Workshop Mental Interpretation and Mental Diversity
Information
There is a marked tendency in the philosophy of mind to characterize mental interpretation—the understanding of each other and ourselves in terms of mental concepts, folk or sciency—in broadly universalist terms. Whether described as the exercise of psychological capacities whose basic structure is universally shared across the species (a Theory of Mind, described in functionalist-representationalist terms), or as a predictive practice based on fundamental norms of rationality, the underlying commitment remains the same: the downtown of mental interpretation is a set of universal rules, functional or rational, that set fixed boundaries to what can plausibly count as a (healthily) minded creature.
This assumption has been challenged from a number of directions. On the one hand, empirical evidence from fields like anthropology and cultural psychology points to a rich intercultural diversity in the meaning and function of mental concepts. This evidence partly converges with experimental studies on attributions of mental states like belief or intention, which reveal a marked context-dependence in the way mental attributions are used and assessed. In parallel, civil right movements like the Neurodiversity or Mad Pride movements have increasingly demanded greater recognition for intracultural cognitive diversity. This includes both subpersonal differences in sensory and executive processing, for which neurodiversity-informed research provides accumulating evidence, as well as person-level differences in how such differences are interpreted and policed in interpersonal practices.
In sum, this points to the need for a philosophy of mind better suited to accounting for this rich diversity in minds and in the ways we talk and think about them. The present workshop aims to move in this direction by bringing together cutting-edge research on mental interpretation, mental diversity, and the connections between them. The contributions address various important topics in this line of inquiry, including the analysis of consequences of different philosophical theories of mental interpretation for our understanding of mental diversity; the link between mental (self-)interpretation and the constitution of mind and mental health; inter- and intra-cultural variability in mental interpretation; mental diversity and counternormative (e.g., mad, neurodivergent) interpretation practices; epistemic and discursive injustices related to mental interpretation; or the interplay of first-, second-, and third-personal perspectives in self-interpretation.
Programme & Abstracts
You can take a look at the program and abstracts Here.
Contributors
Manuel Almagro (University of Valencia)
Cristina Borgoni (University of Bayreuth)
Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham and University of Ferrara)
Lara Calabrese (University of Bologna)
Víctor Fernández Castro (University of Granada)
Sofia Jeppsson (Umeå University)
Marko Jurjako (University of Rijeka)
Annemarie Kalis (Utrecht University)
Elisabetta Lalumera (University of Bologna)
Luca Malatesti (University of Rijeka)
Kathleen Murphy-Hollies (University of Birmingham)
Manuel de Pinedo (University of Granada)
Chiara Punzi (University of Ferrara)
Andrea Rodríguez Gómez (University of Granada)
Jodie L. Russell (University of Birmingham)
Neftalí Villanueva (University of Granada)
Sam Wilkinson (University of Exeter)
Tad Zawidzki (George Washington University)
Venue
Salón de Actos, Carmen de la Victoria, University of Granada
Cuesta del Chapiz, 9, Granada 18010
Dates
25-26 May, 2026
Organizers
Virginia Ballesteros (University of Valencia)
Laura Delgado Verges (National University of Distance Education, UNED)
Federico Parra Rubio (University of Zaragoza)
Miguel Núñez de Prado (University of Granada)
Funding
Juan de la Cierva research grant (JDC2023-052608-I), funded by MCIU/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the FSE+.
Research project “Neurodiversity and madness: toward a non-ideal philosophy of mind” (PID2024-155717NB-I00). Spanish Ministry of Science and FEDER, UE.
