Mitteleuropa Foundation Portici Street, 30, Bolzano, Italy

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Mitteleuropa Foundation Portici Street, 30,
Bolzano, Italy

• www.mitteleuropafoundation.org
• Tel [phone] Fax [phone]

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Identikit

• Established 2002
• Central European Thought (Mitteleuropa)
• Members
• Bolzano University
• Trento University

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Mitteleuropa Foundation

• Guiding idea
• Research lines
• Library
• Activities

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Guiding idea
Franz Brentano
Carl Stumpf
Alexius Meinong
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Why Mitteleuropa'?

• Philosophy and science in dialogue
• Mutual interaction
• Philosophy as science
• Ontological clarification of science
• Central Europe as a laboratory for the
  science-philosophy dialogue
• Intellectual roots
• Brentano (exact philosophical method as in
  natural sciences)
• Husserl (scientific phenomenology)
• Ehrenfels (figural qualities)
• Meinong (theory of objects and theory of
  production)
• Stumpf (Berlin Gestalt)
• Marty (Prague linguistics)
• Twardowski (Polish scientific philosophy)
• Contemporary domains of interest
• Ontology (classification, levels of reality)
• Psychology and cognitive science (intentionality,
  perception)
• Linguistics (cognitive semantics)
• Theory of values (economics, ethics, aesthetics)

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Research lines
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PERL

• PERL - PERception and Language
• Coordinated by Liliana Albertazzi
• Topics of interest include
• The basic semiotic sources of cognitive processes
  and in particular of cognitive space and time,
  from both the phenomenological and experimental
  viewpoints
• Cognitive semantics, from the semiotic primitives
  of perception to the various forms of
  conceptualization embedded in natural language
• Form recognition and understanding in perception
  and art

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Field of research

• Phenomenal level of consciousness
• Subiective space and time
• Dynamic base format (presentation)
• Whole-part theory
• Perceptual roots of natural language

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Research group on form (2003-)

• Liliana Albertazzi (Trento University)
• Thanos Economou (Virginia Tech University)
• Ernest Edmonds (Sydney University)
• Frederic Fol Leymarie (Brown University)
• Jan Koenderink (Utrecht University)
• Michael Leyton (Rutgers University e D.I.M.A.C.S)
• Nancy Nersessian (Georgia Tech University,
  Atlanta)
• Gert van Tonder (Kyoto University)
• Dhanraj Vishwanath (Rochester University)
• Alfred Zimmer (Regensburg University)
• John Willats (Loughborough University)
• Others to join

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A new research paradigm

• Starting from how we experience vision and
  seeking to identify the best tools with which to
  model this complexity
• Origins of conscious qualitative states as a
  major aspect of information theory
• Motto Phenomenology to neurons to stimuli and
  backwards!

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Visual thought. The Depictive Space of
Perception (2004)

• Leading theme
• Co-presence and interaction of diverse types of
  spaces in vision
• A preliminary step to understand the architecture
  of the conscious awareness of our environment
• To conceive its potential implementation in
  constructing any kind of embodied intentional
  agents
• Benjamins (AicR)

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TAO

• TAOTheory and Applications of Ontology
• Coordinated by Roberto Poli
• Development of a general ontology suited to both
  philosophy and computer science
• Relevant topics include
• Theory of categories
• Levels of reality (forms of dependence and
  autonomy among material, psychological and social
  items)
• Chrono-topoids (generalized spatio-temporal
  structures)
• Generalized theory of causation
• Wholes and their parts
• Autonomous systems (anticipatory systems)

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Strata of the real world
Universal categories time, whole/part,
substance/determinationRegional (level)
categories
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The material stratum
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The Psychological Stratum
Egological Acts (Stein)
Non Egological Acts (Stein)
Representation
Emotional Acts
Presentation
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DoCETDocumentation Centre in Central-European
Tradition

• DoCET collects both published and unpublished
  sources on the scientific and philosophical ideas
  developed by Central-European culture. The first
  collection will comprise the main sources
  concerning the psychology of the form
  (Gestaltpsychologie)

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The Karl Schuhmann library

• A specialized library in cognitive systems and
  ontology is under development
• In a few months time the librarys catalogue
  will be available on-line

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Activities

• Visiting scholars
• Undergraduate and PhD students
• Bursaries
• Conferences
• Seminars
• Lectures
• International Schools in Cognitive Analysis
• Pubblications

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Visiting scholars

• 2003 Alan Cruse (Manchester)
• 2004 Heinrich Herre (Leipzig)
• 2005 Istvan Kecskes (New York at Albany)

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Undergraduate and PhD

• UNITN Internship Site
• PhD membership
• University of Parma
• University of Catania (international)

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Bursaries

• 2006-2007
• Two positions are opened on natural language and
  experimental psychology
• Supported by MF and Trento University

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Main events2002-2006

• The depictive space of the mind. A conference on
  visual thought
• June, 7-9 2004
• Seminar on bi- and multilingualism and cognition
• May, 19-21 2005
• Seminar of projected perception. At the edge of
  natural and artificial reality
• September, 1-3 2005
• Causality and motivation
• April, 20-21 2006

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Becoming InformationSeptember, 1-3 2006

• 2 appointment of the Research Group on Form

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Beyond a Galileian conception of the world

• Ontological and epistemological issues of
  information from a non traditional point of view
• Foundational role of phenomenal organization of
  information

• Physics
• Brain sciences
• Inner psychophysics