Submission Instructions
Call for papers: Philosophers, developmental psychologists, and researchers in animal cognition are invited to submit an anonymised abstract of no more than 1000 words (shorter abstracts welcome for empirical disciplines) by sending an email to rationalanimals2025@outlook.com by January 15 2024. We aim to accommodate 15 contributed speakers and to allow for a poster session. In applying, please specify whether you’d like the submission to be considered for a talk or a poster session.
Submissions on a wide range of relevant topics are welcome. Here is a purely indicative list:
- How to ascribe beliefs to non-verbal subjects
- Characterizations of rationality, such as the difference and relation between economical and substantial (i.e. reasons-based) rationality, or rationality vs mere intelligence.
- The relation between rationality, reflection, conceptual thought, and language.
- The relevance of the difference between logic and reasoning for theoretical and empirical study of rationality.
- Rationality and the origin of the mind.
- The significance of personal and subpersonal dimensions in the study of rational thought.
- Are there different kinds of mind? If so, how should they be distinguished?
- Framework outlining stages of cognitive and rational capacities in the evolution of species and in the development of individuals.
- The role of Morgan’s canon in current empirical research.
- How to test for rationality, reflective thought, and propositional thought in non-verbal and minimally verbal subjects.
