19-21 September, 2018. University of Antwerp, Belgium

Causality is one of the key concepts that require clarification if we want to understand scientific practice. Causal knowledge is useful for prediction and scientific explanation and is indispensable when we endeavour to intervene in the world. Causal relations are ubiquitous, but sometimes hard to discover. This holds for science in general, and for neuroscience and the psychological sciences in particular.

Questions relating to causality can best be answered in an inter- and transdisciplinary way, involving researchers from as many scientific disciplines as possible. This, at least, is the view underlying the ‘Causality in the Sciences’ (CitS) conference series. Therefore this conference aims to bring together philosophers and scientists to explore the notion of causality at the interplay of the neurological and psychological sciences. We invite submissions on a wide range of topics, including:

–        The nature of causality in the neuro- and psychological sciences

–        The methods used to test for causal relations in these disciplines

–        The roles of evidence and theory in grounding causal claims in the neuro- and psychological sciences

–        Empirical (cognitive, neurological, …) studies into actual causal reasoning

–        What philosophers can learn from neuro- and psychological scientists’ perspectives on causality, and vice versa

–        Causal modeling (including machine learning and AI) in relation to the neurological and psychological sciences

–        The relation between the topics of causation and of extended/ embodied/ situated/ enactive/… cognition

–        The relation between neurological causation and causality in the psychological sciences

–        The (im)possibility of inter-level causal relations in relation to these sciences

–        Causality as it relates to reduction and other inter-theoretic relations

Submissions on other but related topics are welcome too, provided they engage with both causality and the neuro- and/or psychological sciences. Abstracts should be limited to 500 words, they must be anonymous and should be submitted via Easychair:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cinaps2018

Dates

15th May 2018: deadline for submissions

15th June 2018: notification of acceptance

15th August 2018: deadline for early bird registration

19th-21st September 2018: conference