IFL | People

Philosophy of science/neuroscience: I’m interested in some questions concerning the actual practice of scientists in general and neuroscientists in particular: reductionism, taxonomy, the nature of levels and kinds of explanation. I’m particularly interested on mechanist alternatives to explanation and what are the roles that models and simplified (or idealized) representations play on scientific practice.
Empirical truth-conditional semantics: This is a work in progress project I’m developing with my colleague João Sàágua. The main motivation is to establish the bases for a scientific semantics for natural languages (a scientific approach to the cognitive capacity of linguistic understanding). Against the main received tradition (and taking a neo-quinean motivation), we take truth-conditional semantics as a means to describe, in a precise way, the verbal behavior of speakers and not as a cognitive/information processing explanation of that behavior. More specifically, the aim is to explore the notion of ‘external’ truth-conditions as a guide to devise behavioral protocols of understanding declarative sentences thus circumscribing the phenomena to be explained.
Neurorepresentation/neurosemantics: Assuming that humans nervous systems represent but so do cockroaches two questions arise: 1- what are the minimal conditions to say that something represents (in order to justify the claim that a cockroach nervous system represents), and 2- what are the biological/evolutionary constraints that give rise to a ‘high-level semantics’ (as deployed by humans) from a ‘low level’ one (that one of the cockroach)

ongoing research projects

“Emotion, Cognition and Communication”, ref POCI/FIL/58227/2004

recent publications:

in press “Ciências cognitivas, representação e cérebro” in Diogo Pires Aurélio (ed.) Actas do Seminário de Estudos Avançados sobre o Conceito de ‘Representação’, Colibri, Lisboa
in press (with Luiz Baptista and João Sàágua) Verdade Mente e Acção, Edições colibri, Lisboa
2008 “On the non-elimination of mental states by adopting a ruthless-rductive stance” in PhilSci Archive (University of Pittsburgh). http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003924/
2006. “De Uma Semântica Conceptual para uma Neurosemântica: apresentação e discussão crítica da contenda Fodor & Lepore vs Paul Churchland a propósito da noção de similaridade de significado” in Análise, Série II, nº 2, pp 71-94.
2006. paper: “Uma Abordagem Anti-Realista Contra a Reformulação do Problema Mente-Corpo Segundo uma perspectiva Reducionista-Interteórica”, in Sofia Miguéns, José Alberto Pinto e Carlos Mauro (eds.) Analyses: proceedings of the 2nd National Meeting for Analytic Philosophy, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, pp 124-133
2005.Paper: “Donald Davidson on Mental States, Realism and Neuroscientific Explanation” in João Sàágua (ed.) A Explicação da Acção Humna/ The Explanation of Human Interpretation, Proceedings of Mind and Action III, Edições Colibri, Lisboa, pp 271-280
2004. Paper: “On Bickle’s Failure to Give a Formal Account of the Location in the New-Wave Reductionist Spectrum”, in Disputatio, Vol I, nº 17, pp. 65-73
2004. Paper: “A um cérebro minimal corresponde uma racionalidade minimal?”, Cadernos de Filosofia nº 14, pp 35-53
2003. Paper: “Reducionismo e Evolução Científica: Uma Nova Perspectiva” in Henrique Jales Ribeiro (ed.) Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Filosofia Analítica, Faculdade de Letras de Coimbra, Coimbra 2003, pp 173-183
2003. Book Review: Churchland, P.S.; Brain-Wise; Studies in Neurophilosophy, MIT Press, 2002, Cadernos de Filosofia nº 13, pp 79-87.
2001. Encyclopedia entries: “Indeterminação da Tradução” e “Relatividade Ontológica” in Enciclopédia de Termos Lógico-Filosóficos, Branquinho & Murcho (orgs.), Gradiva, Lisboa
2000. Paper: “Interpretation, Semantics and Indexicality (or How One Thing Led to Another)”, in Cadernos de Filosofia, nº 7, pp. 37-64
1999. Paper: “Comentário a Evenine: Será Davidson um Empirista sob Pele de Cordeiro?”, in Cadernos de Filosofia, nº 6, pp. 35-39
1999. Book review: Paul M. Churchland; The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain, in Cadernos de Filosofia, nº5, pp. 143-160
1997. Book review: Geofrey Hunter: Metalogic. An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First Order Logic, in Cadernos de Filosofia nº 2, pp. 135-140
1997. Book review: Bechtel, W. & Abrahamsen, A.: Connectionism and the Mind. An Introduction to Parallel Processing in Networks, in Cadernos de Filosofia nº2, pp. 141-147

recent lectures

2008 (26th January). “Estará a Filosofia da Mente a Prejudicar o Progresso Neurocientífico?”, presented at 3º Oficina de Filosofia Analítica, Sociedade Portuguesa de Filosofia, 25-26 January.
2008 (10th April). “On the non-elimination of mental states by adopting a ruthless-rductive stance”, at Reduction and the Special Sciences, Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (Tilburg University), 10-12 April.
2007 (19th December). “Is Philosophy of Mind Holding Neuroscience Back? The Case of Fear”, presented at the International Workshop Emotion, Cognition and Communication, 19-20 December, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem
Organization of the International Workshop Emotion, Cognition and Communication, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, 19-20 December 2007
2006(June 3rd). “Ruthless Reductionism vs. New Mechanism on reductive explanation and neuroscientific discovery”, international meeting ENFA 3, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, June 2-4.
2005(August 28th). (with João Sàágua) “Semantic minimalism and communication”, presented at Fifth European Congress for Analytical Philosophy, Universidade de Lisboa, faculdade de Letras, August 27-31
2005(June the 4th). (with João Sáágua) “Contextualism, minimalism and communication”, at the international colloquium Meaning and Communication, João Sàágua and Ernest Lepore (orgs.), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, FCSH
2004(October 9th). “Uma abordagem anti-realista em favor da redução psico-neuronal” at Segundo Encontro Nacional de Filosofia Analítica (ENFA 2), realizado na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto.
2004(June 3rd). “Representação, Cognição e Sistema Nervoso”, at Estudos Avançados sobre o Conceito de Representação, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
2004(January 30). “Neurorepresentação” Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem as part of the research project “The Explanation of Human Interpretation: Formal Tools and Philosophical Analysis”.
2003(November 4th). “A um Cérebro Minimal Corresponde uma Racionalidade Minimal?”, at the Portuguese-Brasilian meeting Linguagem, Conhecimento e Racionalidades, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
2003(October 2nd). “Active Externalism and Psychoneural Reduction”, at the international conference Where is Your Head At? Mental Processes, Communication and Rules. in Vietri sul Mare, Italy
2003(May 30). (with Dina Mendonça) Poster “Philosophical Anatomy of Emotions” at the international conference Emotion and the Brain III; Basic Research and Clinical Applications, at Torre do Tombo, Lisbon, Universidade Lusófona.
2002(May 18). “Reducionismo e Evolução Científica: Uma Nova Perspectiva”, at Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Filosofia Analítica, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra.
2002(April 12). “Aspectos Filosóficos das Neurociências”, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem as part of the research project “The Explanation of Human Interpretation: Formal Tools and Philosophical Analysis”.
2002(February 14). “Neurorepresentação e Neurocomputação; A Naturalização da Mente”, conference at Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem (FCSH/UNL).
2001(May 25. “Donald Davidson, Realist or Instrumentalist?: The Role of Consciousness in Mental States Ascriptions”, at Mind and Action III: The Explanation of Human Interpretation, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
1998(September 10th). “Reply to Evnine”, reply to Simon Evenine’s talk “On The Way to Language”, presented at Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem (FCSH/UNL).