Adrian Wieczorek

Presented at the international conference "Green Intelligence? - Debating Plant Cognition" in Basle, Switzerland on October 23th 2021. A critical reply to Marc Artiga, Communication and Deception in Plants. Objecting to Artiga's arguments in favor of Plant Cognitivism, I try to show why deception does not imply cognitive or representational (contentful) states. Sensory detectors or communication channels in plants, simpler animals or artificial sensory systems do not need to display a perspective on the world to be tricked. Correlational failure and hard-wired response mechanisms can suffice. Furthermore, I offer a sketch of an explanatory understanding of content in terms of objectivity, arguing against the dominant overgeneralization of representation in terms of functional information-use. (© Adrian Wieczorek)

Presented at the international conference "Language, Languages and Post-Cognitivism" in Venice, 15 July 2022. In my talk, I present an original interpretation of the late Heidegger as a genuine ontology of situatedness. I start out by showing the (concealed) early "heideggerian" roots of the current "4E"-paradigm in philosophy of mind and cognitive science with regard to world-disclosure and language. In the main part of my talk, I try to demonstrate how enactivism is too action-centered to adequately account for the embeddedness and phenomenality of language. In return, I sketch four ontological aspects of human situations from a late Heidegger point of view. Finally, I argue that language is the basic structure of such human situatedness, and that art, instead of ordinary language, opens the way for its understanding.(© Adrian Wieczorek)

This introductory talk focuses on Heidegger’s late work, especially his 1959 collection of essays Unterwegs zur Sprache – On the way to language. My thesis is the following: Heidegger's late work marks a general shift from a metaphysical, i.e. a total, definite and centre-oriented description of the world, which is still present in Sein und Zeit, to a strictly situational ontology characterized by its openness, ambiguity and absence of centre. This constellation of our life-world is language, insofar language is the guiding, yet indefinite way of our involvement or engagement in open affairs. I spell out this main tenet by sketching what I call the situatedness, institutionality and responsiveness of language in the later Heidegger. These points are further developed in an essay project currently under review. © Adrian Wieczorek