Evolutionary genesis, ontology and functional nature of reason

Sophia-Iberia’s 1st Academic

Seminar

Milestones of Sophia-Iberia• Academic Conference in Madrid, September 6-8, 2007 was the launch of the project;

• Metanexus Conference 2008 was co-hosted by Cátedra CTR at Comillas University, July 14-16, 2008;

• 2 Sessions & Exhibition booth during the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, July 18-22, 2008.

Sophia-Iberia in EuropeA multidisciplinary project with an

anthropic focus on Human Evolution.

• The Sophia-Iberia in Europe Project endeavours to increase integration and understanding of the long philosophical and theological traditions in Spain and Portugal in the stream of European and international thought.

Academic SeminarsIn-depth study and discussion on specific issues related to human evolution.

1st Academic Seminar: “Evolutionary genesis, ontology and functional nature of reason”. From May to October 2009.

2nd Academic Seminar: “Physical reality and psychic reality within a unitary universe ”. 2010.

Theme of 1st Academic Seminar

• What is reason? • How does rational knowledge function

in the human mind? • What are the evolutionary causes

which have led to the emergence of the rational mind?

• How can a scientific explanation of reason be constructed?

• The definitive formulation of the theme will evolve in function of the input of the participants of the different sessions .

Seminar’s Sessions1st Session: “Evolution and Anticipation”, 21st May

2nd Session: “Entanglement and Mathematics”,18th

June

3nd Session: “to be determined”, Braga, 9th

September

4th Session: “Nature of reason ”, October/November

5th Session: “Reason emergency in the origins of

mankind”, 15th October

Seminar’s SessionsIn each session two gatherings. At the first one the visiting professors will present their view on the subject matter.

The second one will be devoted to interact with the visiting Professor in order to clarify their view in relation to the overall theme of the seminar

Seminar’s SessionsIn addition to these two gatherings an interview will be recorded in Video in which the visiting professor will present his thought.

This interview and the results of the discussion in the two seminars will be placed on the website: http://www.upcomillas.es/sophiaiberia,

1st Session

“Evolution and Anticipation” Prof. Roberto Poli

Department of Sociology and Social ResearchUniversity of Trento, Italy

Prof. Poli works on three main topics:

1. The category of person and the theory of values.

2. Ontology, in both its traditional, philosophical, acceptation and the new, computer-based acceptation.

3. The category of the future and in particular the theory of anticipatory systems.

Prof. Poli works on three main topics:

Addressing these main topics Prof. Poli develops a synthetic

methodology, able to go beyond the limitations of the otherwise

much needed analytic decompositions of the whole of reality into smaller and smaller

fragments.

Recent Publications:The Complexity of Anticipation, invited paper, accepted by Balkan Journal of Philosophy, 1, 2009An Introduction to the Ontology of Anticipation, accepted by FuturesThe Many Aspects of Anticipation, Foresight, special issue on Understanding Anticipatory Systems, 2009Anticipation and Conflicts, presented at the conference Understanding Conflict, AarhusOn the Concept of Person: The Social Nature of Persons (forthcoming in B. Nicolescu and M. Stavinschi, eds, Transdisciplinary Approaches of the Dialogue between Science, Art and Religion in the Europe of Tomorrow)Three Concepts of Person (forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference Action Theories: Social Action, Theory of Mind, Philosophy of Action, Religious Action)The Structure of Motivation. A First Introduction, forthcoming in R. Poli. ed., Causality and Motivation