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gualtiero piccinini |
Department of Philosophy and Center for Neurodynamics
University of Missouri – St. Louis
599 Lucas Hall (MC 73) • 1 University Blvd. • St. Louis, MO 63121-4400
314-516-6160
piccininig@umsl.edu • www.umsl.edu/~piccininig/
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, and Center for Neurodynamics, University of Missouri – Saint Louis, 2010-present.
Department chair, 2011-present.
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri – Saint Louis, 2005-2010.
James S. McDonnell Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Program in Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, 2003-2005.
Visiting Positions
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, May 2011.
Visiting Assistant Professor, SCUDO (engineering graduate school), Politecnico di Torino, Italy, May 2007 and June 2009.
Ph.D., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, August 2003.
B.A., Philosophy and Cognitive Science, summa cum laude, Università di Torino, Italy, 1994.
Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Psychology and Neuroscience
Philosophy of Computation
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Language
Cognitive Science
History and Philosophy of Science
To be reprinted in a volume published by Blackwell.
An early, abbreviated version of some portions of this article appeared in “Connectionist Computation” as part of the IJCNN 2007 Conference Proceedings (listed below under “Other Articles”).
Italian translation (slightly abridged, followed by a commentary by Simone Gozzano): “Modelli computazionali e spiegazioni computazionali,” in P. Cherubini, P. Giaretta, M. Marraffa, and A. Paternoster (eds.), Cognizione e Computazione: Problemi, metodi e prospettive delle spiegazioni computazionali nelle scienze cognitive, CLEUP, Padova (2006), pp. 103-125.
Reprinted in Anthony I. Jack and Andreas Roepstorff, eds., Trusting the Subject? The Use of Introspective Evidence in Cognitive Science, Volume 1, Exeter: Imprint Academic (2003), pp. 141-156.
Reprinted in James H. Moor, ed., The Turing Test: The Elusive Standard of Artificial Intelligence, Dordrecht: Kluwer (2003), pp. 111-120.
Chinese translation forthcoming, Science Press, Beijing.
Central States Philosophical Association Meeting, St. Louis, MO, September 2011.
APA Central Division, Chicago, IL, February 2012.
Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, September 2010.
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, October 2010.
“Philosophy and the Brain: Computation, Realization, Representation,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 2011.
4. “Information Processing, Computation, and Cognition,” Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Savannah, GA, April 2009. Also invited at:
7th International Conference on Cognitive Science, Beijing, China, August 2010.
5. “First-Person Data, Publicity, and Self-Measurement.” Consciousness Online (http://consciousnessonline.wordpress.com/), February 2009.
6. “The Resilience of Computationalism,” Philosophy of Science Association Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, November 2008.
7. “Recovering What Is Said with Empty Names,” Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association, Aberdeen, U.K., 2008.
8. “Access Denied to Zombies,” presented at:
APA Central Division, Chicago, IL, April 2008.
Tucson VII - Toward a Science of Consciousness 2006, Tucson, AZ, April 2006.
9. “First-person Data,” Philosophy of Medicine Roundtable, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, March 2008.
10. “Connectionist Computation,” 2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Orlando, FL, August 2007.
11. “Digits, Strings, and Spikes: Empirical Evidence against Computationalism,” North American Computing and Philosophy, Chicago, IL, July 2007. Also invited at:
Modeling, Computation and Computational Science: Perspectives from Different Sciences, Helsinki, Finland, November 2007.
12. “The Mind as Neural Software? Revisiting Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism.” SSPP, Atlanta, GA, April 2007.
13. “Public Evidence from First-person Reports,” PSA Meeting, Vancouver, Canada, November 2006. Also invited at:
University of Missouri St. Louis, October 2006.
Washington University in St. Louis, November 2006.
14. “Splitting Concepts,” SPP, Winston-Salem, NC, June 2005.
15. “The Functional Account of Computing Mechanisms,” SSPP, Durham, NC, March 2005.
16. “Computation without Representation,” APA Eastern Division, Boston, MA, December 2004.
17. “Functionalism, Computationalism, and Mental Contents,” First Joint Conference of the SPP and EuroSPP, Barcelona, Spain, July 2004.
