We are thrilled to announce the launch of The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience. The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience is a national initiative in the Netherlands that aims to create a platform for local, national and international interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers working on issues related to the study of the brain. The aim of the initiative is to connect all the groups in the Netherlands which are doing the research in philosophy of/in neuroscience (broadly construed), and thus to create a platform for exchanges and collaborations among these groups. Furthermore, members and audiences of all groups of the initiative will have an opportunity to interact with some of the most influential thinkers in the world that will be speakers in the lecture series. In this way, the individual groups of the initiative will be able to share and be part of each other’s  international networks, which will in effect consolidate the efforts at raising the research the philosophy in neuroscience to an even higher level in the Netherlands. 
 
As the most immediate and tangible results of the initiative we are expecting to provide the recordings of the talks within the series that will be curated as podcasts on our websites. If an opportunity and interest arise we will also publish a special issue in a journal or a book anthology with contributions by the speakers, and/or write joint papers with some of the speakers. 

The Distinguished Lecture Series is jointly run by five institutions in the Netherlands. At Radboud University and Radboud UMC it involves:
•   The Institute for Science in Society (ISiS);
•  The Foundations of Cognition Series (which is a collaboration between the Centre for Culture, Cognition and Communication of the FTR Faculty and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and​ Behaviour);
•  Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour.
At VU Amsterdam it includes:
•   The Faculty of Humanities;
•   The VU Medical Center, unit for Anatomy and Neurosciences. 

Each talk of the lecture series will be video recorded and these videos can be accessed from our website.

The program for Winter semester 2020-2021 is as follows (all the times are given I CET or GMT+1 time zone):
  1. 10 November 2020 at 16-18h, Charles Rathkopf (Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine at the Jülich research center, Germany). Title of the talk: Can we read minds by imaging brains? (Video of the talk)
  2. 26 November 2020 at 14-16h, Martijn van den Heuvel (Faculty of Science, Complex Traits Genetics, CNCR, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Title of the talk: Principles of wiring of the human brain - shaping human cognition and disease. (Video of the talk)
  3. 16 December 2020 at 13:30-15:30h (Central European Time, e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris), Karl Friston (Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK). Title of the talk: Me and my Markov blanket. (Video of the talk)
  4. 07 January 2021 at 18:00h (Central European Time, e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris), Patricia Churchland (Philosophy Department at UC San Diego, USA). Title of the talk: Social Conscience: Evolutionary Origins and Brain Mechanisms. UNFORTUNATELY, THIS TALK HAD TO BE CANCELED. 
  5. 26 February 2021 at 15:00h (Central European Time, e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris)  Olaf Sporns (Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University & the Indiana University Network Science Institute). Title of the talk: Brain Graphs, Network Communities, Dynamic Modularity: The Evolving Quest to Link Structure and Function. (Video of the talk)
  6. 11 March 2021 at 18:00h (Central European Time, e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris) Lauren Ross (Logic and Philosophy of Science Department, University of California, Irvine, USA): Tracers in neuroscience: Causation, constraints, and connectivity. (Video of the talk)
  7. 22 April 2021  at 15:00h (Central European Time, e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris) David Papineau (Kings College London, UK & CUNY, USA): Perceptual Science and the Philosophy of Perception. (Video of the talk)
  8. 11 May 2021 at 15:00h (Central European Time, e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris) Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Edinburgh, UK): Prediction, Comprehension, and the Limits of Science. (Video of the talk)

All talk in this semester will be given via Zoom, we will send the links shortly before each talk. For the next year, the lineup of confirmed speakers is equally exciting, and we are also hoping to welcome most of them in person:
  1. Russel Poldrack (Stanford): TBD.
  2. Jackie Sullivan (Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University, Canada): TBD.
  3. William Bechtel (UC San Diego): TBD.
  4. ​Claus Hilgetag (Hamburg University, Germany): TBD.
  5. Thomas Polger (University of Cincinnati):: TBD.
  6. Danielle Bassett (University of Pennsylvania, USA):: TBD.
  7. Carl Craver (Washington University in St. Louis, USA): TBD.
​The steering committee,
Daniel Kostic, Henk de Regt, Leon de Bruin, Marc Slors, Peter Hagoort, Gerrit Glas and Linda Douw