Ned Block's general presentation

 

 

“Cognitive science is bringing the body out of the closet” (Clark, 1999)

Is it really so? It is true that the study of the body has almost disappeared from the philosophical literature, after being at the core of the interest of phenomenology. It is also true that the body has come back by a side door with the growing program of research of Embodied cognition, which has started almost twenty years ago. Yet, after twenty years, do we really know more about the body? Whereas more and more people talk about “embodied cognition”, the body itself remains an object rarely explicitly investigated. The body is still in the closet. The project aims at eventually bringing the body out of the closet by providing a systematic account of bodily awareness. In addition, we will analyse the role played by the body in the mind, and more particularly in empathy and social cognition. These questions are addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective, bringing together philosophical analysis and experimental approach. Our monthly seminar will this year focus on bodily awareness from an interdisciplinary point of view. We shall tackle issues such as agency, pain, bodily space, immunity to error through misidentification, alien hand, the distinction between the body schema and the body image, etc.

Ned Block & Frédérique de Vignemont