The Radical Academy is an analysis of the human condition as seen through the eyes of an authentic classical philosophic realism fundamentally grounded on the judgments of common sense,
critically examined and expanded. The Academy discusses traditional philosophical, moral, and religious questions; contemporary political, social, and cultural problems and policies; current scientific and technological issues and speculations; challenges to the "conventional" wisdom, "popular" ideologies, and "accepted" paradigms of our culture; and the application of common sense realistic principles to all human affairs.
The Center was established in 1985 in response to student and faculty interests and the growth of medical technology. The mission of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics is to advance and disseminate knowledge concerning ethical issues in health care and the life sciences. The Center sponsors Publications.
The Center for Philosophy of Science exists to promote scholarship and research, to encourage scholarly exchanges, and to foster publications in the philosophy of science as well as in philosophically informed history of science and related fields. The Center is dedicated to bridging the gulf between the sciences and the humanities, and to helping to develop and disseminate a philosophical understanding and appreciation of the sciences. The Center pursues its mission not only locally and regionally, but also nationally and internationally. Like other centers at the University of Pittsburgh, the Center for Philosophy of Science is a unit for research rather than teaching. Nevertheless, through its many undertakings and initiatives, the Center substantially enriches the graduate programs in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and in the Department of Philosophy. Some of these Center activities also enrich the undergraduate programs of the University, especially undergraduate honors programs.
The Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition is an interdisciplinary center for research in cognitive science, directed by Douglas Hofstadter. CRCC is affiliated with the Cognitive Science Program at IU, and has close ties with the Computer Science Department. CRCC research focuses mainly on emergent computational models of creative analogical thinking and its subcognitive substrate -- namely, fluid concepts. Several computer programs modeling the interplay between concepts and perception in the course of analogy-making have been developed; these include the Copycat and Tabletop programs. The Letter Spirit project, modeling the perception and creation of style in the world of letterforms, is currently in the developmental stages. The group also conducts research (mostly non-computational) in a number of other areas of cognitive science, including error-making, creative translation, scientific discovery, musical composition, the comprehension and invention of jokes, the nature of sexist language and default imagery, philosophy of mind, and foundations of artificial intelligence.
Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies (in Danish: Center for Naturfilosofi og Videnskabsstudier, CNV) involves a small group of scientists, philosophers of science and researchers engaged in the interdisciplinary field denominated here as philosophy of nature and science studies, including history, philosophy and sociology of science.
