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Fall 2006(All talks are on Wednesdays in 1115 Skinner Hall at 4:00 unless noted otherwise, followed by a reception in the philosophy department lounge) September 6, 2006 Abstract: According to some philosophers, knowing that p requires being absolutely certain that p. Where "certain" is taken as absolute (subjective) confidence, this position threatens to have skeptical consequences (Unger (1975)). My purpose in this paper is to show that knowing that p does not require being certain that p, and thereby to remove this particular skeptical threat. September 20, 2006 Abstract: Recent psychological research has challenged a number of our assumptions about the nature of what is called “subjective well-being”—a self-reported sense that one’s life is going well. Among other things, this research raises the question whether the utilitarian goal of promoting happiness constitutes a sensible basis for choice. A proper understanding of the nature of human desire may be the key to understanding why these seemingly counter-intuitive psychological results obtain, and what implications they may have for moral thought and practice. October 4, 2006 Abstract: Anthony Marcel writes: “Oddly, many psychologists seem to assume that intentions are by their nature conscious.” Daniel Wegner asserts that “Intention is normally understood as an idea of what one is going to do that appears in consciousness just before one does it.” If this allegedly normal understanding of “intention” is treated as a definition of “intention,” then, by definition, any item that does not “appear in consciousness” is not an intention, and intentions are “by their nature conscious.” Is the connection between intentions and consciousness this tight? And why might scientists find themselves disagreeing about this? In sections 1 and 2, I lay some groundwork for an examination of these questions. In section 3, I offer some answers and I apply them to Wegner’s “illusion” thesis about “conscious will.” October 20, 2006 (Friday) 2:00 pm Abstract: What makes a word a slur is that it is used to do certain things, that it has (in Austinean jargon) a certain illocutionary potential. Given what slurs are used to do, it is no surprise that their use often achieves, or at least is associated with, extreme effects on their targets: humiliation, subjugation, shame. This talk focuses on some relations among the illocutionary and perlocutionary properties of slurs –their potentials for performing acts and achieving effects –and their more straightforwardly semantic properties –their potentials for classifying, for contributing to what a sentence says. It suggests that talk in which slurs are used is for the most part talk which is not to be classified in terms of truth or falsity. To think or talk slurringly of a person is, among other things, to have certain attitudes towards him, including evaluating him negatively and having contempt for him because one takes him to be of a certain race, ethnicity, religion, etc. The illocution –the contempt –is part of what one thinks. Furthermore, to have an attitude of contempt towards someone because of their race or ethnicity is, inter alia, to represent one’s target in a certain way: as contemptible because of his race or ethnicity. Such a representation is incorrect: no one is contemptible for such a reason. So what one says cannot be true. But the right attitude to take towards someone who slurs another is not that they have made a mistake that renders their thought false. Rather, we should reject the very way of thinking the thinker used in his thought. Not all representation is aptly evaluated in terms of truth and falsity. October 25, 2006, 4:00 pm Abstract: Science is an error-correcting process. Neither popular conceptions of science nor most philosophers of science have taken this error-correction perspective. Some problems with popular views, as well as those of the philosophers of science Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Susan Haack are noted. Then, two famous cases of error correction are analyzed. One comes from evolutionary theory, with the correction of purported instances of mislabeled "Lamarckian" inheritance. The other case is from genetics. Biological findings required a reexamination of an erroneous conclusion about the chemistry of DNA, and several erroneous models of DNA were proposed before the discovery of the double helix structure by James Watson and Francis Crick, utilizing the experimental results of Rosalind Franklin, without her permission. These cases show that reasoning in error correction is, first, a diagnostic process to localize the error, and, second, a redesign process, to construct an improved theory or model. October 27, 2006 (Friday), 2:00 pm Abstract: The paper discusses the semantics of the progressive aspect and defends a revised version of Parsons' approach. The revisions come in response to three charges: (i) that Parsons' account fails to predict the entailment of simple progressive sentences by their perfective counterparts, (ii) that it incorrectly entails the existence of the direct object of the progressive verb, and (iii) that it neglects the perspective-dependence of the progressive. November 8, 2006 December 1, 2006 (Friday), 4:00 pm Abstract: Truthmaker says that, for each truth, there is something or other that-by its mere existence-makes that truth true. Truthmaker is controversial, most obviously because of negative existentials. A claim like that there are no hobbits does not seem to be made true by the existence of anything. Truth Supervenes on Being (TSB) says, roughly, that any two possible worlds alike with respect to what their contents are like are alike with respect to what is true. TSB has been defended by David Lewis, among others, as a way to capture the intuitions behind Truthmaker without inheriting Truthmaker's problems. I argue that TSB is no better than Truthmaker. That is, I argue that if TSB is to accommodate the motivations that drive Truthmaker, it must be recast in such a way that it inherits virtually all of Truthmaker's problems. While I think this means that we should reject both Truthmaker and TSB, this paper argues only that the two stand or fall together. December 6, 2006 Abstract: The homeostatic property cluster (HPC) view of natural kinds has been defended as a third way between conventionalism and essentialism about natural kinds. Property clusters are not mere conventions if the cooccurrence of properties is sustained by a similarity-generating (or homeostatic) mechanism. I argue that conventional elements are partly but ineliminably involved in deciding when two mechanisms are mechanisms of the same type and in deciding where to draw the boundaries of mechanisms. These conventional elements raise doubts about whether one can justify restricting natural kinds to kinds sustained by single mechanisms and about whether the HPC view is a true alternative to conventionalism. December 13, 2006 Abstract: Most discussions about the morality of humanitarian intervention are focused on the question of permissibility. Are there conditions under which intervention into the internal affairs of another state is morally permissible? My project, however, goes beyond the question of permissibility, and is focused on the identification of the conditions under which it would be unreasonable to deny that a moral obligation of humanitarian intervention exists. The methodology I employ unfolds in four distinct steps: A rejection of various skeptical accounts; an identification of the constitutive elements of a moral obligation of humanitarian intervention; the evaluation of various candidates that may be argued to serve as the basis for the moral obligation of humanitarian intervention; and the identification and inclusion of other relevant moral concerns. December 20, 2006 |
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