In this course, we will discuss three aspects of cognition that are essentially involved in
human interaction, namely being a self, being an agent and understanding another agent
and finally trusting the other agent in interaction. To develop these intertwined topics, we
always first have a look at typical human cognitive abilities and standard human-human
interaction and then shift to the challenges of cognitive abilities in AI systems, especially in
the context of human-AI system interactions. The course is essentially interdisciplinary.
Although it has a focus on philosophical theory formation, it strongly involves relevant
evidence from psychology, neuroscience and AI. The aim to work out clear challenges in
understanding human and AI cognition such that we can develop demands for future AI
systems to make them acceptable for human-AI system interactions.
Lecture 1: What does in involve to be a self? Does it make sense to attribute being a self to
an AI system?
Lecture 2: When is a cognitive system an agent, what does it involve in humans to have a
sense of agency and what does it involve to attribute agency to AI systems?
Lecture 3: How can we characterize trustworthiness and trust by comparing humans and AI
systems?
References:
Dennett, Daniel C. (1992) The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity. In: F. Kessel, P. Cole
and D. Johnson (eds.) Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum. https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/266/1/selfctr.htm
Thomas Metzinger (2011). The no-self alternative. In Shaun Gallagher, The Oxford handbook
of the self. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011). https://academic.oup.com/edited-
volume/38581/chapter/334605528?login=true
Newen A (2018) The Embodied Self, the Pattern Theory of Self, and the Predictive Mind.
Front. Psychol. 9:2270. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02270
Haggard, P. Sense of agency in the human brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 18, 196–207 (2017).
https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.14
Synofzik M, Vosgerau G, Newen A. Beyond the comparator model: a multifactorial two-step
account of agency. Conscious Cogn. 2008 Mar;17(1):219-39. doi:
10.1016/j.concog.2007.03.010. Epub 2007 May 4. PMID: 17482480.
Machery, Edouard, Kneer, Markus, Willemsen, Pascale and Newen, Albert (2023). Beyond
the Courtroom: Agency and the Perception of Free Will (February 20, 2023). In Samuel
Murray & Paul Henne (eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Action (forthcoming),
Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4365146 or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4365146 file:///C:/Users/alber/Downloads/ssrn-4365146-4.pdf
Afroogh, S., Akbari, A., Malone, E. et al. Trust in AI: progress, challenges, and future
directions. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11, 1568 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-
04044-8
Newen, C., Müller, E. & Newen, A. Trust and Uncertainties: Characterizing Trustworthy AI
Systems Within a Multidimensional Theory of Trust. Topoi (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-025-10287-0
Lecturer
Albert Newen is full professor for philosophy at the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB). He is
specialized in philosophy of mind including theories of self and understanding others.
Furthermore, he is the director of the interdisciplinary Center for Mind and Cognition at RUB
since 2011. He was president of the German Society for Cognitive Science (2018-2020) and
he is the speaker of an interdisciplinary DFG-Research Training Group working on “Situated
Cognition”. This is e.g. documented in the Oxford Handbook of 4E cognition edited by him
and colleagues (L. de Bruin, S. Gallagher).