Tamar Weber
Curriculum Vitae
UCLA Department of Philosophy
Box 951451, 321 Dodd Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1451
Phone: (831) 535-8051
Email: [email protected]
www.tamarweber.com
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Psychology, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology
Areas of C ompetence
Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language, Foundations of Cognitive Science
Additional Areas of Teaching Interest and C ompetence
Philosophy of Neuroscience, Intro to Metaphysics, Intro to Political Philosophy, Critical Thinking
Education
University of California Los Angeles, Department of Philosophy
Ph.D., Philosophy Fall 2016 (expected)
M.A., Philosophy, Fall 2009
New York University, Philosophy Department
Visiting Doctoral Student, Winter/Spring 2010
New York University, Politics Department
M.A., Political Theory and Political Philosophy, Summer 2004
New York University, College of Arts and Sciences
Bachelor of Arts, Magna Cum Laude, Summer 2003
Major: Philosophy, Minor: English and American Literature
D issertation
Making Meaning and Doing it Well: A Theory and Epistemology of Forming Concepts
Committee: Tyler Burge (Chair), Sam Cumming, Mark Greenberg, Edward Stabler (Linguistics)
Publications
Weber, T. and Lau, H. (2015). “Consciousness, Neural Basis of,” International Encyclopedia of Social
& Behavioral Science, 2nd ed., vol. 4, 673-8. Elsevier Science.
Papers Under Review
“How to Acquire a Concept Well (Epistemically Speaking)”
Papers in Progress
“Concept Formation Entitlement and Belief Revision”
“Fodor and His Discontents”
Presentations
“The Search for NCCS and Block’s Access/Phenomenal Distinction.”
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Invited guest lecturer for Psych 88SA Seminar: The Enigma of Conscious Experience.
UCLA Psychology Department. May 2015
Tamar Weber
CV & Dissertation Abstract
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“How to Acquire A Concept Well (Epistemically Speaking)”
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Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Vancouver, BC Canada June 2014
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UCLA Philosophy Department Albritton Society. Dec 2013
“When Perception Goes Cross-Modal”
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Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference. Tucson, Arizona April 2012
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UCLA Philosophy Department Albritton Society. March 2012
“Ignorance, Error, and Belief Revision”
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UCLA Philosophy Department Albritton Society. June 2011
Invited C onference Participation and C omments
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Invited Participant. 40th Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy. Oberlin College, May 2012
Comments on S. James, “De Re Hallucination as Objectual Remembering.”
USC/UCLA Graduate Student Conference. USC, Feb 2012
Invited Participant. More or Less: Varieties of Human Cortical Colour Vision. Vancouver,
BC Canada Aug 2011
Comments on D. Friedell, “Some Metaphysical Issues About Abstract Objects.”
UCLA Albritton Society Conference. May 2011
Teaching Experience
P RIMARY I NSTRUCTOR AT UCLA
Duties: I was entirely responsible for the course design, including the selecting readings,
designing course syllabus, writing all course assignments, and writing and presenting all the
lectures. In addition I was responsible for supervising teaching assistants, email correspondence
with students, and meeting with students in office hours and by appointment. Both were six-week
summer courses
Introduction to Philosophy of Science, Spring 2017
Topics in Theory of Knowledge, Winter 2017
Introduction to Philosophy of Mind, Summer 2013
Philosophy of Psychology, Summer 2011
Teaching Assistant at UCLA
Duties: I was responsible for leading two one hour-long discussion sections per week and grading
all course work of the students enrolled in my discussion sections. In addition, I was responsible
for email correspondence with students, and meeting with students in office hours and by
appointment.
