Rise of the Agents

3 October 2023

Rise of the Agents

If you look up the characteristics of life in any standard Biology textbook, you’ll likely find some list like this: reproduction, heredity, cellular organization, growth and development, response to stimuli, adaptation through evolution, homeostasis, and metabolism. What you won’t find is agency. The fact that living organisms can do things is arguably the most important […]

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New Issue(2023): Naturalism – Challenges and New Perspectives 

29 September 2023

New Issue(2023): Naturalism – Challenges and New Perspectives 

New issue of Topoi addressing new perspectives and challenges to philosophical naturalism. From the introductory essay: “The purpose of this special issue is to contribute to the ongoing critical discourse on naturalism at this critical junction where liberal naturalism must meet the demands of scientific naturalism in order to part ways with it. Accordingly, the […]

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New Paper (2023): Using neurons to maintain autonomy: Learning from C. elegans

12 September 2023

Published open access on BioSystems Abstract: Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous—maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities—requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively […]

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Workshop: Agency & Life (Syros, July 4-5)

22 June 2023

Workshop: Agency & Life (Syros, July 4-5)

We are glad to announce this workshop on the notion of organismal agency, which will take place in hybrid form at the University of the Aegean, Syros, Greece. Those who wish to attend the workshop online please contact Argyris Arnellos at arar@aegean.gr before the 3rd of July. Please be aware that times indicated below correspond […]

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NEW PAPER (2023), A. Nahas, C.B. Sachs: What’s at stake in the debate over naturalizing teleology? An overlooked metatheoretical debate

25 April 2023

NEW PAPER (2023), A. Nahas, C.B. Sachs: What’s at stake in the debate over naturalizing teleology? An overlooked metatheoretical debate

Published open access in Synthese Abstract. Recent accounts of teleological naturalism hold that organisms are intrinsically goaldirected entities. We argue that supporters and critics of this view have ignored the ways in which it is used to address quite different problems. One problem is about biology and concerns whether an organism-centered account of teleological ascriptions […]

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CFA: Philosophy and Mathematics of Situated Agency

16 March 2023

CFA: Philosophy and Mathematics of Situated Agency

Keynote speakers: Daniel Hutto (University of Wollogong), Inês Hipólito (HU Berlin), Antonio Bicchi (Italian Institute of Technology), S​teven M. LaValle (University if Oulu), Julian Kiverstein (University of Amsterdam). Organizers invite extended abstract of approximately 250-500 words (excluding references) on the following topics: For more information visit the event page.

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From Philosophy to Neuroscience and Back Again. An Interview with Terrence Deacon. Part II

1 February 2023

From Philosophy to Neuroscience and Back Again. An Interview with Terrence Deacon. Part II

From the Symbolic Species to Incomplete Nature Auguste Nahas  So it’s only in your first book, The Symbolic Species, that you came back to Peirce.  Terrence Deacon Yes. I was thinking about the evolutionary origins of human language. It was very clear to me that you just couldn’t talk about ‘pre-language’. Animals aren’t speaking in […]

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WORKSHOP: Intersecting paths across mathematics, biology, and epistemology: a colloquium in honor of Giuseppe Longo and Ana Soto

18 January 2023

21 & 22 October 2022 In this colloquium, we celebrate the 75th birthdays of Giuseppe Longo and Ana Soto. We have chosento show their distinct trajectories and then how they intersect while working on the foundations oftheoretical knowledge with a biology focus. In this respect, both Giuseppe Longo and Ana Sotomaintain a close relationship with […]

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