IHPST Colloquium-Second Session- Fall 2024

Abstract: In this talk I highlight the significance of capturing human cognitive diversity by contrasting scientific approaches that focus on cognitive differences between the sexes with some approaches that more fully investigate and explain human cognitive diversity. Then I use (bodily as well as cognitive) diversity to critically assess two philosophical accounts emphasizing teleology. First, I take issue with neo-Aristotelian ethics relying on the notion of natural goodness from the perspectives of disability and neurodiversity. Second, I discuss Christopher Austin’s neo-Aristotelean construal of a biological species, including us humans, as a natural kind. I conclude with the question of whether we should use the notion of human nature at all, given that it suggests universal features that clash with bodily and cognitive diversity. 

Ingo Brigandt is a Professor at the University of Alberta. From 2014 to 2024 has was a Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Biology. His interests include philosophy of biology, conceptual engineering, science & values, feminist philosophy of science, and—most recently—philosophy of cognitive science and psychiatry. He has been working on a book on Understanding Human Cognitive Diversity.