I am at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosoficas of the UNAM in Mexico City for a workshop organized by Angeles Eraña and Axel Barceló.

Here the programme:

Perspectivas cognitivas sobre la mente y el lenguaje
Cognitive Perspectives on Mind and Language

Taller/Workshop

Miércoles/Wednesday 7 de diciembre/ December 7

Patterns of Fluency and Monitoring in ASD
Jessica de Villiers (Universidad de Columbia Británica, Canadá)
Commentary: Lenny Clapp (IIFs, UNAM)

Metaphor and Metarepresentation
Carmen Curco (IIFs, UNAM)
Commentary: Thomas Raleigh (IIFs, UNA M)

Meaning by Assertion Checklist: An Account of Context Sensitivity
Eduardo Villanueva (Universidad del Sur de California, EUA)
Commentary: Ekain Garmendia(IIFs,UNAM)

Jueves/Thursday 8 de diciembre/ December 8

The Homology of Face Recognition Systems in Human and Non-Human Primates
Claudia Lorena García Aguilar (IIFs, UNAM)
Commentary: Vasilis Tsompanidis (IIFs, UNAM)

Towards a Biologically Realistic Model of Brain Modularity
Clark Barrett (Universidad de California en Los Ángeles, EUA)
Commentary: Ángeles Eraña (IIFs, UNAM)

Viernes/Friday 9 de diciembre/ December 9

Diagramming: Using Space and Action to Reason
Valeria Giardino (Universidad de Sevilla, España)
Commentary: Axel Barceló (IIFs, UNAM)

Cognitive Disjuntivism
Eduardo García Ramírez & Angeles Eraña (IIFs, UNAM)
Commentary: Robert Stainton (Universidad de Western Ontario)

I was in Boston (more than a month ago, but I did not find the time to write it down), and I realized that also there there is a system for bike sharing (like my beloved ‘Velib” in Paris or ‘Sevici’ in Seville).

I have found out that they have come up with a very useful diagram that explains in a very straightforward way the payment system (you have to pay more if you use your bike for more than 30 minutes).

I wonder why the same diagram was not adopted in Paris (it was so difficult to explain it in words!)

Going back in Seville to what I was studying before diagrams… set theory and infinity. Should we be maximalist or minimalist about our universe of sets?

Maximalist and Minimalist Perspectives on Infinity: A meeting on set theory and its philosophy

Speakers:Tatiana Arrigoni (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento); Joan Bagaría (Universitat de Barcelona); Laura Crosilla (University of Leeds); Sy Friedman (Kurt Gödel Centre for Mathematical Logic, Vienna); Ignasi Jané (Universitat de Barcelona)

Thanks to José Ferreiros for organizing this. All infos (and soon a detailed program) here.

Going to New York City. To what seems to be a very nice conference, organized among others by Andrea whom I know personally from Barbara Tversky’s class I was following when I was in NYC last Fall. Lots of interesting people, and an opening reception and exhibition as well.

For all information, click here.

I will be there to take part in a workshop on the 4th on Numerical Cognition and Mathematical Ontology (at San Raffaele University, from 9.45 to 18.30, in Room IPPOCRATE), organized by Andrea Sereni (a good friend working at San Raffaele University, Milan), and Elisabetta Lalumera (University of Milan Bicocca).

The program includes the talks of Eric Margolis (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Mouhamadou Ba (Hady from the Institut Jean Nicod!), Luisa Girelli (University of Milan-Bicocca), Jessica Carter (University of Southern Denmark, Odense), Tatiana Arrigoni and Bruno Caprile (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento), Valentin Sorin Costreie (Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch) and Marco Panza (IHPST – CNRS – Paris 1).

I will give another presentation on the 6th on my work on spatial reasoning.

The ECAP is also a good occasion (and excuse) for me to meet very good friends I have not seen for a while and whose work (and presentations) I recommend: Margherita Arcangeli, Francesco Berto, Elena Casetta, Paola Cantù, Ophelia Deroy, Yasmina Jraissati, Daniele Santoro, Giuliano Torrengo.

… Am I forgetting someone?

The 14th Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science organized by the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (DLMPS) will be held in Nancy from the 19th to the 26th of July.

Of particular interest to me, the days 20th and 21st.

On the 20th, there will be an Affiliated Symposium: Philosophy of Mathematical Practice (one-day meeting: two main lectures and twelve communications). All infos clicking here.

On the 21st, as part of the Congress, there will be a morning session on the Philosophy of mathematical practice.

