Symposium “Symbolic Intentionality and Symbolic Technologies”

The symposium “Symbolic Intentionality and Symbolic Technologies: Historical and Systematic Perspectives” will take place at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 30-01-2025, HG14A36&37 and on-line on Teams (link available on request).

The symposium aims to bring together various perspectives on the use of symbols and rules for symbol manipulation, both in the mind as well as in cognitive tools. Symbolic technologies would include both mental algorithms and formalisms as well as mechanical or digital tools for calculation and computation. The use of symbolic technologies, ranging from the proportional compass to calculators and computers, enables us to perform calculations more quickly and precisely, extending our capabilities, but also carries epistemic and ethical risks. The symposium will explore these and related issues from a variety of viewpoints including the history of science, epistemology, the philosophy of mathematics, phenomenology, and the philosophy of technology.

Program

13.00-13.15 Welcome and opening by Carlo Ierna
13.15-14.00 Carla Rita Palmerino “Galileo, mathematics and the manifold of experience”
14.00-15.00 Gregor Bös “Husserl on the Limits of Symbolic Representation“
15.00-15.15 – break –
15.15-16.00 Catarina Dutilh Novaes “Epistemically disruptive symbolic technologies”
16.00-17.00 Carlo Ierna “A Brentanist Framework for Symbolic Intentionality and Symbolic Technologies” (slides)

Funding

KNAW E.W. Beth foundation