Ongoing grants and projects
No. 24-11861S, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), 2024-2026, Immunity and biological resilience: A conceptual framework
Team
Martin Zach, Dominik Filipp (IMG, CAS)
Abstract
The study of biological resilience of organisms falls, among other things, in the field of immunology. It is also a conceptual question posed by the philosophy of immunology: what is resilience? The purpose of the project is to clarify this concept from several points of view and develop a conceptual framework that will contribute to a deeper theoretical understanding of biological resilience, and thus to current debates in the field of philosophy of biology and philosophy of medicine.
No. 21-31059S, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), 2021–2024, The bounds of religious cognition: Study of cognitive and cultural factors in Czech and Polish societies
Team
Konrad Talmont-Kaminski, Tomáš Hříbek, Silvia Boschetti, Robin Kopecký, Lenka Příplatová
Abstract
The state of religiosity and supernatural beliefs of European population rapidly changes, although not in agreement with previous estimates of development toward secularization. To better understand the change, we need not only to map its direction including all detours toward superstitions and alternative facts, but also to uncover underlying mechanisms of supernatural beliefs. Based on research directions and methods previously used by the principal investigator and the team as well as by other cognitive scientists, here we propose a detailed comparative study of supernatural beliefs, cognitive skills, and demographics of mostly non-religious Czech and mostly religious Polish population samples (over 10,000 respondents in each country) of internet users and university students (over 300 subjects participating in experimental sessions in each country). We will use both internet surveys and behavioural laboratory testing methods to uncover evolutionary causes of religiosity and patterns in individual belief systems, and to categorize the supernatural claims in an explanatory fashion.
No. 20-14445S, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), 2020–2022, Duální modely fenomenálního vědomí/Dual models of phenomenal consciousness
Team
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák, Juraj Hvorecký, Brice Bantegnie.
Abstract
Dual theory of consciousness is the thesis that so-called phenomenal properties can occur already at the unconscious level. The primary aim of our research project is to explore the dual hypothesis of consciousness in its four main varieties (i.e, pure, weaker, richer and componential) and make it more strongly present in the field of international consciousness studies so that its strengths and weaknesses can be extensively debated. This will involve clarifying the very notion of phenomenality and specifying the role it plays in our conscious and unconscious mental lives. Another goal of the project is to defend the notion of unconscious percpetion against some recent criticisms. The results of the project will be of interest not only to empirically informed philosophers of mind, but also to empirical researchers of consciousness such as cognitive neuroscientists or experimental psychologists. Ultimately, our results could contribute to the ongoing attempts to formulate a general, empirically grounded theory of phenomenal consciousness.
Past grants and projects
No. TL 01000430, Project of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, Project title: Measures for developing an ethical culture in the Czech state administration; Application guarantor: Ministry of Transportation of the Czech Republic; Duration: 06/2018–10/2021
Collaborators
Juraj Hvorecky, Alice Koubova, Petr Urban
Abstract
Aim of the project is to come forward with a set of tools and mechanisms for effective introduction and development of an ethical culture within the Czech state administration, based on extensive pilot testing in the environs of the application guarantor. The main outcome consists of a comprehensive research report, which details the tools and offers suggestions on their implementations within central authorities of the Czech state administration. At least three workshops and two conferences, which allow for empirical testing of assumptions and information exchange between investigators, administration representatives and informed public, including foreign experts, will constitute milestones toward the outcome. Conclusions of the project will be published in peer-reviewed journals.
