Past Events
Martin Hahn (SFU): "Sensa, Phenomena, Qualia"
Friday, March 23, 2012 2:30 PM West Mall 3255
Consider the peanut butter jar lid in front of me. I see that it is round and of a uniform red colour all over. But these facts as such are not presented to me by my eyes alone. I (or my visual system) have to infer (or otherwise process) these facts about the lid based on what the senses do present: The lid appears not round, but oval in my visual field and the redness of the top part of the lid appears several shades lighter than that of the vertical side, whose colour appearance is further variegated both because it is ridged and because the it is round and so light falls on it differentially. That redness the senses present to me is something that I am immediately conscious of but cannot describe in words very well - someone who has not experienced it would not know exactly what it is like, but I know all about it in virtue of having the experience I have. I may be wrong about the colour of the lid: perhaps it is not red but green and the inverted-spectrum-mad-surgeon has visited me in the night. But I cannot be wrong about the colour(s) it seems to have. That sensation of redness is something I can have both in veridical experiences and in illusions and hallucinations and is, in some way, one of the components my visual consciousness is made of.
A familiar story. And a false one, I argue. The notion of sensation we are supposed to intuitively and immediately get from the story is, in fact, a heterogenous idea born of three quite different sorts of (mostly abductive) arguments belonging to three quite disparate theories. I don't think any of these inferences are very good, but the focus of this paper is to argue that there is no reason to suppose that a single sort of theoretical entity - sensation - will, or indeed could, fulfill all three roles.
Ursula Renz (Universitat Klagenfurt) 'Finite subjects in the Ethics: Spinoza's conception of the human mind and its consequences for his rationalism'
Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 3:30 PM AQ 4150
Spinoza is often said to have neglected or even annihilated the human subject in the Ethics. His philosophy is usually thought of as some kind of centerless monism which mirrors reality from a divine perspective. There are valid reasons for this, yet, there is something striking about it: If all that matters in philosophy is the conception of things under a divine perspective, why should we care about ethics? According to Spinoza, there is no good or bad for God, and the difference between these two predicates is meaningful only to sentient beings. Hence, if the perspective which finite subjects have on things were unreal or insignificant, the whole worry about morals would be pointless. It is not intelligible why a system of philosophy that restricts itself to the reconstruction of the world as it is known by a divine intellect should be called Ethics. In my talk, I therefore want to develop an alternative reading of Spinoza's definition of the human mind. In claiming that the mind is the idea of the body, according to my reading, Spinoza does no argue for a mind-body identity, but refutes instead the objection that his account amounts to monopsychism.
Gurpreet Rattan (U. Toronto) 'Perspectival Modes of Metarepresentation in Deep Disagreement'
Friday, February 24, 2012 at 2:30 PM in West Mall 3255
Recently, some philosophers have suggested that to understand properly the epistemic significance of disagreement, one must take account of the role of the first-person perspective in disagreement. I think that this is right, but, as I have argued elsewhere, I do not think that anyone has explained just what the epistemic relevance of the first-person perspective is. I want to explain the epistemic relevance of the first-person perspective. It is this: the first-person perspective marks the difference in the perspectival modes of metarepresentation that figure in the thinking about thoughts that occurs in deep disagreement. These perspectival modes of metapresentation are de re modes of presentation of thoughts in which one and the same thought is presented to thinking about thoughts in different ways, and where these ways of thinking are individuated by whether the thought being thought about occurs in one’s own or another's thinking. I conclude by explaining some consequences of this view of the role of the first-person perspective in disagreement for our understanding of the epistemic significance of disagreement.
Dale Jamieson (NYU): "Climate Change at the Frontiers of Ethics"
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 6:30 pm. Location: Harbour Centre (Vancouver Campus)
Why have we failed to act collectively in response to climate change, even though Economists argue that it is in our interest to respond aggressively? Economic arguments assume a set of ethical ideals that do not seem to motivate us to act. What other ethical ideals might we hold? Might they motivate us to respond to climate change?
This talk is part of the ViPS 2011-2012 lecture series on Climate Change: Policies and Problems. More information at the Institute for Values in Policy and Science.
Mark Jaccard (SFU): "Deluding Ourselves to Disaster: Why we fail to act on the climate threat"
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 6:30 pm. Location: Harbour Centre (Vancouver Campus)
Scientists agree on the threats of climate change. Economists agree on the relatively modest cost of mitigation. World political leaders have been commited to action. Yet we seem incabable of acting effectively to address the risks associated with human-induced climate cvhange. Why? Do cognitive biasses towards our self-interest lead to delusions about the problem and its solutions? What can we do?
Note: A recording of the talk and the PowerPoint slides from Dr. Jaccard's talk are available for download on the ViPS site.
