Cognitive Science Colloquium

• In-Person event
• 2203, Dunton Tower, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

Join us for our next colloquium on November 11th at 3:00 pm in DT 2203. Dr. Vincent Bergeron from the University of Ottawa will be giving a research talk on Assigning Functions to Brain Structures: How Teleology Gets in the Way

A primary goal of cognitive neuroscience is to assign functions to brain structures. This task is complicated by the fact that many different cognitive functions can be assigned to the same brain structure depending on the cognitive context. This failure to observe systematic mappings between cognitive functions and brain structures has led many to conclude that our cognitive ontologies—i.e. our current descriptions of cognitive processes and their components—must either be incorrect or too coarse. The solution, we are told, is to develop new cognitive ontologies, or at the very least revise our current ones, although there is little agreement on how to proceed.

In this talk, I argue that teleological thinking (“the function of brain structure S is X”) is a primary obstacle to the successful mapping of cognitive functions onto the brain. I then offer a non-teleological approach to functional localization and argue that it can help develop cognitive ontologies that are better suited for cognitive neuroscience.

Vincent Bergeron is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the conceptual and methodological foundations of cognitive science. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of British Columbia.