Call for Papers
Idealization, Computation and Cognition 2027
30 June – 2 July 2027
University of Wollongong, Australia
We invite submissions for Idealization, Computation and Cognition 2027, a three-day international conference bringing together researchers working in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, philosophy of neuroscience, computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence and philosophy of science.
Computational and information-theoretic approaches have transformed our understanding of cognition, brains and artificial intelligence. Yet their idealized properties and assumptions raise fundamental questions about the relationship between computational models and the physical systems they purport to describe.
What warrants treating a physical system as computational? What roles do idealization, abstraction and approximation play in computational explanation? Under what conditions do notions such as neural representation, information processing and computation identify genuine properties of physical systems, rather than useful features of scientific models?
The conference welcomes contributions addressing these and related questions.
Suggested Topics
Submissions may address, but are not limited to:
Idealization, abstraction and approximation in cognitive science and neuroscience.
Computational explanation and its limitations.
Neural coding, representation and information processing.
The interpretation of encoding and decoding models.
Deep learning, artificial intelligence and models of cognition.
The relationship between computational models and their physical implementations.
The explanatory role of idealized models in science.
We particularly welcome contributions that connect philosophical analysis with concrete examples from computational neuroscience, cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and which pay special attention to how idealization, approximation and abstraction are used in drawing inferences from computational models to minds and brains.
Presentations
The programme will include invited presentations alongside competitively selected contributed papers, including contributions from Higher Degree Research students and Early Career Researchers.
Submission Guidelines
Prospective contributors will be invited to submit a paper title, abstract, institutional affiliation and contact information.
Abstract length: 300-500 words
Submission deadline: 1 February 2027
Notification of acceptance: 1 April 2027
Submission email: kirchhof@uow.edu.au (all submissions should be titled Idealization_Abstract_Last name)
Funding Opportunities
A competitive funding pool of up to AUD $10,000 will be available to support eligible HDR and ECR presenters. See Funding for HDRs & ECRs for more information.
Applicants seeking financial assistance should indicate this when submitting their abstract.
Conference Organisation
Prof. Michael D. Kirchhoff
School of Liberal Arts
University of Wollongong
kirchhof@uow.edu.au
