SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS Extended deadline: March 15, 1998 We are happy to announce a conference and workshop on Multidisciplinary Colloquium on Rules and Rule-Following: Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology between April 30-May 1-2, 1998 at Janus Pannonius University Pecs, Hungary Keynote speakers: Philosophy: Gyorgy Kampis, Lorand Eotvos University, Budapest Kuno Lorenz, Universitat des Saarlandes, Saarbrucken, Germany Linguistics: Pierre-Yves Raccah, Idl-CNRS, Paris Hubert Cuyckens, University of Antwerp, Belgium Psychology: Csaba Pleh, Lorand Eotvos University, Budapest John Stewart , Idl-CRNS, Paris Organizing Committee: Laszlo Tarnay (Dept. of Philosophy, Janus Pannonius University, Pecs) Laszlo I. Komlosi (Dept. of English, Janus Pannonius University, (Pecs) Andras Bocz (Dept. of English, Janus Pannonius University, Pecs) e-mail: tarnay(a)btk.jpte.hu; komlosi(a)btk.jpte.hu; bocz(a)btk.jpte.hu Advisory Board: Gabor Forrai (Budapest) Gyorgy Kampis (Budapest) Mike Harnish (Tucson) Andras Kertesz (Debrecen) Kuno Lorenz (Saarbruecken) Pierre-Yves Raccah (Paris) Janos S. Petofi (Macerata) Aims and scopes: The main aim of the conference is to bring together scholars from the field of cognitive linguistics, philosophy and psychology to investigate the concept of rule and to address various aspects of rule-following. Ever since Wittgenstein formulated in Philosophical investigations his famous 201§ concerning a kind of rule-following which is not an interpretation, the concept of rule has become a key but elusive idea in almost every discipline and approach. And not only in the human sciences. No wonder, since without this idea the whole edifice of human (and possibly all other kinds of) rationality would surely collapse. With the rise of cognitive science, and especially the appearance of connectionist models and networks, however, the classical concept of rule is once again seriously contested. To put it very generally, there is an ongoing debate between the classical conception in which rules appear as a set of formularizable initial conditions or constraints on external operations linking different successive states of a given system (algorithms) and a dynamic conception in which there is nothing that could be correlated with a prior idea of internal well-formedness of the system's states. The debate centers on the representability of rules: either they are conceived of as meta-representations, or they are mere faon de parler concerning the development of complex systems. Idealizable on the one hand, while token-oriented on the other. Something to be implemented on the one hand, while self-controlling, backpropagational processing, on the other. There is however a common idea that almost all kinds of rule-conceptions address: the problem of learning. This idea reverberates from wittgensteinian pragmatics to strategic non-verbal and rule-governed speech behavior, from perceiving similarities to mental processing. Here are some haunting questions: - How do we acquire knowledge if there are no regularities in the world around us? - But how can we perceive those regularities? - And how do we reason on the basis of that knowledge if there are no observable constraints on infererring? - But if there are, where do they come from and how are they actually implemented mentally? - And finally: how do we come to act rationally, that is, in accordance with what we have perceived, processed and inferred. We are interested in all ways of defining rules and in all aspects of rule following, from the definition of law, rule, regularity, similarity and analogy to logical consequence, argumentational and other inferences, statistical and linguistic rules, practical and strategic reasoning, pragmatic and praxeological activities. We expect contribution from the following research fields: game-theory, action theory, argumentation theory, cognitive science, linguistics, philosophy of language, epistemology, pragmatics, psychology and semiotics. We would be happy to include some contributions from natural sciences such as neuro-biology, physiology or brain sciences. The conference is organized in three major sections: philosophy, psychology and linguistics with six keynote lectures. Then contributions of 30 minutes (20 for paper and 10 for discussion) will follow. We also plan to organize a workshop at the end of each section Abstracts: Abstracts should be one-page (maximum 23 lines) specifying area of contribution and the particular aspect of rule-following to be addressed. Abstracts should be sent by e-mail to: tarnay(a)btk.jpte.hu or bocz(a)btk.jpte.hu. Hard copies of abstracts may be sent to: Laszlo Tarnay Department of Philosophy Janus Pannonius University, Ifjusag utja 6, H-7624 Pecs, Hungary Important dates: Deadline for submission: March 15, 1998 Notification of acceptance: March 25, 1998 Conference: April 30-May 1-2, 1998 *************************************************************** For those concerned there is a follow-up philosophical colloquium: John McDowell: Mind and World - Kant in Analytic Philosoph which discusses McDowell's recent book: Mind and World. Among would-be participants are Barry Allen, Michael Williams and Robert Brandon. If interested, contact Prof. Janos Boros, Dept. of Philosophy, Janus Pannonius University. e-mail: boros(a)btk.jpte.hu ************************************* Bocz András Department of English Janus Pannonius University Ifjúság u. 6. H-7624 Pécs, Hungary Tel/Fax: (36) (72) 314714