CFS Spring School: "Empathy, Direct Perception and Other Minds"

Empathy, Direct Perception and Other Minds



In recent years, many philosophers and psychologists have formulated and defended versions of a thesis known as the ‘direct social perception’ (DSP) thesis or the ‘basic empathy’ (BE) thesis. All versions of this view maintain that we can have a direct, perceptual or perception-like awareness of some mental states and episodes of others. Even though the view has attracted much attention, several questions remain open. For example, it is not clear to what extent the BE/DSP view presents a fundamental alternative to traditional ‘theory-of-mind’ approaches. Furthermore, it is unclear what the range of DSP/BE is: for example can we only directly perceive others’ basic emotions, say, or do we also have perceptual access to some of their cognitive states? Similarly, it is still debated to what extent the DSP/BE view is empirically and conceptually well-founded. The spring school aims to explore these and related questions.

Participation by invitation only.

Keynote Speakers
Cristina Becchio (Psychology, University of Turin)
Dan Zahavi (Philosophy, CFS Copenhagen)
Søren Overgaard (Philosophy, CFS Copenhagen)

Preliminary programme

Wednesday March 29, 2017

09:00-10:30 

Keynote Lecture by Dan Zahavi (Philosophy, CFS Copenhagen)
Wittgenstein’s Child: Phenomenology, Empathy, and Mindreading

10:30-11:00

Coffee Break

11:00-12:00

William C. Hornett (University of Sheffield)
Knowing and Being Known by Others

12:00-13:00

Aoife McInerney (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick)
Broadening our Minds: Arendt’s Phenomenological Critique of Empathy

13:00‐14:00

Lunch

14:00‐15:00

Philipp Schmidt (University of Vienna)
Being Understood by Others and the Genesis of Empathy

15:00-15:30

Coffee Break

15:30-16:30

Francesca Forlé & Sarah Songhorian (Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan)
Direct Perception and Expressivity in Social Cognition: How to Conceive Them

  

Thursday March 30, 2017

09:00-10:00 

Alejandro Arango (Tennessee State University)
Angry Faces, Playful Movements, a Friend’s Voice

10:00-10:30

Coffee Break

10:30-11:30

Petra Nyman-Salonen (University of Jyväskylä)
Embodied Dialogue: Bodily Mirroring as a Form of Direct Perception

11:30-12:30

Janna van Grunsven (Fordham University)
Varieties of Empathy and the Neurodiversity Movement

12:30-13:30

Lunch

13:30-15:00

Keynote Lecture by Cristina Becchio (Psychology, University of Turin)

Seeing Mental States: An Experimental Strategy for Measuring the Observability of Others' Intentions.

15:00-15:30

 Coffee Break

15:30-16:30

Thomas Szanto (Philosophy, CFS Copenhagen)
Social Identity and Social Perception Biases

Friday March 31, 2017

09:00-10:30 

Keynote Lecture by Søren Overgaard (Philosophy, CFS Copenhagen)
Embodiment and Social Perception

10:30-11:00

Coffee Break

11:00-12:00

Rami El Ali (Lebanese American University)
Dissimulation and Direct Social Perception

12:00-13:00

Kristoffer Sundberg (University of Oslo)
Seeing Mental States through Behaviour

13:00-14:00

Lunch

14:00-15:00

Jola Feix (University of Oslo)
What Is Direct in Direct Social Perception?

15:00-15:30

Coffee Break

15:30-16:30

Felipe León (Philosophy, CFS Copenhagen)
Empathy, Direct Social Perception, and Collective Intentionality  


Organizers
Søren Overgaard (s.overgaard@hum.ku.dk)
Dan Zahavi (zahavi@hum.ku.dk)

Practical organizer
Merete Lynnerup (mly@hum.ku.dk)