Speakers and Summaries

Alain Berthoz

Honorary Professor, Collège de France

Brains and robots : common principles

To day cooperation between neuroscience  and robotics is a nice opportunity for cross fertilization because modern technologies and algorithms developed by roboticians may provide principles which may not have been discovered by evolution. Is there anything in common between languages of the brain and languages of robots? This talk will address the question by taking a few examples of functions which are found in these natural and artificial creatures. Living animals use simplifying principles which allow flexibility, creativity and memory. In particular, in the area of cognitive functions they use space as a tool for storing and retrieving words, facts  and concepts with a variety of non Euclidian geometries. The lateralization of language in the left brain corresponds to a more general division of coding schemes between the left and right brain providing a rich dual perspective (egocentric and allocentric) view for action perception and reasoning. But in addition they combine emotion and information processing. This provides them with a unique combination of potential (vicariant) ways to solve problems and for rethorics. All these mechanisms are essential basis for social interaction and argumentation.

Alain Berthoz is Honorary Professor at the College de France, member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Technologies, the Academia Europae,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other Academies  (Royal Academy of Medicin of Belgium, and Academy of Medicine of Bulgaria). He is a world known specialist of the physiology of multisensory integration, spatial orientation, the vestibular system, the oculomotor system, locomotion, and spatial memory. He has contributed to the understanding of the cognitive aspects of sensory-motor pathologies in children, and cognitive functions including recently psychiatric diseases. He has been at the origin of the technical development of a number of biomedical equipments, motion capture, haptic force-feedback devices, eye movement measurement, virtual reality for the study of navigation, locomotor and executive function deficits. He cooperates with  robotics groups in Japan and Italy for bio-inspired robotics and humanoids and participated in several Europen projects. He is the author of more than 300 papers in International journals. He wrote  several books including “The Brain’s Sense of movement”, "The cognitive foundations of decision making", “Simplexity”,  “La vicariance”. He has received the honors of Officier de l’Ordre du Mérite, Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, Commandatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Alain Berthoz is Honorary Professor at the College de France, member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Technologies, the Academia Europae,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other Academies  (Royal Academy of Medicin of Belgium, and Academy of Medicine of Bulgaria).

Pascal Chabot

Professor, IHECS, Brussels

The multiple ways of being intelligent

What do we mean when we are saying that a human is "intelligent". And what do we deny to a machine when  we are opposed to make such a diagnostic?
"Intelligence" is a relationnal quality, and moreover a rhetorical quality, that is to say a quality that does only concern the sphere of the "logos", but also those of "pathos" and "ethos".
By reconsidering on a philosophical and rhetorical point of view those questions, it is all our relations with the machines that appear in a new light.

Pascal Chabot is philosopher. He is the author of "Exister résister" (Puf, 2017), "ChatBot le robot" (Puf 2016), "L'âge des transitions" (Puf, 2015), "Global burn-out" (Puf, 2013) and "The philosophy of Simondon" (Bloomsbury, 2013) With the filmmaker Francois Lagarde, he had realiazed "Simondon du désert"
He teaches at IHECS (Brussels).

Emmanuelle Danblon

Professor, ULBruxelles, GRAL

Is there a correct way to name actions in humanoid robotics?

“To name things wrongly is to add to the misfortune of the words” said Albert Camus. It is true in philosophical and ethical issues. But “wording robotics” raises questions at two different levels. The first one concerns a humanoid lexicon that is spontaneously used by speakers (decision, autonomy, empathy, etc.). The second one deals with an ethical and philosophical level which is more concerned with Camus reflection. I Would like to propose a distinction between both levels of wording robotics. In the first case, there is no choice for cognitive reasons. But linguistics may contribute to explicit the status of metaphors in the use of humanoid lexicon. In the second case, a debate on wording robotics may —and must— be organised. Finally, emotions at hand in the comparison between artificial and human intelligence are useful to better understand our vision of humanity today.

Emmanuelle Danblon is Professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium.She teaches rhetoric, argumentation and linguistics theory.Her research fields are ancient and contemporary rhetoric, links between genres and institution, teaching rhetoric in education, conspiracy, etc.She published several book and articles on these topics.She is the head of the GRAL (Groupe de Recherche en rhétorique et argumentation linguistique: gral.ulb.ac.be). She is the secretary of the Chaïm Perelman’s Foundation in Brussels.

Salvatore Di Piazza

Researcher, University of Palermo

The stochastic intelligence. A rhetorical model from ancient Greece to robotic

If we want to understand the specific characteristics of human intelligence, an interesting field to investigate is represented by ancient Greek rhetoric and by other epistemologically similar technai stochastikai, conjectural technics. Particularly, it is interesting to analyze the Aristotelian approach to the notion of techne and the multiple meanings related to the Greek verb stochazesthai. This verb, from which the adjective stochastikos is derived, is usually translated as “to conjecture”, “to approximate”, “to aim at”. We can say in general that the verb stochazesthai refers to a non-algorithmic cognitive activity, which is not limited to performing pre-arranged procedures for reaching a goal, but which necessarily elaborates a hypothesis, conjectures and devises in order to reach the target. It actually concerns a specifically human way of rule-following. Which cognitive operations come into play when we deal with a techne stochastike like rhetoric? What does “making a decision” mean for a human being? We will try to show how the analysis of these issues can offer food for thought in the field of robotic with a particular focus on deep learning.

Salvatore Di Piazza (1977) obtained his PhD on Philosophy of Language and Mind in 2008 and is actually researcher at University of Palermo. He is also associate member of GRAL (Groupe de recherche en rhétorique et en argumentation linguistique) at Université libre de Bruxelles where he received a FNRS grant under the supervision of Emmanuelle Danblon. His researches mainly focus on epistemological aspects of rhetoric, in particular in ancient Greek world (Congetture e approssimazioni. Forme del sapere in Aristotele, Milano, Mimesis, 2011), on ancient semiotics (Seeing the similar in the dissimilar. The semiotics of Philodemus’s De signis, Roma, Aracne, 2014), on the relationship between rhetoric and medicine. Another topic of his research concerns the relationship between language and identity in organized crime (Mafia, langage, identité, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2012). He is actually working on the notion of trust/faith (pistis in Greek) by comparing the religious context (the New Testament, in particular) and the philosophical and rhetorical tradition.