From Minds to Movements

Overview

We are announcing a PhD symposium on Future Thinking from May 8th 2025 to May 10th 2025, at the University of Vienna.The first two days of the conference will be held at Aula am Campus Hof 1.11. These days will feature workshops on Conceptual Change and Climate Activism, alongside presentations by PhD and postdoctoral researchers in philosophy and cognitive science. On the third day, the conference will move to the Sky Lounge at Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, combining further research presentations with a closing discussion of future directions of research.The conference will coincide with a panel discussion on The Future of Knowledge, AI, and Climate Science, organised jointly with the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub. The participants of the conference are warmly invited to attend the panel and the proceeding reception.

Conference Schedule

• The conference schedule and abstracts are available here.

You can also find the detailed schedule on the following pages.The conference will be held in a hybrid format, allowing both in-person and online participation. Information about registration and how to obtain the Zoom link can be found below.

Thursday, May 8

Coffee & Registration
09:00 – 10:00Reasoning under Uncertainty:
Hope, Anxiety, and Bounded Rationality
Juliette Vazard (Central European University)
10:00 – 10:55Flooding with Disinformation
Ákos Szegőfi (Central European University)
11:00 – 11:35Coffee Break
11:35 – 11:50Divergence Of Collective Memories Across Different
Sociopolitical Identities In Türkiye (Online)
Zeynep Eylül Gül (Koç University)
11:50 – 12:25Strategic Ignorance in Early Childhood:
Turning a Blind Eye to a Partner’s Cheating
Tindaya Déniz (Leipzig University)
12:30 – 12:55Lunch
13:00 – 14:30Workshop: Conceptual Change
14:30 – 15:45Coffee Break
15:45 – 16:00Labeling Events in Political Discourse (Online)
Mengyuan Qi (University of Pittsburgh)
16:00 – 16:35From Perception to Possibility: Reformulating Analogical Reasoning
through Affordance Landscapes
Mohsen Forghani (University of Warsaw)
16:40 – 17:05Novel, Uncertain or Surprising? Young Children’s Exploration
When Simultaneously Facing Different Curiosity Triggers
Kai-Xuan Chai (Technical University of Munich)
17:10 – 17:35Evening Panel Discussion
17:45 – 19:00Reception
19:00

Friday, May 9

Coffee & Registration
09:00 – 10:00Perspectival Models:
What Cognitive Science Can Learn From Climate Science
Moritz Kriegleder (University of Vienna)
10:00 – 10:55Higher-Level Cognition in Predictive Processing:
Grounded Cognition & Conceptual Spaces
Jannis Friedrich (German Sport University Cologne)
11:00 – 11:35Coffee Break
11:35 – 11:50Predictive Processing and the Extended Mind Thesis:
A Persuading Story of Indifference (Online)
Muzaffar Abass Wazir (Indian Institute of Technology)
11:50 – 12:25How In-Group Opinions Skew Perceptions of Polarization
in the Climate Debate
Peter Steiglechner (Complexity Science Hub)
12:30 – 12:55Lunch
13:00 – 14:30Workshop: Climate Activism
14:30 – 15:45Coffee Break
15:45 – 16:00Masking: Epistemic Harm, Testimonial Smothering, and
the Medicalization of Neurodivergence in Healthcare (Online)
Roxy Alexander (American University)
16:00 – 16:35Blind Spots in the Mind’s Eye
Andreas Arslan (Central European University)
16:40 – 17:05Coffee Break
17:05 – 17:20Ecological Perception and (Information) Anticipation
Martyna Meyer (University of Southern Denmark)
17:20 – 17:25Beyond Belief: An Enactive Account of Culture
and Its Existential Dimension
Felipe Machado (University of Vienna)
17:30 – 17:55

Saturday, May 10

Coffee
09:00 – 10:00The Revitalization of Democracy in Serbia:
Participant Observation and the Student Movement
Aleksandra Knežević (University of Belgrade)
10:00 – 10:55Escaping Russia, Trapped by Identity:
National Identity Negotiation in Light of In-group Wrongdoing
Elena Mikhina (Slovak Academy of Sciences)
11:00 – 11:35Coffee Break
11:35 – 11:50Bargaining Between the Sexes: Gender Inequalities in Households
Angarika Deb (Central European University)
11:50 – 12:25Children’s Preference for Democracy Erodes in Light of Personal Reward
Francesca Bonalumi (Central European University)
12:30 – 12:55Closing & Group Lunch
13:00 – 13:30

Registration

The conference is open to all and free of charge.

• If you wish to attend, please kindly register here.

For those who prefer to participate online, a Zoom link will be provided upon registration.If you have any inquiries, contact: [email protected]

Organisers

Ohan Hominis (Central European University)
Maria Fedorova (University of Vienna)
Xueyi Yao (Icey) (Central European University)
Bojin Zhu (University of Vienna)