Colloquia Series winter 2009
January 28, 2009 (one-time Wednesday afternoon special!)
Colloquium Speaker: Douglas Patterson, Kansas State University
Title: "Inconsistency Theories of Semantic Paradox"
note time and place: 3:30-5:30 pm; 210 Strickland
The rough basic idea of an inconsistency theory of semantic paradox is that the paradoxes show that something about truth or meaning, or our understanding or concepts thereof, is simply inconsistent. The approach, long derided, is getting another look lately as frustration mounts with attempts to show that suitable logical and semantic machinery can explain away the paradoxes. After briefly rehearsing the reasons for this frustration, I'll provide a survey of the questions faced in the development of an inconsistency theory, questions that concern the role of the T-sentences in our understanding of truth, what sort of inconsistency the theory posits, where it is to be located, how far reaching it is taken to be, and how the inconsistency theorist should think about what it is to understand an "inconsistent language" or grasp an "inconsistent concept".
My aim in these discussions will be more to give my hearers a survey of the landscape of positions than to defend my own view, though along the way I will explain the choices I recommend. I will also look at the extent to which the theories to be developed can be extended to other topics. Whether this is so depends on the choices made in formulating the theory; on some developments the view provides something close to a uniform approach to all philosophical problems, while on others it is far more restricted. My own view is of the latter sort but, time permitting, I will look at what is involved in extending it to the paradoxes of set theory and unrestricted quantification, and I will suggest that these paradoxes are in fact problems in the philosophy of mind.
February 5, 2009 (special Thursday talk)
Colloquium Speaker: Brad Hooker, University of Reading
"Promises and Fairness"
1:15-3:00 pm, Memorial Union N208
The first section of the main body of this paper sketches an account of fairness. The paper moves on to defend the view that not only contracts but also promises are important to fairness. The rest of the paper concerns the ground of promissory obligations. Promissory obligations have a number of deontological aspects. Having acknowledged these deontological aspects, the paper ends by considering a rule - consequentialist justification for a moral duty to keep one’s promises.
February 26, 2009 (special Thursday talk)
Colloquium Speaker: Christopher Pincock, Purdue University
"Abstract Representations and Confirmation"
1:00 - 3:00 pm, A&S Bldg. 113
Many philosophers would concede that mathematics contributes to the abstractness of some of our most successful scientific representations. Still, it is hard to know what this abstractness really comes to or how to make a link between abstractness and success. I start by explaining how mathematics can increase the abstractness of our representations by distinguishing two kinds of abstractness. First, there is an abstract representation that eschews causal content. Second, there are families of representations with a common mathematical core that is variously interpreted. The second part of the paper makes a connection between both kinds of abstractness and success by emphasizing confirmation. That is, I will argue that the mathematics contributes to the confirmation of these abstract scientific representations. This can happen in two ways which I label "direct" and "indirect". The contribution is direct when the mathematics facilitates the confirmation of an accurate representation, while the contribution is indirect when it helps the process of disconfirming an inaccurate representation. Establishing this conclusion helps to explain why mathematics is prevalent in some of our successful scientific theories, but I should emphasize that this is just one piece of a fairly daunting puzzle.
March 13, 2009
Colloquium Speaker: Michael Ruse, Florida State University
Title: "Was there a Darwinian Revolution?"
April 3, 2009
Colloquium Speaker: Marc Fleurbaey, Université Paris Descartes
"Responsibility Out of Respect"
April 6, 2009 (special Monday talk)
Ancient Studies Speaker: Elizabeth Asmis, University of Chicago
"Retouching the Ancestors: Myth in Cicero's Conception of the Roman Republic"
6:00 - 7:00 pm, Cast Gallery, 106 Pickard Hall
Reception at 5:30 pm
April 17, 2009
Kline Visiting Speaker: Peter Spirtes, Carnegie Mellon University
Title: "The Science of Causal Inference"
Abstract: Much of the work in the social sciences and elsewhere that attempts to infer causal relationships uses data gathered under conditions where fully controlled experiments are not possible. Despite the fact that a significant part of the practical application of statistics attempts to infer causal structure from statistical data, within some segments of the statistical community there is serious doubt whether this is possible at all. This is a situation where philosophy of science can do some real work. On the one side, there are distinguished people saying of something that is attempted all the time that it is impossible or a kind of pseudo-science, to put it very strongly. On the other side there are distinguished people proposing methods to do what the other side argues is impossible, but making little or no attempt to demonstrate that their methods meet the objections raised by the other side. By being explicit about the interpretation of causal models, the methods of causal inference that are being employed, the assumptions that are being made, and the standards of success, philosophers can both (i) clarify the issues, and (ii) improve upon the current methodology.
May 1, 2009
Colloquium Speaker: Julia Driver, Washington University in St. Louis
Title: "Defending Objective Consequentialism"
Abstract: This paper articulates the distinction between subjective and objective consequentialism and argues in favor of a version of objective consequentialism that holds that the right action is the action that promotes the foreseeable good. Three main problems are discussed for this view: moral luck, 'ought' implies 'can', and Frank Jackson's action ownership problem.
Colloquia Series fall 2008
September 5, 2008
Colloquium Speaker: Fred Adams, University of Delaware
"Towards Closure on Closure"
Both Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick have denied that knowledge is closed. On their views it may be possible for one to know that p, know that p implies q, believe q by inferring it from p and still not know that q. I will discuss two prominent objections to this: one by Vogel and one by Hawthorne. Vogel argues that none of the examples in the literature do count as examples of non-closure and claims there is no reasonable basis for finding such an example. I'll suggest that Vogel is mistaken. Hawthorne argues that if one knows p and knows p implies q, then by a simple rule of logic, one should know p&q, since p and p&q will be equivalent. But then if one accepts that a person can know p and know p&q, it would be outrageous to deny one knows q, unless one gives up simplification. I will try to show that while denial of closure leads to surprise, it is not the suprise that one knows the equivalent p&q, but not q. So, contrary to Hawthorne, there is no failure of simplification.
