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A03

Grounded cognition: Causal indexicals and affordances in frames

Overview

Publications

Talks & Posters

Events

Funding period: 01.07.2011 – 30.06.2015

The project investigates the extent to which and also the manner in which concepts are “grounded” in basic sensory-motor representations. The focus of the project is on concepts that have direct implications for one’s actions, such as causal indexicals (e.g., “too hot for me to handle”) and affordances (e.g., “sit-on-able”). Firstly, these concepts will be analyzed in terms of frames. Secondly, abstraction mechanisms will be characterized that allow the transformation of such concepts into more abstract ones. In this way, the relation between sensory-motor processes and abstract concepts will be described in detail, and general principles of frame transformation (abstraction) will be determined.

Head of the project

Prof. Gottfried Vosgerau
Institut für Philosophie
Universitätsstr. 1
40225 Düsseldorf
Phone: +49 211 81-105 25
Email: vosgerau@phil.uni-duesseldorf.de

Staff

Dr. Alex Tillas
Institut für Philosophie
Universitätsstr. 1
Room: 23.31.01.66
40225 Düsseldorf
Phone: +49 211 81-031 73
Email: atillas@phil.uni-duesseldorf.de

Tim Seuchter
Phone: +49 211 81-151 58
Email: tim.seuchter@phil.uni-duesseldorf.de

Submitted

Vosgerau, G., Tillas, A., Seuchter, T. ‘Making the most of Affordances?’.

Tillas, A. ‘Language as Grist to the Mill of Cognition’.

Tillas, A. ‘Empiricism Vs. Nativism: Making Amends?’.

Tillas, A., Trafford, J. ‘Intuition & Reason: Re-assessing dual-process theories with representational sub-activation’.

To appear

Alex Tillas. Grounding Cognition: The Role of Language in Thinking In: Proceedings of the International Conference Sensory Motor Concepts in Language & Cognition (SMCLC11).

Alex Tillas. Intuitions and Philosophical Inquiry. In: B. Kaldis (Ed.) Mind and Society: Cognitive Science Meets the Philosophy of Social Sciences. Synthese – Springer.

Alex Tillas. How do Ideas Become General in their Signification? In: Edouard Machery, Jesse Prinz, and Jurgis Skilters (Eds.) The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, Vol. 9, Kansas: New Prairie Press

Alex Tillas & Gottfried Vosgerau. Perception, Action and the Notion of Grounding’, in V. C. Müller (Ed.) Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence, Synthese Library, Springer

Gottfried Vosgerau, Tim Seuchter & Wiebke Petersen. Analyzing Concepts in Action-Frames. In: T. Gamerschlag, R. Osswald, W. Petersen (eds.): Meaning, Frames, and Conceptual Representation, Studies in Language and Cognition. Düsseldorf University Press, Düsseldorf.

2013

Alex Tillas. Social Perception. In: B. Kaldis (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, SAGE.

Arne Weber & Gottfried Vosgerau. The arche of Cognition – Grounding Representations in Action. In: M. Hoeltje, T. Spitzley & W. Spohn (Hrsg.). Was dürfen wir glauben? Was sollen wir tun? – Sektionsbeiträge des achten internationalen Kongresses der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie e.V. Online-Veröffentlichung der Universität Duisburg-Essen (DuEPublico) 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-042332-1, 264-277.

2012

Arne Weber & Gottfried Vosgerau. Grounding Action Representations. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3, 53-69.

2011

Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Grounding Abstract Concepts: Causal Indexicals and Affordances. In: Kokinov, B., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Nersessian, N. J. (eds.) European Perspectives on Cognitive Science. New Bulgarian University Press

Tim Seuchter. A New Approach to the Grounding of Abstract Concepts. Kriterion Journal for Philosophy, Vol.25, Nr.1, pp.53-63

2014

Tim Seuchter. Handlungsbasierte Repräsentationen. Talk given at the XXIII. Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie 2014.

