conference call

[Bocz Andras]

                        FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

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
Pécs, Hungary


Keynote speakers (who have already accepted invitation):

philosophy:
György Kampis
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest

linguistics:
Pierre-Yves Raccah
Idl-CNRS, Paris

psychology:
Csaba Pléh
Dept. of General Pschology
Lóránd Eötvös University, Budapest


Organizing Committee:
László Tarnay (JPTE, Dep. of Philosophy)
László I. Komlósi (ELTE, Dept. of Psychology)
András Bocz (JPTE, Dept. of English Studies)
e-mail: tarnay at btk.jpte.hu; 
        komlosi at btk.jpte.hu; 
        bocz at btk.jpte.hu


Advisory Board:
Gábor Forrai (Budapest)
György Kampis (Budapest)
Mike Harnish (Tucson)
András Kertész (Debrecen)
Kuno Lorenz (Saarbrücken)
Pierre-Yves Raccah (Paris)
János S. Petõfi (Macerata)

Aims and scopes:

The main aim of the conference is to bring together cholars 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 
formulizable 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 wittgenstenian 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 definiton 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 reseach fields: game-theory, 
action theory, argumentation theory, cognitive science, linguitics, 
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 three keynote lectures. Then 
contributions of 30 minutes (20 for paper and 10 for discussion) 
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 at btk.jpte.hu 
or bocz at btk.jpte.hu. Hard copies of abstracts may be sent to:
Laszlo Tarnay
Department of Philosphy
Janus Pannonius University
H-7624 Pecs, Hungray.


Important dates:
Deadline for submission: Jan.-15, 1998
Notification of acceptance: Febr.-28, 1998
conference: April 30-May 1-2, 1998
*************************************
Bocz András
Department of English
Janus Pannonius University
Ifjúság u. 6. H-7624 Pécs, Hungary
Tel/Fax: (36) (72) 314714