Organizer: Jose Ferreiros, Paolo Mancosu

Tom Archibald, Introductory lecture: Fundamental mathematical objects in the late nineteenth century: a new look

Roundtable:

Kenneth Manders, Human agency and mathematical reasoning
Brendan Larvor, Propositional reasoning and sociological aspects
Valeria Giardino (me!), Nonpropositional reasoning and cognitive aspects
Dirk Schlimm, Symbolic reasoning and historical aspects of math practice

La Redazione del gruppo di giovani ricercatori APhEx (Analytical and Philosophical Explanation) è lieta di annunciare la pubblicazione del quarto numero di APhEx. Portale italiano di filosofia analitica. Con questo numero, la Redazione propone alle sue lettrici e ai suoi lettori nuovi profili, temi, recensioni e un’intervista sull’origine del linguaggio. Buona lettura e buona estate!

N° 4/2011 – APhEx:

TEMI

Internationale Tagung
THINKING WITH DIAGRAMS. SPACE, INSCIPTION, KNOWLEDGE

Exzellenzcluster Topoi | DFG-Graduiertenkolleg Schriftbildlichkeit
7. bis 9. Juli 2011
Veranstaltungsort: Freie Universität Berlin | Institut für Philosophie | Habelschwerdter Allee 30, 14195 Berlin

Welche Rolle spielen räumliche Ordnungsstrukturen in Gestalt diagrammatischer Inskriptionen für unsere Wissenskulturen? Welche kognitive Bedeutung haben graphische Artefakte wie Schriften, Diagramme, Graphen und Karten? Diese Fragen untersucht die internationale Tagung: Thinking with diagrams. Space, Inscription, Knowlege vom 7.- 9. Juli 2011 an der Freien Universität Berlin.

Referenten u.a.:

Emmanuel Alloa (Basel)
Valeria Giardino (Paris)
Christina Ljungberg (Zürich)
Michael Marinnan (Stanford)
Dieter Mersch (Potsdam)
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen (Helsinki)
Sun-Joo Shin (Yale)
Frederik Stjernfelt (Aarhus)

Konzeption: Sybille Krämer | Jan Wöpking
Die Tagung ist eine Zusammenarbeit des Exzellenzclusters Topoi mit dem DFG-Graduiertenkolleg Schriftbildlichkeit.

Kontakt:
jan.woepking@fu-berlin.de

http://www.topoi.org/event/thinking-with-diagrams/

PROGRAMM:

Donnerstag, 7. Juli 2011: FOUNDATIONS & CONCEPTS

09.30 – 09.45 Opening remarks
09.45 – 10.45 Frederik Stjernfelt (Aarhus): Thinking about thinking with diagrams
10.45 – 11.15 Tea / coffee
11.15 – 12.15 Michael Marrinan (Stanford): The “thing-ness” of diagrams
12.15 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 15.00 Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen (Helsinki): Is there a general diagram concept?
15.00 – 16.00 Sun-Joo Shin (Yale): How do diagrams show what they show?
16.00 – 16.30 Tea / coffee
16.30 – 17.30 Christina Ljungberg (Zürich): The diagrammatic nature of maps

Reception
Freitag, 8. Juli 2011: COGNITION & ICONICITY

09.30 – 10.30 Dieter Mersch (Potsdam): On iconic differences
10.30 – 11.30 Jan Wöpking (Berlin): True conclusions from false pictures. Iconicity and instrumentality in diagrams
11.30 – 12.00 Tea / coffee
12.00 – 13.00 Valeria Giardino (Paris): Diagramming. Using space to reason
13.00 – 14.30 Lunch
14.30 – 15.30 Steffen Siegel (Jena): “Unfolding” – What is in a diagram?
15.30 – 16.30 Matthias Bauer (Flensburg): Pattern language and space syntax: Alexander, Chomsky, Peirce and Wittgenstein
16.30 – 17.00 Tea / coffee
17.00 – 18.00 Steffen Bogen (Konstanz): The diagram as game-plan. Notation in Alfonso el Sabio’s Book of Games (1283)

Samstag, 9. Juli 2011: PHILOSOPHICAL CASE STUDIES

09.30 – 10.30 Sybille Krämer (Berlin): Plato revisited. ‘Diagrammatology’ as an irreducible dimension of European Philosophy
10.30 – 11.30 Emmanuel Alloa (Basel): Capturing the flow. On Husserl’s aporetic time diagrams
11.30 – 11.45 Tea / coffee
11.45 – 12.45 Mark Halawa (Berlin) / Benjamin Meyer-Krahmer (Berlin): Pragmatism on paper. On Charles S. Peirce’s graphic practice and pragmatic thinking

Closing remarks

Not only illiteracy and innumeracy… but also inmappancy!

Students from all over the world are confused about the dimensions of the continents, also due to what I would call the Mercator effect. As explained in Wikipedia,

The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Belgian, Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator, in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines or loxodromes, as straight segments. While the linear scale is constant in all directions around any point, thus preserving the angles and the shapes of small objects (which makes the projection conformal), the Mercator projection distorts the size and shape of large objects, as the scale increases from the Equator to the poles, where it becomes infinite.

Source: http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-size-of-africa.jpg

Three puzzles from Martin Gardner on the Scientific American. To read the article click here.