Alex Tillas. Does Language Shape Cognition. Talk given at the 12th Biannual Conference of the German Cognitive Science Society “How Language and Behavior Constitute Cognition” (KogWis2014). 29 September – 2 October 2014, Tubingen, Germany.

Alex Tillas. Is the Notion of “Social Agency” Redundant? Talk given at the Conference of the German Philosophical Society (DKPhil 2014), 28 September – 02 October, 2014, Münster – Germany.

Alex Tillas. Internal supervision & clustering: A new lesson from ‘old’ findings? Talk given at the International Association for Computing and Philosophy Conference (IACAP 14). 2-4 July 2014, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Gottfried Vosgerau. Affordances – Intentional Reference and Interaction“. Talk given at the International Workshop „The many faces of intentionality“, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, September 2014.

2013

Alex Tillas. Can we Represent Types? Talk given at the international conference Philosophy of Science in the 21st Century – Challenges and Tasks, 04-06 December, 2013, University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Alex Tillas. How do Ideas Become General in their Signification? Talk given at the 9th International Symposium of Cognition, Logic & Communication, ‘Perception & Concepts’, (P&C), 16-18 May 2013, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia.

Alex Tillas. What’s Language has got to do with Cognition? Poster presented at the international workshop What is Cognition? (WIC), June 27-29, 2013, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.

Alex Tillas. Cultural Conditioning & Common Grounds. Poster presented at the 2nd Aarhus-Paris Conference on Coordination & Common Ground, ‘Minds in Common’, (MIC), 25-26 June 2013. Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.

Alex Tillas & Gottfried Vosgerau. Perception, Action & the Notion of Grounding. Talk given at Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence (PT-AI), 21-22 September 2013, University of Oxford, UK.

Alex Tillas & Gottfried Vosgerau. Grounding in what Exactly? Talk given at the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP2013), 9-12 July 2013, Department of Philosophy I, Faculty of Psychology, University of Granada, Spain.

Gottfried Vosgerau. Frames als Mittel zur systematischen Klassifizierung von psychiatrischen Störungen. Talk given at the workshop Frame-Theorien im Vergleich, Universität Düsseldorf, Februar 2013.

2012

Tim Seuchter. Frames and mental files. Talk given at the conference Concept Types and Frames in Language, Cognition, and Science (CTF’12).

Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Causal Indexicals in a Mental File Framework. Talk given at GAP.8: Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie (2012).

Alex Tillas, Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Making the Most of Affordances. Talk given at the 11th Biannual Conference of the German Cognitive Science Society, (Kogwis2012), 30 September – 03 October 2012, Bamberg, Germany.

Alex Tillas, Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Making the Most of Affordances? Poster presented at GAP.8: Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie (2012).

Alex Tillas, Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Securing the Explanatory Role of Affordances. Poster presented at GAP.8: Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie, 17-20 September 2012, Konstanz, Germany.

Alex Tillas, Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Affordances, Movements and Intentions. Talk given at the 20th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy & Psychology, (ESPP2012), 28-31 August, 2012, Biannual Conference, London, UK.

Alex Tillas, Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Grounding Affordances in Movements. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, (CogSci2012), Sapporo Convention Center, 1-4 August, 2012, Sapporo, Japan.

Gottfried Vosgerau. Die motorische Grundlage von Begriffen – eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit “Grounded Cognition”. Talk given at Gießener Abendgespräche Kognition und Gehirn, Universität Gießen, Mai 2012.

2011

Tim Seuchter. Kausale Indexikalität. Talk given at the XXII. Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie.

Tim Seuchter & Gottfried Vosgerau. Grounding Abstract Concepts: Causal Indexicals and Affordances. Talk given at EUROCOGSCI.

25.-27.08.2014 Concept Types and Frames in Language, Cognition, and Science (CTF’14, all projects)
19-20.10.2012 Sensorimotor Representations and Concepts
22.-24.08.2012 Concept Types and Frames in Language, Cognition, and Science (CTF’12, all projects)
01.-03.12.11 Sensory-motor concepts in language and cognition (together with B02, B03 and C04)