Open Day 2019 for Research Training Group 2386 "Extrospection"

11 April 2019, 12.00–15.00

Research Training Group (RTG) 2386 “Extrospection. External access to higher cognitive processes”

 

Open day for students with an interest in applying for a research position starting October 2019 (application period probably 15 April – 12 May 2019). Students will receive more information about the project and have the opportunity to speak to potential supervisors before submitting their applications for the three-year fully-funded research positions within RTG 2386 “Extrospection. External access to higher cognitive processes”.

Program


THURSDAY, 11 April 2019
 

From 12.00      Posters on display: The 10 research topics of the RTG 2386 (entrance hall)

13.00–14.00     Presentation of the RTG's research program

14.00–14.30     The principal investigators (PIs) will discuss their posters (meet them at their poster in the entrance hall)

14.30–15.00     Time for one-on-one meetings with potential supervisors

After 15.30        Program for RTG members and travel awardees exclusively

Cold drinks, coffee, tea & snacks will be provided.
 

Location:  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin, Room 144 (ground floor)
(see also: How to get here)
 

Contact

Dr. Dirk Mende, Coordinator
+49 30 2093-1792
mb-extrospection@hu-berlin.de

 

Some Questions and Answers about RTG 2386 "Extrospection"


RTG 2386: What is on offer?

The DFG-funded Research Training Group (RTG) 2386 “Extrospection.External access to higher cognitive processes” offers a structured and interdisciplinary doctoral program including a fast-track option for Master’s students. During the first funding period 2018–2023, a sophisticated admission process will select three cohorts of doctoral researchers (with application calls in 2018, 2019, and 2020) and two cohorts of fast-track students (to start in 2018 and 2019). Students are asked to apply for one (or more) of the advertised research topics. They will have to hand in a detailed 5-page proposal for an interdisciplinary doctoral project devoted to the problem of extrospection. When applying, applicants should also explain why they wish to conduct their doctoral research in a structured and interdisciplinary doctoral program. Upon admission, students will be offered a salaried doctoral position for three years. Each doctoral candidate will be assigned two experts from different disciplines as their primary and secondary supervisors.

Students will participate in an obligatory education and training program. The core of the RTG’s curriculum will consist of specific research seminars devoted to extrospection, as well as a series of basic and advanced seminars, workshops and academic retreats. Moreover, the RTG will offer scientific soft-skill courses tailored to each individual student’s specific needs.

The RTG 2386 will be based at the graduate school Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

What is “Extrospection”?

While introspection means first-person access to one’s own conscious states, extrospection stands for third-person access to another person’s conscious experience, e.g. with scientific methods or by way of mind reading. Recognizing that another person feels pain, or investigating the conscious perceptual experience of an experimental subject with an fMRI scanner are typical cases of extrospection.

What are the research goals of the Research Training Group 2386 “Extrospection”?

Conscious processes like states of emotion, perception, belief formation, or mind-reading, are of essential importance in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry. It is quite controversial, though, to what extent these processes can be captured adequately by means of extrospection. The reason for this controversy is that extrospective methods are restricted to indirect external evidence. Introspection, by contrast, has long been treated as privileged, given its direct first-person access to these processes.
The present project aims at a comprehensive epistemological, historical and empirical assessment of extrospection. As a working hypothesis, we assume that there is an epistemic symmetry between extrospection and introspection: What can be known by way of first-person methods can be known by way of third-person methods as well, at least in principle. While we do not deny the obvious insufficiencies of current extrospective methods, we hypothesize that they can be overcome by future scientific, methodological, and technological developments.

What is a Research Training Group?

Research Training Groups (RTG) are established by universities to promote young researchers. They are funded by the DFG for a period of up to nine years. Their key emphasis is on the qualification of doctoral researchers within the framework of a focused research programme and a structured training strategy. RTGs often have an interdisciplinary approach. The aim of RTGs is to prepare doctoral researchers for the complexities of the job market in science and academics and simultaneously encourage early scientific independence.