18. “The Mind as Neural Software: Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism,” symposium session, APA Pacific Division, Pasadena, CA, March 2004.
19. “Why Functionalism Does Not Entail Computationalism,” APA Pacific Division, San Francisco, CA, March 2003.
20. “Is Everything a Turing Machine, and Does It Matter to the Philosophy of Mind?” APA Eastern Division, Philadelphia , PA, December 2002.
21. “The Functional View of Computational States,” Northwest Philosophy Conference, Portland, OR, October 2002.
22. “Computing Mechanisms II: A Functional Account,” Computing and Philosophy (CAP@CMU), Pittsburgh, PA, August 2002.
23. “Experimental Epistemology: Warren McCulloch and the Philosophical Birth of Cognitive Science,” HOPOS 2002, Montreal, Canada, June 2002.
24. “Computing Mechanisms I: Desiderata,” Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, Toronto, Canada, May 2002.
25. “Mind Gauging: Introspection as a Public Epistemic Resource,” Grad Expo, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, September 2001.
26. “Turing’s Rules for the Imitation Game,” The Future of the Turing Test, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, NH, January 2000.
27. “Alan Turing and the Mathematical Objection,” Joint Atlantic Seminar in the History of the Physical Sciences, Washington, DC, September 1999. Also invited at:
Hypercomputation, University College, London, UK, May 2000.
Pugwash Conference, Carnegie Mellon University, September 1999.
Theoretical Cognition Group, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, September 1999.
Invited Presentations
Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 2011.
Philosophy and Computation, Lund, Sweden, May 2012.
Southern Illinois University's Neuroscience Retreat (plenary lecture), Collinsville, IL, September 2012.
9. “Functional Analyses as Mechanism Sketches,” panel on “Decomposing the Mind: From Functional Analysis to Mechanistic Explanation,” Society for the Metaphysics of Science, APA Pacific Division, San Francisco, CA, April 2010.
10. “Computationalism in the Philosophy of Mind,” presented at:
Washington University in St. Louis, September 2008.
MOPS (Missouri Philosophy of Science), Columbia, MO, September 19-20, 2008.
11. “Computation vs. Information Processing: How They Are Different and Why It Matters,” Workshop on Computation in Cognitive Science, King’s College, Cambridge, UK, 7th-8th July 2008.
12. “Mechanistic Functionalism,” Panel on Functionalism and Mechanisms, Society for the Metaphysics of Science, APA Central Division, Chicago, IL, April 2008.
13. “Some Neural Networks Compute, Others Don’t,” Center of Neurodynamics, University of Missouri – St. Louis, January 2008.
14. “The Physical Church-Turing Thesis: Modest or Bold?” Presented at:
APA Eastern Division, New York City, December 2005.
University of Missouri – St. Louis (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science), February 2006.
15. “Zombie Conceivability Arguments,” University of Missouri – St. Louis, October 2005.
16. “The Functional Account of Computing Mechanisms (And Some of Its Payoff),” presented at:
University of Georgia, Athens, GA, January 2005.
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, January 2005.
17. “Computational Explanation in Neuroscience,” Workshop on Computational Modeling and Explanation in Neuroscience, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, November 2004.
18. “Computational Models and Computational Explanations” (in Italian), Cognition and Computation: Problems, Methods, and Prospects of Computational Explanations in the Cognitive Sciences, Padova, Italy, October 2004.
19. “Computing Mechanisms,” 2nd Reichenbach Conference, St. Louis, MO, November 2003.
20. “The First Computational Theory of Mind and Brain: A Close Look at McCulloch and Pitts’s ‘Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity’,” Washington University, St. Louis, MO, September 2003.
21. “Science and Introspection,” Washington University, St. Louis, MO, September 2003.
22. “How to Extract Scientific Data from Introspective Reports,” Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy, February 2003.
23. “The Functional Account of Computing Mechanisms,” University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA January 2003.
24. Commentary on “Connectionist Representation,” by David DeMoss, Northwest Philosophy Conference, Portland, OR, October 2002.
25. “Computational Modeling of Computational Systems,” Modeling Workshop, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2002.