September 19, 2008
Colloquium Speaker: Michael Strevens, New York University
"Ceteris Paribus Hedges: Causal Voodoo That Works"
By prefacing a hypothesis with the words ceteris paribus, I appear to protect it from potential exceptions that I do not have the power to specify, even in principle. This paper provides a theory of ceteris paribus hedges according to which they deliver on this promise. The theory is limited to causal generalizations, that is, hypotheses are intended to articulate the consequences of certain mechanisms; the scope of such a hypothesis, and thus what it says, depends, I propose, in part on the—perhaps unknown—nature of the mechanism whose consequences it is intended to describe. It follows from this view that the truth conditions for causal hypotheses are typically opaque to their own formulators. The paper concludes with a discussion why opacity might benefit, rather than hinder, causal investigation.
September 19-20, 2008
MOPS (Missouri Philosophy of Science) Workshop
October 3-4, 2008
Kline workshop on Collective Intentionality
December 5, 2008
Kline Visiting Speaker: James van Cleve, University of Southern California
"Rates of Passage"
One of the simplest arguments against dynamic or passage models of time and in favor of four-dimensional theories is this: if time passes, there must be a rate at which it passes, but the idea of such a rate is nonsensical or absurd. I discuss several possible responses to this argument.
December 12, 2008
Colloquium Speaker: Cristina Bicchieri, University of Pennsylvania
"Behaving as Expected: Public Information and Fairness Norms"
Using a modified version of the Ultimatum Game, we demonstrate that both fair behavior and perceptions of fairness depend upon beliefs about what one ought to do in a situation – that is, upon normative expectations. We manipulate such expectations by creating informational asymmetries about the offer choices available to the Proposer, and find that behavior varies accordingly. Proposers and Responders show a remarkable degree of agreement in their beliefs about which choices are considered fair. We discuss how these results fit into a theory of social norms.
Colloquia Series 2007-2008
September 21-22, 2007
Kline Workshop on Issues in Philosophy of Biology
October 12, 2007
Colloquium Speaker: Robert Rupert, University of Colorado, Boulder
“Extended Cognition and the Extended Mind”
October 26, 2007
Colloquium Speaker: Anna Alexandrova, University of Missouri, St. Louis
“Making Models Count”
November 8-9, 2007
Kline Visiting Speaker: Kent Bach, San Francisco State University
January 25, 2008
Colloquium Speaker: John Greco, St. Louis University
March 6, 2008
Visiting Speaker: Martha Gibson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“I'm the Decider”
March 7, 2008
Kline Visiting Speaker: Dennis Stampe, University of Wisconsin-Madison
March 14, 2008
Colloquium Speaker: Douglas Kutach, Brown University
“Causation Solved”
April 4 , 2008
Symposium on the work of W.V.O. Quine and Roger Gibson. The participants will include Roger Gibson (Washington University, St. Louis), Ernest LePore (Rutgers University), James Higginbotham (University of Southern California) and Alex Orenstein (City University of New York—Graduate Center).
April 11-12, 2008
Kline workshop on Ruth Millikan's Philosophy of Mind and Language
April 25-26, 2008
Conference: Realistic Standards for Decisions
May 1-2, 2008
Kline Visiting Speaker: James Joyce, University of Michigan
Colloquia Series 2006-2007
September 29-30, 2006
Kline Workshop
“Internalism and Non-Cognitivism in Ethics and Epistemology”
October 6, 2006
Michael Zimmerman, UNC-Greensboro
“On the Fulfillment of Moral Obligation”
October 13, 2006
David Hull, Northwestern U,
“Variation: Pleasant or Odious?”
in 12 Middlebush Hall
October 20, 2006
George Gale, U. of Missouri-Kansas City
“The Great Dying on the Vine”
October 27, 2006
Christopher H. Wellman, Washington University,
“Immigration and Freedom of Association”
November 3, 2006
John M. Fischer, U of California-Riverside
“Responsibility and Free Will”
November 10, 2006
Reina Hayaki, U. of Nebraska-Lincoln
“Truth in All Possible Worlds?”
February 2, 2007
Carl Craver, Wash. U.
“When Mechanistic Models Explain: The Hodgkin and Huxley Model of the Action Potential”
February 9, 2007
Preparation job talk: Jon Treise, U. of Missouri (ABD)
“Intellectual Property”
February 23, 2007
Frank Hindriks, University of Groningen
TBA (on collective agency)
March 6, 2007
Robert Koon, University of Texas at Austin
“Our A Priori Knowledge of Causation: A New Argument”
Room TBA: Talk is at 2pm.
March 2, 2007
Ernie Lepore, Rutgers U.
“Signs and Expressions”
March 9, 2007
Matt McGrath, U. of Missouri
“The normative roles of knowledge”
March 16, 2007
Eric Roark
[paper to be presented at Pacific APA]: “Is Michael Otsuka’s Conception of Robust Self-Ownership too Robust for a Left-Libertarian”
[Commentator: Eric Heidenreich; Chair: Alan Tomhave]
April 13-14, 2007
Kline Workshop
Intrinsic Value and Other Matters
September 21-22, 2007
Kline Workshop on
Issues in Philosophy of Biology
October 12, 2007
Robert Rupert, University of Colorado, Boulder
“Extended Cognition and the Extended Mind”