Endre Begby, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Friday January 20, 2012 at 3:30 pm. West Mall 3533
"The Normativity of Meaning: Empirical Sources of Counterevidence"
A distinctive theme in philosophy after Wittgenstein concerns the normativity of language. In its standard form, the theme is developed in two interwoven parts: first, it is asserted that our meaningful use of words must necessarily be underwritten by specific lexical norms (e.g., ‘green’ means green); second, it is asserted that to seek the provenance of these norms, we must look beyond the individual language user to social conventions in his or her language community (e.g., to the convention that assigns the semantic content green to the word type ‘green’.) Variations on this view can be found in the works of Kripke, Dummett, Wiggins, Wright, Stroud, and others. More precisely, the target view can be articulated as follows:
[Lexical norms thesis:] For an individual speaker to be able to meaningfully deploy any word <w>, there must be a lexical norm <w means m> which governs the use of that word in his or herlanguage community.
Whereas most discussions of the lexical norms thesis – pro et contra – rely largely on a priori considerations, I believe it can be shown to be false on empirical grounds. To this end, the bulk of my paper is devoted to exploring and offering a new interpretation of empirical data concerning the linguistic abilities of congenitally deaf children who have never been exposed to a public, conventional language.
Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, UBC.
Friday, November 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: 3250.
"What Quasi-Realists Can Say About Knowledge"
Quasi-realism about an area of discourse X is supposed to inherit certain metaphysical and epistemological advantages of traditional non-cognitivism about X, but without having to deny that there are *facts* about X. The epistemological advantages in question include the avoidance of any explanatory burden concerning the question of how we could ever acquire knowledge of (allegedly 'queer', abstract, or otherwise philosophically troubling) X-facts: a burden under which (the quasi-realist may allege) realism gets buried. In this talk, I raise doubts as to whether quasi-realism can straightforwardly borrow this avoidance tactic from its more traditional non-cognitivist cousins. I then explore some epistemological strategies that quasi-realists *can* employ, in particular an adaptation of an independently-motivated explanationist epistemology, and conclude by assessing whether in the light of this exploration quasi-realism has any claim to a serious epistemological advantage over realism.
Mark McPherran, SFU.
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: WMC 3250.
"Socrates' Refutation of Gorgias: Gorgias 477c-461b"
Abstract:
The argumentation -- both ‘rhetorical’ and otherwise -- of Plato’s Gorgias opens early on with Socrates requesting that Chaerephon ask Gorgias “who he is” (447c-d), thus reminding savvy readers that Socrates examines not only abstract definitions, but the lives of his interlocutors as well (cf. G. 484c-486c; Prt. 333c7; La. 187e7). After the youthful Chaerephon behaves like a true Socratic in beginning a “What is rhetoric?” examination of Polus, Socrates intervenes, prodded perhaps by Polus’ assertion that Gorgias possesses the noblest of the technai (448c). In response, Socrates criticizes Polus to his teacher for offering an account of the rhetorical craft that attends more to that very thing than to dialectic -- thus slyly recommending, without any support -- the latter as being superior to the former (448d). The dialogue then quickly moves into Socrates’ initial attempt to discover the true nature of rhetoric from its master-craftsman, Gorgias of Leontini.
All this initial dramatic word-play can make one suspect that more such play will follow, and indeed, scholars have regarded Socrates’ subsequent elenctic examination of Gorgias at 447c-461b as methodologically questionable in varying ways; worrying about the several Socratic leads that Gorgias takes up that end with his having committed himself to the contradiction that he and other rhetoriticians both do and do not produce unjust rhetoriticians. This paper offers an account of Socrates' refutation that critically considers various prior readings.
Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Friday, November 4th, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: WMC 3250.
"Knowing the answer to a loaded question"
Abstract: Many philosophers have been attracted to the view that knowledge-wh ascriptions, i.e. ascriptions of knowledge whether, what, when, where, why, who, etc., can be understood on the model of knowledge-that ascriptions. On this reductive view, knowing-wh is roughly a matter of knowing that p, where p happens to be the true answer to the question embedded in the wh-clause. For example, knowing what time it is, when the time happens to be 4pm, is simply a matter of knowing that it is 4pm. An important challenge for this simple and attractive account is the problem of "convergent knowledge": the reductive view implies that any two knowledge-wh ascriptions with identical true answers to their embedded questions are materially equivalent, but there are a number of apparent counterexamples to this equivalence. In this talk, I suggest a solution to the problem of convergent knowledge, based on the considerations about the factual presuppositions we often make when asking questions.
Edward (Ted) Slingerland, UBC.
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: WMC 3250.
