Consortium for the History and Philosophy of Biology
Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), 1904, plate 71: Stephoidea
The Consortium for the History and Philosophy of Biology is a collaborative research group founded in 2006. The Consortium’s objective is to advance the investigation into the most current issues in the history and philosophy of biology. In particular, the emphasis is on integrating the philosophy of biology and its history.
The Consortium comprises five member institutions:
- Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
- Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto
- Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Université de Paris 1
- Centre for Philosophy of Biology, Duke University
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
- Department of Philosophy, Université de Montréal
Each spring, one of the institutions hosts a research workshop. Each workshop is structured around a theme of current interest, and features contributions from biologists, historians, and philosophers of science. Emphasis is placed upon graduate student contributions.
For more information visit the Consortium’s website or contact Professor Denis Walsh.
The Network for Sensory Research
Photo: Seth Doyle.
The Network for Sensory Research is an international philosophy-led group of institutions conducting interdisciplinary research on perception. Our aim is to build a theoretical model of the senses that matches the complexity of sensory phenomena, as revealed by recent scientific work.
We are particularly interested in multimodal integration and the challenges it poses to traditional models of sensory knowledge. Our goal is to establish new theoretical frameworks for understanding how the brain and the organism process and integrate information from the different senses, and how this results in phenomenally rich experience, thought, and perceptually-guided action.
The network links five major interdisciplinary research centres in philosophy of perception:
- Network Centre for Sensory Research at the University of Toronto, Mississauga (NetCenSR)
- Centre for the Study of the Senses (CenSes) at the Institute of Philosophy in the University of London
- Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience (CSPE) at the University of Glasgow
- Department of Philosophy and the Mind, Brain, Behavior program (MBB) at Harvard University
- Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Principal Investigator of the Network is Mohan Matthen, Canada Research Chair in the Philosophy of Perception at the University of Toronto. The co-investigators are Alex Byrne (MIT), Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow), Susanna Siegel (Harvard), and Barry Smith (London).
The Network’s activities are detailed on its website, including news about events and summary reports.