Social and Behavioral Sciences Interest Group

Meeting time: SoBIG: meeting online every other week to discuss pleasure and pain. Default date is every other Wed., starting Wed. Sept. 18th at 1:00, but times may change due to scheduling occasional out of town visitors. Please contact Marshall Peterson <pet04400@umn.edu> for information.

The Social and Behavioral Sciences Interest Group (SoBIG) reads and discusses works of mutual interest in the philosophy of the social sciences, and in moral and prudential psychology in philosophy or the social sciences. We select readings for a variety of reasons: to keep up on the most exciting developments in the field, to help participants examine literature relevant to their research projects, to provide feedback on works in progress being written by SoBIG participants, to revisit classic articles in the literature, and sometimes just to have fun discussing a topic related to the social sciences. For information, please contact Valerie Tiberius (tiberius@umn.edu) or Carl Elliott (ellio023@umn.edu).

Our meetings are informal and some participants need to arrive late or leave early because of scheduling conflicts. All faculty from the University of Minnesota and area colleges and universities and graduate students are welcome to attend whenever they would like (without invitation) and without giving advanced notice. Undergraduates are included by invitation. (If you know of an undergraduate who is well-suited and possibly interested, please contact Valerie Tiberius (tiberius@umn.edu) or Carl Elliott (ellio023@umn.edu) so an invitation can be extended.)

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Fall 2024

Default is to meet every other Wed., starting Wed. Sept. 18th at 1:00, but times may change due to scheduling occasional out of town visitors. 
Please contact Marshall Peterson <pet04400@umn.edu> for information.

September 18: Dennett, Daniel C. Why You Can’t Make a Computer That Feels Pain. Synthese (Dordrecht) 38, no. 3 (1978): 415–56. doi:10.1007/BF00486638. (pdf)

October 2: Melzack, Ronald, and Patrick D Wall. Pain Mechanisms: A New Theory. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 150, no. 3699 (1965): 971–79. doi:10.1126/science.150.3699.971. (pdf)

October 16: Schroeder, Timothy. Pleasure and Displeasure. In Three Faces of Desire, 71-106. Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2004. (pdf)
Timothy Schroeder will be attending.

October 30: Berridge, Kent C. Pleasure, Pain, Desire, and Dread: Hidden Core Processes of Emotion. In Well-Being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, edited by Daniel Kahneman, Ed Diener, and Norbert Schwarz, 525–57. Russell Sage Foundation, 1999. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610443258.31. (pdf)

Previous SoBIG topics