Dear colleagues
We—Nir Fresco and Beate Krickel – are seeking a Ph.D. student in philosophy of cognitive science to work on a project centred broadly on computational, representational, and/or mechanistic explanation in cognitive science, neuroscience, and/or cognitive robotics. The Ph.D.-position is fully funded for four years.
The successful candidate will enroll in the Ph.D. programme at the Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Neither living in Beer Sheva nor proficiency in Hebrew is required. The successful candidate will be supervised by both, Fresco (BGU) and Krickel (TU Berlin). The project will include a long research stay (approximately a year) at TU Berlin and a joint-PhD (cotutelle) is planned.
Starting date: October 2025
The initial deadline for applications is 29 May, 2025. However, applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled.
Candidates should have a Master’s degree in philosophy and some background in psychology, computer science, robotics, or biology. The main selection criteria are scientific excellence, suitability for the research project, and passion for research in philosophy.
A complete application should consist of
- a cover letter describing the candidate’s background and the fit for pursuing a PhD in the area of interest (see questions below);
- a short description of the planned PhD-project (1 page);
- a CV;
- a transcript of records (showing course titles and grades);
- a list of scholars who could provide a reference;
- a short writing sample (e.g., a chapter of the Master’s thesis, a conference paper, or a published paper).
The following (non-exhaustive) list includes possible questions of interest:
- When does a physical computing system miscompute and can present accounts of computation explain this phenomenon?
- Given that computation and representation are very often intertwined in describing cognitive and artificial systems, should cases of misrepresentation be explained as the result of miscomputation or, rather, the other way around?
- How does approximation in Bayesian cognitive science differ from, and relate to, miscomputation?
- Do cognitive explanations that use the notion of miscomputation assume mind-independent, or rather perspectival and pragmatic, notions of computation and representation?
- Are there coherent, unified concepts of ‘representation’ and/or ‘computation’ that can justify their theoretical role in both computer science and engineering, as well as in the computational sciences of mind and brain?
- Can mechanistic explanations in cognitive science be simultaneously representational? (in other words, do representational explanations violate the constraints of mechanistic explanation?)
- Can there be a non-representational account of computation that does justice to the explanatory practices of cognitive science?
- What role does the mechanistic/computational/representational distinction or connection play in AI and cognitive robotics?
- Can mechanistic/computational/representational explanatory models from cognitive (neuro-)science provide blueprints for building smart robots?
- Do AI systems or smart robots make use of representations in the same way as biological systems?
Please send us the application via email to nfresco-at-bgu-dot-ac-dot-il and beate-dot-krickel-at-tu-berlin-dot-de.
Regards,
Nir Fresco https://ben-gurion.theopenscholar.com/nir-fresco
Beate Krickel https://www.tu.berlin/en/philkognition