No. TL01000467, Project of Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR), Project title: Ethics of autonomous vehicles, 2018–2021
Participants: Tomáš Doležal, Tomáš Hříbek, Daniel Dominik Novotný, Jaroslav Flegr
Forms and Functions of Communication (head: Petr Koťátko)
The research programme Forms and Functions of Communication of the Strategy 21 programme of the ASCR (2015–2020) was focused on the study of social, cultural and psychological functions of communication, on the conditions of understanding between individuals and social groups, and on the sources of communication failures. The subject of research was the development of forms of communication and their role in creating, maintaining and disrupting social structures, the role of communication in the formation of personality and its role in personality disorders, the possibility of formal analysis and modeling of processes in which speech is understood and of language acquisition, and communicative functions of art. During the six years, more than 230 activities were held within the programme; almost 20 different institutes of the ASCR and a number of other, domestic as well as foreign educational, professional and cultural institutions took part in it.
Members of the department also participated in the Strategy AS 21 programme Effective Public Policies and Contemporary Society (2014–2020) within the projects Freedom and Responsibility and their Consequences for Society (see the output of this project here) and Contemporary Ethics.
No. 17-16370S, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: Reductionism and Emergence: Perspectives in Contemporary Philosophy and Methodology of Science; 2017–2019
Principal Investigator: Vladimír Havlík
Abstract
This project aims to elucidate the concept of reductionism and emergence in contemporary philosophy and methodology of science. The proposed project has two aims. First, it analyzes evolution and emergence as universal principles responsible for novelty in the world. Second, it is an assessment of these principles for the reductionist position. From this point of view, I contend that we have to leave reductionism, at least in its classical form, behind and replace it with a new methodological and metaphysical position. I shall show why the classical reductionist program should be abandoned and, at the same time, I will propose an alternative. The new program must evaluate various approaches in the highly diversified disciplines of contemporary science to the existence and evolution of complex structures and formulate general laws of the emergence and evolution of entities at various reality levels.
No. 16-15621S, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: Theories of belief and the foundations of subjective probability; Duration: 2016–2018
Team
Tim Childers, Juraj Hvorecký, Ondřej Majer
Abstract
The project aims to refound Baysianism on conceptions of belief drawn from philosophy of mind and cognitive science, including both representationalist and emobodied accounts. For the representaitonalist strand, the central method of the project will be to construct probabilities by eliciting a subject's internal belief structure via an external reference experiment. For the embodied strand the team will explore ecological accounts of probability. The team aims to produce novel normative accounts of inductive reasoning informed by cognitive science. Results will also include generalizations of probabilities, other formal accounts of uncerntainty, and combinations of those accounts with probability.
No. MSM 300091601, Programme for research and mobility support of starting researchers, Institution: Czech Academy of Sciences; Project: Subjectivity and Appropriation: On Two Aspects of Linguistic Utterance; 2016–2018
Collaborating institution: Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes, École Normale Supérieure/CNRS, Paris – Équipe linguistique
Principal Investigator: Tomáš Koblížek
Post-doctoral Fellowship, Institution: Czech Academy of Sciences; Project: From the System of Language to the Meaning of Utterance, 2015–2016
Principal Investigator: Tomáš Koblížek
No. GAP401/12/0833, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: The Notion of Consciousness: Its Unity and Diversity, 2012–2018, GA0/GA
Participants
Tomáš Hříbek, James Hill
GA401/08/0904, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: Evolutionary Principles and Philosophy of Science, 2008–2010
Participants
Vladimír Havlík
KJB900090802, The research grant projects for juniors, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Project title: Intentionality of emotions, 2008–2010
Participants
Juraj Hvorecký
GA401/05/2064, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: Rationality - criticism - openness. The living legacy of K. R. Popperś philosophy, 2005–2007
Participants
Zuzana Parusníková
GP401/03/D055, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: Conceptual Schemes and the Metaphor of "Conceptual Sovereignty", 2003–2006
Participants
Tomáš Marvan
GA401/03/0022, Standard project of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Project title: Texts and utterances: problems of the of interpretation, 2003–2005
Participants
Petr Koťátko
IAA0009504, Grants of distinctly investigative character focused on the sphere of research pursued at present particularly in the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Project title: Meaning and Communication, 1995–1997
Participants
Petr Koťátko