26. “Mind-brains as Computers: Origin of an Idea at the Foundation of Psychology and Neuroscience,” Florida International University, Miami, FL, April 2001.
27. “Epistemic Divergence, Introspection, and the Publicity of Scientific Methods,” Florida International University, Miami, FL, April 2001.
Other Media
Administrator of Brains, a group blog in the philosophy of mind, at http://philosophyofbrains.com/, December 2005-present.
Interview with Carola Houtemaker for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, which featured me and my blog, Brains, in the article “Blogs uit het lab” (1/18/2008, http://www.nrc.nl/wetenschap/article899637.ece/Blogs_uit_het_lab)
Interview with KNPR – Nevada Public Radio, April 2006.
“The Computer That Started It All” (on Imitation of Life: How Biology Is Inspiring Computing, by N. Forbes), Cerebrum, 7.1 (2005), pp. 96-103.
Review of Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order, by S. Strogatz, Popular Science, 262.4 (2003), p. 98.
“Economics Takes a Run at Brain Science’s Toughest Problems” (on Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics, by P. W. Glimcher), Cerebrum, 5.2 (2003), pp. 97-105.
“The Perils of Prediction” (on The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century, edited by J. Brockman), Cerebrum, 4.2 (2002), pp. 89-98.
“On a Critique of Strong Artificial Intelligence” (in Italian, on The Emperor's New Mind, by R. Penrose), Rivista di Filosofia, LXXXV (1994), pp. 141-146.
Arts and Sciences Travel Grant, UM St. Louis College of Arts and Sciences, 2011, $1,000.
Curriculum Improvement Grant, UM St. Louis College of Arts and Sciences, 2011, $2,500.
Scholars’ Award, National Science Foundation, 2009-2010, SES-0924527, $123,495.
Research Board Award, University of Missouri, 2008, $10,000.
Research Board Award, University of Missouri, 2006, $10,000.
Research Award, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2006, $10,265.
Fellow, Center for International Studies, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2008-9 ($800).
Small Grants, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2005-6 ($1,000), 2006-7 ($500), 2007-8 ($958), 2009-10 ($1,000).
Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, National Science Foundation, 2002-2003, $12,000.
University of Missouri—Saint Louis
Topics in Philosophy of Mind: Physicalism, Dualism, and the Afterlife, spring 2011. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Topics in Philosophy of Science—Computation in Physical Systems, fall 2010. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Topics in Philosophy of Mind—Concepts, summer 2009. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Proseminar, fall 2008 and fall 2011. Seminar for the incoming class of M.A. students.
Topics in Philosophy of Mind—Fodor, Churchland, Heil, summer 2008. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Metaphysics, spring 2008. Advanced undergraduate survey, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Philosophy of Mind, spring 2008. Advanced undergraduate survey.
Philosophy of Language, fall 2007. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar. Focus on the semantics of proper names.
Topics in Philosophy of Mind—Consciousness, spring 2007. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Topics in History and Philosophy of Science—Mechanisms and Functions, spring 2007. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar.
Philosophy of Cognitive Science, spring 2006. Advanced undergraduate, cross-listed with a graduate seminar. Focused on work by Herbert Simon and Allen Newell.
Minds, Brains, and Machines, fall 2005, fall 2007, spring 2009, spring 2011. Introductory.
Ethics and the Computer, fall 2005 and spring 2006. Advanced undergraduate seminar.
Topics in Philosophy of Mind—Mental Content, summer 2005. Graduate seminar.
Politecnico di Torino
Computation and Nature, May 2007 and June 2009. Graduate seminar.
Washington University in St. Louis:
Philosophy of Mind, fall 2003 and spring 2005. Advanced undergraduate survey.
Current Controversies in Cognitive Science—Intentionality, fall 2004 (with Sam Scott). Advanced undergraduate seminar open to graduate students.
Theories of Concepts, fall 2004 (with Sam Scott). Advanced undergraduate seminar open to graduate students.
Current Controversies in Cognitive Science—Computational Theories of Mind and Brain, spring 2004. Advanced undergraduate seminar open to graduate students.
University of Pittsburgh:
Magic, Medicine, and Science, fall 2002. Introductory.