“In Defense of Habit: Contemporary Cognitive Science and Confucian Virtue Ethics”
Immanuel Kant famously argued that desirable actions done out of habit (aus Neigung) did not, in fact, qualify as genuinely moral actions: truly moral actions had to be consciously undertaken in accordance with duty (aus Pflict). This dismissal of habit, as well as emotion, as part of the non-moral realm of “heteronomy” is typical of post-Enlightenment ethics in the West. In this talk I will argue that recent work in cognitive science and social psychology suggests that the sort of “cognitive control” that plays a central role in modern deontology and utilitarianism is actually a very weak foundation upon which to build an ethical education system, and that a style of ethics—namely, virtue ethics—that focuses on habits and embodied emotions might be expected to do a better job of getting people to reliably act in an ethical manner. I will argue that the early Confucian emphasis on moral spontaneity, moral emotions, and the inculcation of virtuous habits is based upon a much more empirically defensible model of human cognition, portraying early Confucian virtue ethics (and virtue ethics in general) as involving a kind of “time-delayed cognitive control.” Virtue ethics might be seen as a clever way of getting around the limits of human cognitive control abilities, embedding higher-level desires and goals in lower-level emotional and sensory-motor systems. I will also argue that the specific features of Confucian virtue ethics—in particular, its emphasis on situation-sensitive training—avoid some of the weaknesses of traditional Western models of virtue ethics.
Matt Bedke, UBC.
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: WMC 3250.
The Normative and The Vague
Abstract: Consider this: "Using someone's genetic material without their consent is wrong." According to expressivism, normative sentences like this do not describe what things are like. More precisely, normative sentences do not make distinctions among possible states of the world by virtue of their (thin) normative vocabulary. What do they do? They express conative attitude. The opening sentence, for example, expresses a negative attitude toward certain uses of genetic material, rather than attributing a property (wrongness) to those uses. I think this is roughly right, but no expressivist has yet explained how normative sentences legitimately feature in logically valid arguments, and what they mean in unasserted contexts where they certainly do not express attitude. (E.g., when I say "John thinks that using someone's genetic material without their consent is wrong" I do not express any attitude toward such uses.) Nor have they explained why we seem to have disagreements over what the normative facts are. In this talk, I will motivate a novel version of expressivism that meets these explanatory burdens. The key is to conceive of normative predicates as maximally vague.
Adam Morton, UBC (Visiting Emeritus Professor).
Friday, September 30, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: WMC 3250.
Emotions with Multiple Points of View
Abstract: Many emotions are linked to acts of imagination. For example to feel oneself as the object of someone's ire one has to imagine the other's anger. Moreover in this as in many cases one has to imagine an emotion together with its own point of view. As a result one has an emotion in which is embedded a secondary point of view. Such emotions include many that are central to both morality and humour. (They're cousins!) In this paper I try to say this carefully, particularly expanding on the loose terms 'linked to', and 'point of view'. One interesting consequence is, as just hinted, a link between the capacity for remorse or empathy and the capacity to be amused. Another is the embarrassing excess of perspectival emotions over the requirements of morality.
Lisa Shapiro, SFU.
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 3:30 pm. Location: WMC 3250.
Je ne regrette rien: Descartes, Elisabeth and the Moral Psychology of Regret
Abstract: In this paper, I focus on a discussion in the correspondence between Descartes and Princess Elisabeth concerning regret. My aim is simple: I want to understand just what Elisabeth’s objections to Descartes’ account of virtue are. For him, virtue is simply doing what one judges to be the best, and there is little space for regretting actions that turn out for the worse. After briefly defending the project of ascertaining Elisabeth’s philosophical position, I distinguish two distinct objections she raises: one concerns the epistemic limits on our practical judgements; the other concerns our faculty of reasoning itself.
Workshop in Philosophy of Science (a joint SFU, UBC and University of Washington event).
Saturday, May 7th. Location: Halpern Centre, SFU Burnaby.
Download the schedule of speakers (pdf - updated April 13th)
To RSVP for the conference, please contact Holly Andersen.
Eric Winsberg, University of South Florida. "Reflections on the Verification and Validation of Computer Simulations"
Thursday, April 7th, 12:30 - 1:20. Location: IRMACS Presentation Studio, ASB 10900.
Abstract:
It is common practice in the simulation community to distinguish between verification and validation. Verification is said to be the process of determining the extent to which the solutions generated by the computer simulation model approximate the solutions to the original mathematical model equations. And validation is said to be the process of determining the extent to which a computer simulation model is an adequate representation of a target system. In this presentation I argue that this distinction is not as clean as it is often thought to be. I also argue that this has important implications for how we think about the epistemology of simulation, and the relationship between theories and the world.
Sponsored by IRMACS (The Interdisciplinary Research in Mathematics and Computational Sciences Centre)
Eric Hutton, University of Utah. "Han Feizi and the ‘Paradox’ of Power"
Friday, March 25th at 3:30. Location: WMX 3253
Abstract:
In the Chinese tradition, a famous treatise on political philosophy is the Han Feizi, which dates from the third century BCE. Because of its strongly authoritarian views, it may seem at first glance to be of little interest for contemporary political philosophers. However, this talk presents an interpretation of the text that sees it as concerned with a ‘paradox’ of political power: to wield power, you must give it away. In examining the text’s discussions of the ‘paradox’ and proposed solutions to it, we see ways that the text may still have something to offer to contemporary political philosophers after all.
