Spring 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)

February 1, 2006
Speaker: Mark Wilson, University of Pittsburgh
Title: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Formalism"

Abstract: In this talk I will first outline a few of the characteristic oddities of incompleteness and inconsistency that had emerged within classical mechanics at the end of the nineteenth century and which led Hilbert to place the task of finding a consistent axiomatization for classical doctrine on his famous list of problems that needed to be addressed in the century to follow. I will then suggest that many of these oddities arise as the natural effect of positioning a reduced variable "facade" over a region of more complicated physics.

February 15, 2006
Speaker: Jim Bogen, HPS, University of Pittsburgh
Title: "Causally Productive Agents"

Abstract: Elizabeth Anscombe rejected the widely held philosophical assumption that one and the same relation connects causes of all kinds to their effects, and that this relation can be informatively analyzed in terms of regularities or laws of some sort - different sorts according to different philosophers. The worst such accounts (Hume's, for one) are so unsatisfactory, and the best are beset by so many difficulties that Anscombe's alternative is worth considering. According to her causality is a highly abstract notion which derives its meaning from the specific causally productive activities (e.g., pulling, scraping, burning) which fall under it. Furthermore, no matter how regularly some causes may behave, neither regularity nor 'lawlike' behavior distinguishes causally productive from other occurrences.

I explicate Anscombe's view and defends it from two objections: (1) it implies the psychologically unrealistic view that that we must 'perceive causality' in order to acquire and use causal concepts, and (2) it precludes any principled distinction between causally productive activities and causally irrelevant happenings which accompany effects. I discuss psychological experiments which indicate that (1) itself is psychologically unrealistic and sketch historical examples to show how the identification of causally productive activities can be based on constraints which are historical or contextual, but are nevertheless rigorous and empirically well founded.

March 9, 2006 (Thursday) 4:30 pm
Speaker: Noël Carroll, Department of Philosophy, Temple University
Title: "Literary Realism, Recognition, and Knowledge"

Abstract: This paper is about the venerable issue of art and truth, understood here as the issue of artworks and knowledge. The line of argument in the paper is that some art can, and even should, be evaluated in terms of the knowledge it intends to deliver, specifically in virtue of the kind of artwork it is. The leading example is literary realism, though there are other genres that would also serve to support the conclusion.

April 26, 2006
Speaker: Rob Wilson, Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta
Title: "Situated Cognition: Letting Nature Take its Course"

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a way of thinking of situated cognition that captures at least one important historical strand to the situated cognition movement but, more importantly, which also provides the field with some normative direction. The basic idea is that we should think of situated cognition as a form of cognitive extension, or, rather, as a variety of forms that such cognitive extension can take. The aim is not to specify the essence of situated cognition (a misplaced goal, here as in many places in philosophical reflection), nor is it to do justice to all of the work that has, at various times, been referred to under the heading "situated cognition". Rather, it is to provide a way of conceptualizing situated cognition that helps both to focus and reorient the study of cognition as a situated phenomenon.
Keywords: situated cognition, the extended mind, individualism, embedded cognition, exploitative representation, wide computationalism

May 3, 2006
Speaker: Chris Kelly, Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina
Title: “On the Intrinsic Value of Pleasure”

Abstract: I argue that pleasure is not intrinsically valuable. I proceed by defending a version of a fairly common analysis of pleasure. A pleasure is any experience that is the object of enjoyment. Enjoyment of x, I argue, is desiring to have the experience of x while having the experience of x for reasons intrinsic to the experience of x. I contend that once this account is fully elaborated, it gives us good reason to think that neither pleasure nor the enjoyment of pleasure are intrinsically valuable. This is because the value evidence is strong that neither desires nor the experiences that are the object of enjoyment are intrinsically valuable. Furthermore, this analysis gives us a good error theory, that is, a good explanation of why we would think pleasure and enjoyment are good even if they were not. I conclude by pointing out that pleasure in the good is intrinsically good.

May 11, 2006 (Thursday)
Speaker: Fred Miller, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University
Title: TBA