Problem Solving: How Science Works, fall 1998. Introductory.
Teaching assistant, Magic, Medicine and Science, spring 1998. Introductory.
Teaching assistant, Mind and Medicine, fall 1997. Advanced undergraduate.
Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University.
Philosophy of Science, summer 2002, summer 2001, summer 2000, summer 1999. Introductory for high school juniors.
Academic Enrichment Certificate Program, State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh.
Science and Religion, summer 2002. Seminar.
Current Events, spring 2002. Seminar.
Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, May-August 2011.
NEH Summer Seminar “Mind and Metaphysics,” Washington University in St. Louis, June-July 2006.
Adelle and Erwin Tomash Fellowship, Charles Babbage Institute, 2002-2003.
Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2001-2002.
Award for Outstanding Paper Presentation, Grad Expo, University of Pittsburgh, 2001.
Doctoral Scholarship, Regione Sardegna, Italy, 1995-1996 and renewed for the following six academic years.
Refereeing
Funding Agencies: German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development, Israel Science Foundation, National Science Foundation, Research Council of Canada, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Missouri Research Board.
Presses: Association for Symbolic Logic, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, University of Chicago Press.
Societies: Central States Philosophical Association, Cognitive Science Society, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
Institutions: Academia Sinica (Taiwan's national academy of sciences).
Journals: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science , Cognitive Science, Complexity, Consciousness and Cognition, Dialectica, Erkenntnis, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Information, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Journal of Applied Logic, Journal of Cognitive Science, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of Economic Methodology, Journal of Intelligent Systems, Mind, Mind and Language, Minds and Machines, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophical Explorations, Philosophical Psychology, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy & Technology, Philosophy of Science, Quarterly Review of Biology, Recent Patents on Computer Science, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Theoretical Computer Science, Topics in Cognitive Science.
Department
Department Chair, 2011-present.
Philosophy Department’s representative on the Faculty Senate and University Assembly, January 2010-December 2011.
Philosophy Colloquium chair, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2008-2010.
Organizer, PNP Medical School Lunch Seminar, 2004-2005.
Organizer, Workshop on Computational Modeling and Explanation in Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis, November 2004.
Organizer, WIPS (Work In Progress Sessions), Washington University in St. Louis, 2003-2004.
University
Member, Spring Research Panel, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2012-2014.
Member, College of Arts and Sciences committee to examine whether the college should use an advocate system in our P&T deliberations, 2011.
Member, Research Committee – spring panel, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2011-2013.
Member, Budget Committee, Arts and Sciences, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2010-2011.
Member, Teaching and Service Awards Standing Committee, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2009-2011. Chair, 2010-2011.
Member, Scholarships and Awards Standing Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, UM St. Louis, 2009-2010.
Professional Societies
Member, APA Committee on Lectures, Publications, and Research, 2011-2014.
Organizer, author-meets-critics session on R. Hurlburt and E. Schwitzgebel, Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic, APA Pacific Division, San Francisco, CA, April 2010.
Organizer, panel on “Decomposing the Mind: From Functional Analysis to Mechanistic Explanation,” Society for the Metaphysics of Science, APA Pacific Division, San Francisco, CA, April 2010 (with Carrie Figdor).
Council Member, Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, 2009-2012.
Program chair, Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, 2009.
Organizer, Symposium on “Neural Computation,” PSA Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, November 2008.
Presenter, “Preparing and Presenting Lectures,” Teaching at UMSL 2008 TA/RA Professional Development Conference, University of Missouri – St. Louis, August 2008.
Presenter, “Publishing in Graduate School? Tips on Journals, Web Publishing and More,” Future Directions in Genetic Studies Graduate Training Workshop, Washington University in St. Louis, August 2008.
Organizer, panel on “Functionalism and Mechanisms,” Society for the Metaphysics of Science, APA Central Division, Chicago, IL, April 2008 (with Carl Gillett).
Member, APA Committee on Academic Career Opportunities and Placement, 2007-2010.
Organizer, Symposium on “Can Introspective Reports Be Scientific Evidence?” PSA Meeting, Vancouver, Canada, November 2006 (with Anna Alexandrova).