are being explored. Dynamic systems approaches, enactivist and autonomous agent research join in the effort.

The interactivist model offers a theoretical approach to matters of life and mind, ranging from evolutionary- and neuro-biology (including the emergence of biological function) through representation, perception, motivation, memory, learning and development, emotions, consciousness, language, action theory, rationality, sociality, personality and psychopathology, and ethics. This work has developed interfaces with studies of central nervous system functioning, the ontology of process, autonomous agents, philosophy of science, and all areas of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science that address the person.

The conference will involve both tutorials addressing central parts and aspects of the interactive model, and papers addressing current work of relevance to this general approach. This will be our eighth Summer Institute:

Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 2001

IT University, Copenhagen, Denmark 2003

Clemson University, South Carolina 2005

The American University in Paris, Paris 2007

Simon Fraser University, Vancouver 2009

University of the Aegean, Syros, Greece 2011

University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Fl 2013

Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey 2015

The Summer Institute is a biennial meeting where those sharing the core interests and ideas of interactivism will meet and discuss their work, try to reconstruct its historical roots, put forward current research in different fields that fits the interactivist framework, and define research topics for prospective graduate students. People working in philosophy of mind, linguistics, social sciences, artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics, theoretical biology, and other fields related to the sciences of mind are invited to send their paper submission or statement of interest for participation to the organizers.

ACADEMIC AND SCIENTIFIC CO-SPONSORS

The American University of Paris

St. Paul the Apostle University of Information Science and Technology, Ohrid, Macedonia

Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

  • Institute for Interactivist Studies
  • Cognitive Science Program
  • CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

  • Participation will be limited to no more than 40 people.
  • People wishing to participate but not present a paper should submit a short curriculum vitae and a statement of interest to Interactivist Summer Institute. Please include E-mail address and fax number, if available. Applications should be received by April 1, 2017 (note that the date for abstract submissions is different than the date for applications for participation).
  • Notification of acceptance for participants will be provided by April 10, 2017.
  • For those who wish to submit an abstract for a proposed paper presentation, please see the call for papers: the deadline for submissions for abstracts is March 16, 2017. A separate application for participation is not required for those with paper acceptances.
  • The meeting will take place in Ohrid, Macedonia..
  • A small number of scholarships for partial financial support will be provided by the organizers for graduate students or postdocs.