About the Panel Discussion
Where is my mind? What influence does the paradigm of embodied cognition, which does not localise it (solely) in the head, have on the understanding of human development and social interactions? How do neuroscientific paradigms or pathologising psychiatric diagnoses reflect social beliefs?

In this interdisciplinary panel discussion, Professor Vittorio Gallese and Professor Andreas Heinz, two researchers who seek to pose appropriately complex questions about brain functions as well as mental health and illness, will discuss the mirroring relationships between society and neuroscience from different perspectives. This is because the functioning of the brain cannot be described if its continuous interactions with the body and the social environment are disregarded. Medical and psychiatric diagnoses are also always in the context of social discourses on mental illness or health, for example.

Gallese and Heinz will each give a short keynote speech followed by a moderated discussion; both are not only leading experts in their respective disciplines, but also experienced advocates of interdisciplinary dialogue. 
The discussion will be moderated by Dr Niels Weidtmann (College of Fellows) and Professor Andreas Bartels (Neurosciences/ Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience).

The panel discussion and moderation will be in english language. 

About the Focus Group "Neuroscience and Society"
The event takes place as one of the activities of the Focus Group "Neuroscience and Society" at the College of Fellows.
The Neuroscience and Society Focus Group works on interdisciplinary issues at the interface of neuroscience and the humanities. It investigates the extent to which neuroscientific research is relevant to the humanities and social sciences - and vice versa. The fact that human behaviour and actions are increasingly being attributed to neuronal processes poses challenges for the humanities and social sciences, whose areas of expertise have so far included such questions, but also offers the opportunity for interdisciplinary research work. Crossing disciplinary boundaries opens up unexpected perspectives here, so that subject-specific questions can be given a new perspective and answers can be found together. 

The Focus Group aims to promote an exchange between neurosciences and cognitive sciences, psychiatry and the humanities and social sciences such as philosophy and literary studies and thus stands in the tradition of the "CIN Dialogues at the Interface of the Neurosciences and the Arts and Humanities" co-organised by the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neurosciences and the College of Fellows. It offers a place for interdisciplinary dialogue and interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Tübingen, where internationally renowned neurosciences meet strong humanities and social sciences.The Focus Group organises its activities in the summer semester 2024 around the stay and research work of Professor Vittorio Gallese.

Professor Vittorio Gallese (Neurophysiology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind/University of Parma/Unit of Neuroscience, Dept. of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Italy/Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, New York, USA), Professor of Psychobiology at the Università degli Studi di Parma since 2006, is recognised as one of the world's leading experts in the field of social neuroscience. He was Professor of Experimental Aesthetics at the University of London (2016-2018), Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain (2016-2020), KOSMOS Fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin (2013-2014) and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA (2002). Gallese is an expert in neurophysiology, cognitive neuroscience, social neuroscience, and philosophy of mind and one of the discoverers of mirror neurons. In his research, he seeks to understand the functional organisation of brain mechanisms underlying social cognition, such as empathy and sympathy, language, and aesthetic experience. His interdisciplinary work incorporates findings and approaches from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.

Professor Andreas Heinz (since 2002 Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy CCM, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin), studied medicine, philosophy and anthropology. He qualified for professorship (Habilitation) in psychiatry and psychotherapy in 1998 and obtained a PhD on the concept of mental health in philosophy in 2013. Since 2012, he has been the vice chair of the Aktion für Psychisch Kranke. 2010-2014, he was the president of the German Society for Biological Psychiatry (DGBP). 2008-2011, he was the spokesperson of the Conference of University Chairs of Psychiatry in Germany. Since 2009, he has been a member of the board of the German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology. His research interests include neurourbanism, the effects of migration and social exclusion on mental health, the consequences of poverty in the social neighbourhood context and the effects of urban risk factors on the manifestation of psychotic and addictive disorders. Heinz is a proponent of a person-centred approach and open wards in psychiatry. In 2011, he was elected to the Leibnitz chair at the Leibnitz-Institute for Neurobiology in Magdeburg, in recognition of outstanding research in Neuroscience. 

Dr Ponni Arasu
"Tanty, the divine mother and I: Histories and Everyday Praxis of finding hope and belonging in/as resistance by Tamil women in Tamil Nadu and Trinidad"

Wed, 24 July 2024, 6:00 PM
Großer Senat, Neue Aula
(Geschwister-Scholl-Platz, Tübingen)
and online via Zoom:   https://zoom.us/j/93224833711

Further Information will follow soon.

Professor Dr Yohei Kageyama (Philosophy, Kwansei Gakuin University):
"Kitaro Nishida with and against the Openness of the Phenomenological Concept of the World ― Pure Experience, Place, Dialectical Universal"

Abstract
Throughout his philosophical career, Kitaro Nishida tackled the philosophical concept of the “world”. The world is not just one of the themes Nishida discussed but is the milestone for his entire philosophical system from the early to the late period, as he characterized his fundamental concepts of “pure experience”, “place” and “dialectical universal” respectively as the “world”. 

In the context of intercultural philosophy, Klaus Held (1995/1997) argued that ”openness” as the most fundamental feature of the phenomenological concept of the “world” is comparable to an East-Asian concept of “emptiness (Ku)”, since both concepts refer to what gives space for all entities to appear in the experience. Acknowledging Held’s argument, in this presentation, I will still analyze and highlight the unique character of “openness” in Nishida’s concepts of the world, which does not “withdraw (entzieht)” itself like the phenomenological world but instead “mirrors” all entities. This character permeates and expresses itself in each phase of Nishida’s thinking. 

1.    Early Philosophy of “Pure Experience”: The all-encompassing reality of pure experience accommodates and gives space for the infinite becoming of new moments in experience. 

2.    Middle Philosophy of “Place (basyo)”: The primordial facticity of intentional experience is itself considered to be the “place” that “mirrors” and provides space for subjective consciousness and its objective correlates. Unlike Heidegger’s concept of the world, this “place” does not “withdraw” itself from entities. 

3.    Late Philosophy of “Dialectical Universal”: Nishida unifies and comprehends the facticity of “place” and countless historical entities in their inseparability, like two sides of the same coin. This results in a unique understanding of the “openness” of the historical world that Nishida calls “eschatology,” which fundamentally differs from phenomenological concepts of historical turn, such as Heidegger’s “other beginning.”
 

Bio
Yohei Kageyama is a professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan. He first trained in phenomenology in Tokyo and Wuppertal. Having published several articles primarily on Heidegger, as well as on French phenomenology and Hegel, he began studying the history of modern Japanese philosophy. His overall research interests include phenomenological ontology and the history of contemporary philosophy, focusing on the historical plurality of phenomenological experience. From 2019 to 2021, he served as a member of an international research project, “Becoming of Philosophy in East-Asia,” at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto (Hosei University, 2022). In Heidegger studies, he is an editorial member of The Heidegger Handbook in Japan (Showa-do, 2021) and has collaborated with U.S. and European scholars to explore the literary resonance of Heidegger in various cultures worldwide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Since 2022, he has been working with scholars from China (Mainland, Taiwan), Korea, the Philippines, and Iran for the Heidegger Circle in Asia, which will also take place this year in Rome. His book, Introduction to Philosophy Beginning with Questions, was translated into Korean (Kobun-sha, 2021/Munyechunchusa, 2022). He is currently staying in Coventry, U.K., as a visiting professor at the University of Warwick.