Symposium organized by Patrick Haggard (UCL / 2016-2017 Paris IAS fellow) and Nura Sidarus (ENS), with the support of the Paris IAS, the Chaire Blaise Pascal (ENS) and the Département d'Études Cognitives (ENS)

Presentation

The capacity for voluntary action is seen as essential to human nature. Whereas this has long preoccupied philosophers, behaviourist psychology and neuroscience have traditionally dismissed the topic as unscientific. Studying volition remains difficult, yet it is of enormous relevance to understanding human experience and to societal notions of responsibility. This symposium will bring together early-career and senior researchers across psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, to share their new ideas and methods for a scientific investigation of the neurocognitive bases of human volition.

Program

Thursday, February 7^th - Institut d'études avancées de Paris
17 quai d'Anjou, 75004 Paris

14:00 - 15:00   Intentional action and automaticity
Elisabeth Pacherie (ENS)

15:00 - 16:00   What is special about intentional action?
Sofia Bonicalzi (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

16:00 - 16:30   Break

16:30 - 17:30   Against your will: how learning is influenced by conflict between instructions and subjective beliefs
Nura Sidarus (ENS)

17:30 - 18:30   Volition in action: Towards an agent-centred perspective on rule-violation behaviour
Roland Pfister (Universität Würzburg)

Friday, February 8^th - École Normale Supérieure
Salle Dussane, 45 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris

09:00 - 10:00   Is volition conscious?
Patrick Haggard (UCL)

10:00 - 11:00   Volitional action and consciousness: what we know, and what we want to know
Liad Mudrik (Tel Aviv University)

11:00 - 11:30   Break

11:30 - 12:30   Metacognition and freedom of choice: introspecting the cause of our actions
Lucie Charles (UCL)

12:30 - 13:30   Can we separate (the functional anatomy of) volition from sense agency?
Eraldo Paulesu (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)