Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Oriol Roca-Martín

Afiliations: 
  • LOGOS | Universitat de Barcelona - Logic, Language, and Cognition Research Group
  • BIAP | Barcelona Institute of Analytic Philosophy - María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence
Oriol Roca-Martín

Contact

Mail:
o.rocamartin@ub.edu
oriol_rocamartin@outlook.com

Location:
Universtat de Barcelona, Departent of Philosophy. Montalegre Street, 6-8. 4th Floor. Office 4090; 08001-Barcelona

I am a PhD candidate under the supervision of Manolo Martínez and José Díez. Before joining the Cognitive Sciences and Language (CCiL) Doctoral Programme at the UB (Universitat de Barcelona) I earned a BA in Philosophy from the UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), and the CCiL MA from the UB. My doctoral research is funded by a grant (CEX2021-001169-M-20-1) associated to the  "Evidence in Science" branch of the BIAP, and I develop my current research activities within the LOGOS project Reassessing Scientific Objectivity (code PID2020-115114GB-I00). Besides, I part-time study a BE in Mathematics for Data Science at the UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra). 

My doctoral project, "So, what is real in the Real Patterns framework? Exploring its boundaries and applications for the life sciences", focuses mainly on the difficulties that arise when trying to understand the nature of the special sciences and how these disciplines successfully develop abstraction, idealisation, modelling and evidence strategies in relation to complex and dynamic 'emergent' systems—all with a special focus on cognitive and biological systems. Based on the information-theoretic and computational notion of pattern recognition, Daniel Dennett proposed Real Patterns as a framework for understanding the special sciences that would presumably avoid the downsides associated with reductionism and emergentism, while respecting key scientific and/or metaphysical desiderata—i.e., realism, objectivity, and general physicalism. While ideas framed in terms similar to Real Patterns are very often indirectly appealed to in order to justify scientific or practical decisions—especially when it comes to fields working with big data, and statistical and machine learning methods—, this framework offers only a general, vague sketch of its philosophical basis. In this project, I take Dennett's proposal at face value, and try to identify and analyse its weaknesses and strengths; ultimately aiming at: i) developing a deeper understanding of the implications of committing to "patterny" philosphical approaches (currently usually associated with Ladyman and Ross' (2007) defense of their Ontic Structural Realism, amongst others), ii) assessing the possible scope and systematizability of such a framework, and iii) evaluating whether Real Patterns can have the merits for configuring a genuine (non eliminativist), novel alternative framework for accounting for "emergent" behaviours in the special sciences—as it was originally proposed for. 

Much more broadly, I am interested in: causal models and causal inference (specially in life and economical sciences); information and computation (as such, and as sources of methodological computational tools); the applications of network theory for the mitigation of misinformation; the philosophy of psychiatry and medicine; some aspects of semantics; and finally, all along with interests in some of the ethical, social, and practical derivations of all the latter topics. 

When I am not sitting on a chair, I love adventures and playing music.

Selection of Publications

  • Oriol Roca-Martín, Vicent Costa, Pilar Dellunde, Zoe Falomir. 2021

    Innovative perspectives in the design of intelligent artwork classification
    algorithms: tools for better human-machine integration. UABDivulga Online
    Journal