Programme seminar series (2022): abstracts
June 1
TITLE: Is
Reasoning a Mental Action?
SPEAKER:
Zach Swindlehurst (Australian National University)
It is widely taken for granted that reasoning (or inferring) is
something that you actively do rather than something that
merely happens to you. According to the mental action thesis,
reasoning is a form of mental agency and thus a mental action. This
paper reconstructs two prominent lines of argument for the mental
action thesis and argues that they fail, before suggesting that the
sort of agency at work in reasoning is of a more deflationary
nature. First, there is the taking argument, according to
which reasoning is a mental action because it necessarily requires
you to take your premises to support your conclusion and
to draw your conclusion because of this fact. Second,
there is the rule-following argument, according to which
reasoning is a mental action because it is a form of rule-following.
But both arguments fail to substantiate an important distinction
between mental action, on the one hand, and mere mental activity,
on the other. The two arguments show, at most, that reasoning
involves mental activity; they do not show that it is a mental
action. The upshot is that we have no grounds for thinking that the
kind of agency involved in reasoning goes beyond the kind of agency
involved in responding to reasons (and responding to reasons as
reasons).
May 18
TITLE: Objective
List Theory
SPEAKER: Andrew Moore (Otago)
Derek
Parfit presents Objective List Theory (OLT) as the claim that
certain things are good or bad for us, whether or not we would
want to have the good things, or to avoid the bad things. Guided
by core ideas in Parfit’s account, this talk aims to make OLT
more determinate, and more sharply contrastive with its
subjectivist rivals. It also engages with other influential
commentators analysts of OLT, including Arneson, Bradley, Lin,
and Fletcher.
TIME AND LOCATION: 11am–12.30pm, Wednesday, May 18; in Otago Business School seminar room 1.19
May 11
TITLE: Human
Essence in Spinoza's Ethics
SPEAKER: Michael LeBuffe (Otago)
I
hope to arrive at a better understanding of Spinoza’s accounts
of humanity in the Ethics by means of an emphasis on
the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII): "Two or
more distinct things are distinguished from one another either
by a difference in the attributes of substances or else by a
difference in their affections" (E1p4). Attention to the PII in
the argument of the Ethics suggests, I argue, that
Spinoza takes human essence to be a single, real thing.
TIME AND LOCATION: 11am–12.30pm, Wednesday, May 11; in Otago Business School seminar room 1.19
May 4
TITLE: Revision
without revision?
SPEAKER: Zach Weber (Otago)
Paraconsistency
in mathematics allows
some contradictions. Classical
mathematics does
not. So there is a natural sense in which paraconsistency is revisionary,
challenging or rejecting some aspects of conventionally accepted
wisdom. Surprisingly, though, most of the (few) people who have
worked in paraconsistent maths have not advocated for
revisionism; they suggest various ways it is more conservative
after all, and seek instead reassurance that
no classical mathematics is lost. In this talk I consider
whether paraconsistent maths is best thought of as revisionary,
or not, by considering two detailed case studies in logic and
computability theory. I argue that, if the paraconsistentist
pursues revision without revision, this provides reassurance
without reassurance.
TIME AND LOCATION: 11am–12.30pm, Wednesday, May 4; in Tower Block Lecture Room TG08 (155 Union Street East)
April 27
TITLE: Ways of Knowing: Posing the Question (moved from Weds 30 March)
SPEAKER: Greg Dawes (Otago)
Philosophers commonly regard truth as a necessary condition for knowledge. But this makes it difficult to make sense of the idea that there can be different ways of knowing. On this view, facts are facts, one either knows them or not. The paper examines this argument and outlines a way in which it could be answered. It offers an alternative understanding of what it is to know that allows radically different ways of representing reality to be instances of knowledge.
TIME AND LOCATION: 11am–12.30pm, Wednesday, April 27; in Richardson 7N10
March 9
TITLE: What Thrasymachus Should have Said
SPEAKER: Charles Pigden (Otago)
ABSTRACT: In the Republic
Thrasymachus argues that ‘justice is the advantage of the
stronger’, that is that the laws and conventions governing a
society support the interests of the rulers or the ruling
class. Hence acting justly – obeying those laws and
customs of one's society in one's dealings with other people – is
not necessarily, not usually or maybe not even ever in
an agent’s best interests. This is a problem for Plato who wants
to prove that it necessarily pays to be just. So his spokesman
Socrates leads Thrasymachus into a trap. Suppose (as surely
happens from time to time) the rulers make a mistake and enact
laws (or foster customs) that are not in their best interests. In
that case justice won’t be to ‘the advantage of the
stronger’ and their subjects’ acting justly won’t be in the
rulers’ best interests. Clitophon offers Thrasymachus a lifeline.
Perhaps justice is what the stronger think is in their
interests. But Thrasymachus won’t have a bar of it. If a ruler
makes a law or issues an order that is not in his
interests he thereby ceases to be a real ruler. So justice is
always to the advantage of the stronger , since if it isn’t,
the stronger cease to be strong. This is both decidedly silly and
gets him into a lot of dialectical trouble. I suggest on
Thrasymachus’ behalf a Darwinian response which entails that
justice is usually or at least often to ‘the
advantage of the stronger’. This in turn in entails that it does
not necessarily pay to be just, which negates Plato’s desired
conclusion. My reconstructed Thrasymachus will be less of a
proto-fascist and more of a radical democrat than Plato’s
Thrasymachus appears to have been.
TIME AND LOCATION: 11am–12.30pm, Wednesday, March 9, via
Zoom
March 2
TITLE: Naturalising the Philosophy of Time
SPEAKER: Heather Dyke (Otago)
ABSTRACT: In the debate between the A-theory
and the B-theory it is generally agreed on all sides that the
B-theory, unlike the A-theory, is at least consistent with what
physics tells us about time. The B-theory therefore looks to be
the best candidate for a naturalistic metaphysical theory of time.
However, the B-theory is prima facie inconsistent with our
ordinary experience of time, which tells us that there is a
privileged present moment, and that time flows. In this paper I
argue that the B-theory can incorporate a naturalistic account of
our ordinary temporal experience, and so offers a complete,
naturalised metaphysics of time that coheres with both physics and
temporal experience.
TIME AND LOCATION: 11am–12.30pm, Wednesday, March 2, via
Zoom