Participating in in-person events comes with challenges for many researchers, either due to funding, disability, or other social circumstances as well as the contribution to Co2 emissions.

We make it our mission to organise an online event where state-of-the-art on the philosophy of the sciences of the mind will be presented and discussed open to everyone, regardless of their academic position and/or geographic location.

We strongly encourage scholars that are members of a under represented group or are based in the global south to participate and engage. 

Best meme prize

Many scientific societies have prizes for the best paper. As an online-based society, we instead launch a contest for the best graphic meme regarding the philosophy of the sciences of the mind. According to Collins Dictionary, "A meme is something such as a video, picture, or phrase that a lot of people send to each other on the internet." In this contest, we are interested in memes formed by static images + text and GIFs.

The contest is open to all those who submit a paper or a symposium at the conference: to participate, simply add up to a .GIF or .JPEG file entitled "ISPSM2024 Best Meme Contest." Memes should aim to elicit a laugh and then a thought (similarly to the Ig Nobel prize) and should abide by the ISPSM code of conduct (https://www.ispsmind.com/). The winning meme will be hosted on the society's homepage and social media. The winner will be selected by the Program Committee.

Best Meme Contest 2024

by James Luong

What is the mind, and how does it work? Centuries of philosophical and scientific investigation have shown that these questions are too big to be tackled once and for all with a single explanatory endeavor. The magnitude of this pursuit has necessitated a multidisciplinary approach: several disciplinary fields have tackled the investigation of some facets of the mind from their own perspectives, possibly enriching and complicating the very notion of mind in the process.

In this second web conference, we seek again to bring together many of these perspectives to obtain a comprehensive and multi-scale landscape. The International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind (ISPSM) thus invites all philosophers working on any science of the mind (broadly construed) to submit an abstract for a paper or a symposium.

To facilitate participation of scholars from all around the globe, the conference will be spread over several days and time zones.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Sabrina Coninx

VU Amsterdam, Nederlands

Zoe Drayson

University of California, Davis, USA

Ying-Tung Lin

National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan

Michelle Liu

Monash University, Australia

Fiona Macpherson

University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Giovanni Rolla

Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

Mpho Tshivhase

University of Pretoria, Republic of South Africa

Keynote symposium:

TBA

A non-exhaustive list of disciplines and topics include:

• Philosophy of psychology
• Philosophy of neuroscience
• Philosophy of artificial intelligence & robotics
• Philosophy of linguistics
• Philosophy of (cognitive) anthropology
• Philosophy of ethology
• Philosophy of biology
• Philosophy of psychiatry
• Philosophy of social sciences
• 4E cognition

Dates

Deadline for abstract submission: 1st May 2025

Where: Online, on Cisco Webex

Fees: The conference is fully online, and no fee is required

Further Inquiries: ispsmofficial@gmail.com

Conference:

• 24-26 October 2025

Information for submission

Abstracts for papers (about 30 minutes each including Q&A) should be anonymized PDFs of maximum 500 words, excluding references and 3-5 keywords. To submit an abstract, please use the following link.

Proposals for symposia (2 hours including Q&A, maximum 4 papers) should be PDF files between 1500 and 2000 words, excluding references and 3-5 keywords. Unlike papers, they should not be anonymized: speakers' affiliations and contacts should be included in the main text. 

To submit a symposium proposal, please use the following link

Programme chairs:

Valeria Becattini, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.

Liberty Severs, Ruhr-Univesität Bochum and the University of Lisbon, Germany and Portugal.

Local programme chairs:

Bräuchle, Lara - Ruhr-Univesität Bochum, Germany.

Clavel Vásquez, Jimena M. - Tilburg University, the Netherlands

Dewey Aliya R. - Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh University, USA

Negro, Niccolò - School of psychological sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Parvizi-Wayne Darius - Macquarie University, Australia

Program committee (ISPSM Council members)

Inês Hipólito (Macquarie University)

Fabrizio Calzavarini (University of Turin)

Liza Skidelsky (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

Don Ross (University College Cork / University of Cape Town)

Krushil Watene (University of Auckland)

Katsunori Miyahara (Hokkaido University)

Founders and Past Presidents:

Gualtiero Piccinini Founder and Past President (2022-23)

Inês Hipólito Founder and Past President (2023-24)

Contact: ispsmofficial@gmail.com