Cognitive Science @ UCSD Philosophy
Interdisciplinary Cognitive Science Program at UCSDThe UCSD Philosophy Department, as a participant in UCSD's Interdisciplinary Cognitive Science Program, offers a degree program leading to a joint PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. And of course it is also possible for students to pursue a program of study in the area of philosophy of mind/cogsci/neuroscience exclusively within the philosophy department without doing the joint degree program. The department itself has five faculty members whose work is in the area of philosophy of mind/cogsci/neuroscience. And it is not just the numbers that are impressive, but the quality and breadth of research areas represented, from neurophilosophy and connectionism to traditional computational mind/cogsci and neo-Evansian naturalized philosophy of mind. A wide variety of seminars in the area are offered, and many successful dissertations have been written and are underway. In addition, the Experimental Philosophy Lab, a weekly informal avenue for interaction between the interested graduate students and faculty, provides a rich forum for presenting new research and keeping on the cutting edge of the field. The unparalleled tradition of philosophy graduate students excelling in various neuroscience and cognitive science labs on campus make it easy to do real empirical work. In sum, UCSD's department offers a breadth and depth of resources for those interested in interdisciplinary mind/cogsci/neuroscience studies that has no equal.
Interdisciplinary Cognitive Science Program
The Philosophy Department is one of several departments at UCSD actively involved in the Interdisciplinary Cognitive Science Degree Program. Students interested in pursuing a joint doctorate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science first apply for admission to their 'home department', in this case Philosophy. Once accepted and in residence, the student then applies to participate in the interdisciplinary program. The details of this application procedure and the requirements can be found at the program's website. Participants in the program are able to design an interdisciplinary course of study, drawing on resources in neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, computer science and yet other departments, programs and research institutions.
The rich tradition of Philosophy graduate students not only working in a variety of labs across campus, but doing very well in such labs, has the positive feedback effect of making philosophy graduate students very welcome in such labs. This is not insignificant, as students in philosophy programs at other other universities that have interdisciplinary aspirations often find it difficult to convince skeptical scientists that having a philosopher participate in their lab won't be a waste of their time. Here many labs are eager and willing, based on good past experience, to have philosophers participate and gain valuable experience. And these labs themselves are among the best in the world. Neurosciences at UCSD are ranked first in the nation, and the cognitive science and psychology resources are also among the best in the nation, and are certainly the most innovative and exciting.
Faculty (in alphabetical order)
William Bechtel moved to UCSD as of July 2002. Previously he was Director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis. His research addresses issues concerning cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science and parts of biology. His work with cognitive neuroscience examines the role of decomposition and localization as heuristics in developing brain-based models of cognitive function. In cognitive science, he is especially interested in the use of connectionist and other dynamical systems to model cognition. In history and philosophy of biology, he is analyzing the development of mechanistic explanatory models. This project is realized in a detailed case study of the development of modern cell biology in the period 1940-1965. He is author of Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Cognitive Science (Erlbaum, NJ, 1988), Connectionism and the Mind, (Blackwell, 1991; 2002) with A. Abrahamsen, Discovering Complexity (Princeton, 1993), with R.C. Richardson, How to Do Things with Logic, Erlbaum, NJ, 1994), with C. Grant Luckhardt, and is now writing Discovering Modern Cell Biology for CUP.
Patricia Churchland is UC President's Professor of Philosophy, chair of the Philosophy Department and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla. Her research targets neurophilosophy - the interface between traditional philosophy questions (concerning, for example, consciousness, knowledge, meaning, and free will) and developments in neuroscience. Her most recent book is Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy (Nov. 2002; MIT Press.) She is author of Neurophilosophy (MIT Press 1986), co-author with T. J. Sejnowski of The Computational Brain (MIT 1992), co-author with Paul Churchland of On The Contrary (MIT 1998).
Paul Churchland is Professor of Philosophy, and President of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division (2002). His research targets the nature of representation at the psychological and neural levels, and how, through evolution and learning, structure and activity in nervous systems map objects and events in the world. The more general target problem concerns the nature of reasoning in general, and scientific reasoning in particular. His most recent book is The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul (1996 MIT Press). He is author of a widely used text-book, Matter and Consciousness (1988 MIT Press) and a monograph, A Neurocomputational Perspective (1989 MIT Press). He is currently working on a new book on the relation between inner representations and the world represented.
Jonathan Cohen is interested in a number of topics lying along the borders of philosophy and psychology. Much of his recent research has attempted to enlist ideas from vision science (especially color psychophysics) to address traditional metaphysical issues about color (e.g., "On the Structural Properties of the Colors" Australasian Journal of Philosophy (in press), "Color: A Functionalist Proposal" (under review)). He has also published papers on visual attention, visual consciousness, mental content, and psychological explanation.
Rick Grush works primarily in theoretical cognitive science, linguistics and philosophy of language, and the metaphysics of mind and representation. He has explored the application of tools from control theory and signal processing, especially Kalman filters, in understanding various aspects of neurocognitive function (e.g. 'In defense of some 'Cartesian' assumptions concerning the brain and its operation' to appear in Biology and Philosophy; 'An introduction to the main principles of emulation: motor control, imagery, and perception' (under review); and 'The Architecture of Representation', Philosophical Psychology). He also has an interest in developing basis-function models of the egocentric spatial representing capacities of the posterior parietal cortex, and in the relation between spatial representation and objectivity (see, e.g. 'Self, world and space', Brian and Mind). He is currently editing a volume of essays on the work of Gareth Evans for Oxford University Press, and is hammering away on his own book, The Machinery of Mindedness.
Experimental Philosophy Lab
The Experimental Philosophy Lab (EPL) is an informal weekly event at which interested graduate students and faculty present recent work, discuss ideas for new projects, execute practice runs of upcoming talks, and generally have a good time. A list of upcoming topics, as well as other information, can be found at the EPL website. For any other questions about EPL contact Rick Grush
Reading Groups
In addition to EPL, a number of reading groups spontaneously emerge over the course of a given year. For instance, during AY2001-02, Jonathan Cohen organized reading groups for Dretske's Knowledge and the Flow of Information and Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and its Limits.
Conferences
Jonathan Cohen is currently co-organizing a conference on Color.
Recent Graduate Seminars
- Perception (Cohen)
- Cognitive Linguistics (Grush)
- The 'Theory of Mind' debate (Grush)
Recent and Current Dissertations
- William Ramsey
- Valery Hardcastle
- Rick Grush
- Brian Keeley
- Illya Farber