The Research Training Group 1876 “Early Concepts of Man and Nature: Universal, Local, Borrowed” would like to bring to your attention the International Workshop “Resurrecting the Ancient Mind – Cognitive Science in Archaeology and Philology” to be held on 5th and 6th December 2017 at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany).
The program and further information can be found here: https://www.grk-konzepte-mensch-natur.uni-mainz.de/workshop-2017/
This workshop is designed to create an interdisciplinary dialogue between the study of the ancient past and the cognitive sciences with the aim of broadening our understanding of how the mind, both modern and ancient, develops and embraces complexity. How did people relate to the representation and understanding of self? How did they engage with the surrounding environment? What are the processes by which acquired knowledge is formulated through language and transformed into concepts? These questions may be found not only within the study of the past civilizations, but are also issues in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. The underlying mechanics at work in the development of the cognitive abilities of our species are a common denominator, perhaps even a “universal” for all the Human Sciences. In this light, this workshop introduces and integrates cognitive theories with the study of ancient concepts of man and nature, enriching the methodological framework on both sides of the scientific spectrum. Cognitive processes such as the perception of the body, as well as of natural phenomena, landscape, and the development of different concepts of space and place, will be examined from a broad range of perspectives including neuroscience, archaeology and philology – by discussing theory as well as specific case studies.