Workshop:
The Conscious Mind at 30

June 18-19

In 1996, David Chalmers’ The Conscious Mind. In search of a fundamental theory (OUP) shook the Philosophy of Mind by presenting rigorous philosophical arguments and ingenious thought experiments against the physicalistic mainstream. Chalmers introduced the hard problem of consciousness and offered a range of non-reductive approaches to consciousness. 30 years later, the scientific study of consciousness is thriving with its cornerstone of searching the neural correlates of consciousness, adversarial collaborations testing and comparing major theories of consciousness, and complex considerations of markers and tests for consciousness in infants, non-human animals and artificial systems.

In this workshop, we want to look back by celebrating the massive influence of The Conscious Mind and look forward to the future of the science of consciousness. We look forward to welcoming an exciting number of renowned philosophers and scientists to discuss philosophical and scientific themes from the book: Axel Cleeremans, Keith Frankish, François Kammerer, Johannes Kleiner, Christian List, Lucia Melloni, Hedda Hasssel Mørch, Liad Mudrik, Martine Nida-Rümelin, and Anil Seth.

We also invite Early Career Researchers from Philosophy and Cognitive Science to submit abstracts of max. 700 words on themes from the book for Poster Presentation. Please email to Franzsika.Klasen@rub.de by April 1st, 2026.