Evolutionary genesis, ontology and functional nature of reason Sophia-Iberia’s 1 st Academic Seminar

Milestones of Sophia-Iberia Academic Conference in Madrid, September 6-8, 2007 was the launch of the project; Metanexus Conference 2008 was co-hosted by Cátedra CTR at Comillas University, July 14-16, 2008; 2 Sessions & Exhibition booth during the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, July , 2008.

Sophia-Iberia in Europe A multidisciplinary project with an anthropic focus on Human Evolution. The Sophia-Iberia in Europe Project endeavours to increase integration and understanding of the long philosophical and theological traditions in Spain and Portugal in the stream of European and international thought.

Academic Seminars In-depth study and discussion on specific issues related to human evolution. 1 st Academic Seminar: “Evolutionary genesis, ontology and functional nature of reason”. From May to October nd Academic Seminar: “Physical reality and psychic reality within a unitary universe ”

Theme of 1 st Academic Seminar What is reason? How does rational knowledge function in the human mind? What are the evolutionary causes which have led to the emergence of the rational mind? How can a scientific explanation of reason be constructed? The definitive formulation of the theme will evolve in function of the input of the participants of the different sessions.

Seminar’s Sessions 1 st Session: “Evolution and Anticipation”, 21 st May 2 nd Session: “Entanglement and Mathematics”,18 th June 3 nd Session: “to be determined”, Braga, 9 th September 4 th Session: “Nature of reason ”, October/November 5 th Session: “Reason emergency in the origins of mankind”, 15 th October

Seminar’s Sessions In each session two gatherings. At the first one the visiting professors will present their view on the subject matter. The second one will be devoted to interact with the visiting Professor in order to clarify their view in relation to the overall theme of the seminar

Seminar’s Sessions In addition to these two gatherings an interview will be recorded in Video in which the visiting professor will present his thought. This interview and the results of the discussion in the two seminars will be placed on the website:

1 st Session “Evolution and Anticipation” Prof. Roberto Poli Department of Sociology and Social Research University of Trento, Italy

Prof. Poli works on three main topics: 1.The category of person and the theory of values. 2.Ontology, in both its traditional, philosophical, acceptation and the new, computer-based acceptation. 3.The category of the future and in particular the theory of anticipatory systems.

Prof. Poli works on three main topics: Addressing these main topics Prof. Poli develops a synthetic methodology, able to go beyond the limitations of the otherwise much needed analytic decompositions of the whole of reality into smaller and smaller fragments.

Recent Publications: The Complexity of Anticipation, invited paper, accepted by Balkan Journal of Philosophy, 1, 2009 An Introduction to the Ontology of Anticipation, accepted by Futures The Many Aspects of Anticipation, Foresight, special issue on Understanding Anticipatory Systems, 2009 Anticipation and Conflicts, presented at the conference Understanding Conflict, Aarhus On the Concept of Person: The Social Nature of Persons (forthcoming in B. Nicolescu and M. Stavinschi, eds, Transdisciplinary Approaches of the Dialogue between Science, Art and Religion in the Europe of Tomorrow) Three Concepts of Person (forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference Action Theories: Social Action, Theory of Mind, Philosophy of Action, Religious Action) The Structure of Motivation. A First Introduction, forthcoming in R. Poli. ed., Causality and Motivation