Einladung zum Kolloquium

Dear all,

I’d like to remind you that Dr. Alexandria Boyle (University of Cambridge, University of Bonn) will give a virtual talk at the CogSci Colloquium on Thursday, June 10, at 12:15.

Title: Disagreement and Classification in Comparative Cognitive Science
Abstract: Comparative cognitive science often involves asking comparative questions like ‘Do nonhumans have C?’ where C is a cognitive capacity we take humans to have. These questions frequently generate unproductive disagreements, in which one party affirms and the other denies that nonhumans have the capacity on the basis of the same evidence. These disagreements are sometimes diagnosed in terms of competing researcher biases. I argue that these comparative questions can be productively understood as questions about natural kind membership: do nonhuman cognitive capacities fall into the same natural kinds as our own? So understood, I argue that we should expect comparative questions to generate disagreement for at least three reasons independently of any researcher bias: uncertainty about the nature of the natural kind in question, indeterminacy in its extension, and ‘domain mismatch’, in which a natural kind may be characterised differently in different scientific domains. I argue that we can make progress by recognising the plurality of domains comprising comparative cognitive science, in which different answers to ‘Do nonhumans have C?’ may be justified.
The talk will be held online, via Zoom:

https://uni-goettingen.zoom.us/j/97046437529?pwd=V3FnOHFFeTlmcG9HTUg5UVl5ZFREZz09
Meeting ID: 970 4643 7529
Passcode: 350991

Best wishes,
Feride