Lecturer: Krzysztof Dolega
Fields: Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science, Computational Neuroscience
Content
The proposal that probabilistic inference and unconscious hypothesis testing are central to information processing in the brain has been steadily gaining ground in cognitive neuroscience and associated fields. One popular version of this proposal is the new theoretical framework of action-oriented predictive coding or predictive processing, which couples the idea of unconscious perceptual inference with that of ‘active inference’ in which inference and predictive control are applied to action. Together, the two kinds of inference are claimed to offer a unified and exhaustive account of perception and cognition.
The aim of this course is to investigate and evaluate the validity of claims about the explanatory power and credentials of predictive processing. We will explore different interpretations of predictive processing and ask whether the framework supports a representational understanding of cognition or whether it steers cognitive science towards a more enactive approach to mind and life. Finally, we will also try to scrutinize the explanatory scope and the level of analysis on which the framework tries to answer questions about cognition.
Literature
- Bruineberg, J., Kiverstein, J., & Rietveld, E. (2018). The anticipating brain is not a scientist: the free-energy principle from an ecological-enactive perspective. Synthese, 195(6), 2417-2444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1239-1
- Clark, A. (2015). Radical Predictive Processing. The Sou. Journal of Philosophy, 53, 3-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12120
- Kirchhoff, M.D. & Robertson, I. (2018) Enactivism and predictive processing: a non-representational view, Philosophical Explorations, 21(2), 264-281, DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2018.1477983
- Sprevak, M. (2021). Predictive coding I: Introduction. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19365
- Sprevak, M. (2021). Predictive coding II: The computational level. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20641
- Sprevak, M. (2021). Predictive coding III: The algorithmic level. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19488
- Sprevak, M. (2021). Predictive coding IV: The implementation level. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19669
Lecturer
Krzysztof Dolega is a postdoc and a member of the situated cognition research group at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. He has just completed a one and a half year long Volkswagen Stiftung funded grant on the psychology and epistemology of conspiracy theories entitled “Why do people believe weird things: Bayesian brain, conspiracy theories, and epistemic vices”. His doctoral research was also conducted at the Ruhr-Universität, where he was supervised by Tobias Schlicht and Daniel Dennett. Krzysztof was awarded a PhD in Philosophy with a grade of summa cum laude in May 2019. This work was also distinguished by the GfD with the annual prize for the best interdisciplinary dissertation. Krzysztof has published over 15 academic papers and book chapters. Together with Jelle Bruineberg, Joe Dewhurst, and Manuel Baltieri, he is the co-author of the recent Behavioral & Brain Sciences target article “The Emperor’s New Markov Blankets”, which has just appeared in print together with 35 commentaries and a reply from the authors. He has also co-edited a collection of articles on representational explanations by leading researchers titled “Mental Representations: The Foundation of Cognitive Science” (OUP, 2020).
Affiliation: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Homepage: krysdolega.xyz