Christopher Hitchcock, California Institute of Technology. 'Events and Times: A Case Study in Means-Ends Metaphysics."
Friday, February 25th at 3:30. Location: WMX 3535
Abstract:
This is an essay in metaphysics, scientific methodology, and metametaphysics. In metaphysics, it addresses an old debate about the nature of events, and their relation to time. In methodology, it addresses considerably newer issues about how to construct appropriate causal models. In metametaphysics, it argues that problems of the first sort, and perhaps metaphysical problems more generally, can fruitfully be recast as problems of the second sort. This is not intended to be a grand vision of what all metaphysics must aspire to, but it is intended to be an attractive picture of at least some parts of metaphysics-- one that builds on an important historical tradition.
Monica Aufrecht, Simon Fraser University. Topic: "The illusion of agreement: discussing values in science"
Friday, February 4th at 3:30. Location: WMX 3535
Abstract:
When it comes to evaluating scientific claims, are the personal lives, values, and goals of the scientists relevant? When constructing a philosophical understanding of science, how should one incorporate the history of science and the way science has actually been practiced?
For much of the twentieth century, questions like these were answered by invoking the philosophical distinction between the "context of discovery" (how an idea was discovered) and the "context of justification” (whether there is good evidence for an idea).
I show that this context distinction, however, is not one distinction, as implied above, but many distinctions. In some cases these are not neutral logical distinctions, but rather they tend to endorse one view of what “discovery” and “justification” consist of. Rather than clarifying the issues at stake, invoking the context distinction can actually obscure them, since it creates the illusion of agreement. After presenting an example of this confusion, I conclude that it is more fruitful to think of the context distinction as a tool. Instead of debating whether the distinction is true or accurate, we should evaluate whether it is a useful tool for a given particular aim.
Kent Schmor, Simon Fraser University. "Carnap’s Aufbau, Quine, and the Fate of Metaphysics"
Friday, January 14th at 4:00. Location: WMX 3535
Abstract:
There have been two dominant interpretations of Carnap’s 1928 project, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt (The logical structure of the World; aka the Aufbau). The one, following Quine, interprets it as an empiricist epistemology, along the lines suggested by Russell’s Our Knowledge of the External World. The other, following Alan Richardson, Michael Friedman, and others, emphasizes certain neo-Kantian aspects of the Aufbau and, in particular, focuses on the question of what makes objective knowledge possible. In this talk, I sketch an alternative interpretation of the Aufbau, one which gives more weight to Carnap’s opposition to metaphysics. I then explore how we should think about the contrast between Quine’s naturalized epistemology and the epistemology of the Aufbau, in light of this interpretation. I argue that the two projects share some striking similarities, but differ in their responses to traditional metaphysics; and that there is something general to be learned about the relation between Carnap and Quine from these differences.
Kathleen Akins, Simon Fraser University. "Black and White and Colour"
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:30. Location: WMX 2522
Abstract:
Historically, the topic of colour perception has been bedeviled by numerous metaphysical and epistemic problems. Are there objective colour properties in the world? Are there colour qualia? Does seeing the world in colour require colour sensations qua (causal and or epistemic) stepping stones between "mere colour appearance" and veridical colour judgements? Interestingly, these sorts of questions are rarely raised about luminance vision. For the most part we don't ask whether objects are genuinely light or dark, whether lights are REALLY bright or dim, or whether luminance vision requires the set of phenomenal "greys" on which to base our visual judgements. No physiologist searches for the proverbial "grey area" of the brain. Where luminance vision is concerned, we are metaphysically and epistemically "forgiving" (except when we talk about black and white as the colours of object surfaces).
In this paper I start with a look at luminance vision, what it is and how it works according to our best scientific theories. My goal in talking about luminance processing is to be as uncontroversial as possible—to present the shared assumptions made by the visual neurosciences about both luminance processing and luminance phenomenology. Where things get interesting is if we were to take these same assumptions about luminance vision and apply them to chromatic processing. The results would be highly contentious—indeed, some philosophers would say that these assumptions are a priori false, when applied to colour. This is interesting because there is now a substantial body of literature which suggests that luminance vision and chromatic vision work along very similar lines, according to common principles. I take it that, whether right or wrong, such a bland empirical theory ought not to give rise to a priori falsehoods. But in any event, looking a luminance processing more closely forces us to reassess our firm convictions about colour vision, about what could or could not possibly be the case.
This talk is part of the third annual Online Consciousness Conference.