ADVANCED COURSES
Philosophy of Mind, Mark Greenberg (Grad Seminar Winter 2012)
Philosophy of Language, David Kaplan (Fall 2012, Winter 2011)
Philosophy of Science, Sheldon Smith (Fall 2009)
Topics in Philosophy of Mind, Tyler Burge (Winter 2008)
History of Ancient Philosophy, Sean Kelsey (Fall 2007)
History of Political Philosophy, Robert Hughes (Summer 2007)
INTRODUCTORY COURSES
Skepticism and Rationality, Nikolaj Pedersen (Spring 2009
Philosophy of Mind, Joseph Almog (Winter 2009, 2007-w/John Carriero, Fall 2008)
Philosophy of Science, Sheldon Smith (Spring 2008)
Tamar Weber
CV & Dissertation Abstract
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Ethical Theories, Zac Cogley (Spring 2007)
History of Western Philosophy, Sean Kelsey (Fall 2006)
G raduate C oursew ork
* = completed for credit
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
Computation and Cognition, Gabriel Greenberg (Spring 2012)
Concepts, Mark Greenberg (Winter 2012)
Perception, Michael Rescorla (UCSB, Spring 2011)
Philosophy of Psychology, Christopher Peacocke (Columbia University, Spring 2010)
Perception and Consciousness, Ned Block & Jesse Prinz (NYU, Spring 2010)
Perception and Concepts*, Tyler Burge (Spring 2009)
Burge’s Origins of Objectivity*, Tyler Burge (Spring 2008)
Anti-Individualism*, Tyler Burge (Spring 2007)
PSYCHOLOGY (UCLA PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT)
Attention and Metacognitive Awareness, Hakwan Lau (Winter 2013)
Crossmodal Interactions in Perception and Learning*, Ladan Shams (Spring 2011)
Psychological Causal Inference, Patricia Cheng (Fall 2009)
Language and Cognitive Development*, Scott Johnson & James Stigler (Winter 2009)
Thinking, Keith Holyoak (Fall 2008)
Sensation and Perception, Phil Kellman (Winter 2008)
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, LOGIC AND LINGUISTICS
Pictorial Semantics, Gabriel Greenberg (Winter 2013)
Learnability Theory*, Ed Stabler (Fall 2012)
Theory of Computation, Gabriel Greenberg (Fall 2011)
Foundations of Theories of Meaning, Stephen Schiffer (NYU, Spring 2010)
Computational Approaches to Pragmatics, Sam Cumming & Ed Stabler (Fall 2009)
On Words, David Kaplan (Spring 2009)
Pragmatics and Communication, Sam Cumming (Winter 2009)
Horwich’s Reflections on Meaning*, Mark Greenberg (Fall 2008)
Logic, second course*, Sachin Pai (Spring 2006)
Meta-logic*, Tony Martin (Winter 2006)
METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Theories of Scientific Explanation, Katrina Elliott (Winter 2014)
Topics in Theory of Knowledge*, Tyler Burge (Spring 2008)
Self-Knowledge, philosophical & psychological approaches*, Tyler Burge (Spring 2007, 2006)
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Seminar: History of Medieval Philosophy*, Tomas Ekenberg (Fall 2007)
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason*, Tyler Burge (Winter 2007)
Spinoza*, John Carriero (Winter 2007)
Descartes*, John Carriero (Fall 2006)
ETHICS, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF LAW
The Philosophy of Marx, Barbara Herman & Gavin Lawrence (Spring 2007)
Philosophy of Law: Free-Speech, Seana Shiffrin (Winter 2006)
Responsibility for Attitudes*, Pamela Hieronymi (Winter 2006)
Meta-ethics: Nagel’s The Possibility of Altruism*, Seana Shiffrin (Fall 2005)
Proseminar: Ethics in 20th century analytic philosophy*, Barbara Herman (Fall 2005)
Tamar Weber
CV & Dissertation Abstract
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Professional Service
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Workshop organizer. A Mid-Summer Epistemology Workshop, UCLA 2012
Colloquium co-organizer. UCLA Philosophy Department Albritton Society 2011-12
Session chair. Pacific APA 2010
Session chair. Southern California Philosophy Conference 2009
Conference co-organizer. USC/UCLA Grad Student Conference 2006, 2007, 2008
Professional Affiliation
American Philosophical Association 2008-present
Society of Philosophy and Psychology 2011-present
Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness 2013-2015
References
Tyler Burge
[email protected]
Mark Greenberg
[email protected]
Sam Cumming
[email protected]
Sheldon Smith (Teaching Reference)
[email protected]
Letters of recommendation can be obtained from Tanya Kim ([email protected]), the Graduate
& Undergraduate Advisor at the Department of Philosophy at UCLA.
Tamar Weber
CV & Dissertation Abstract
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Making Meaning and Doing it Well
A Theory and Epistemology of Forming Concepts
D issertation Abstract
When I acquire a concept, such as the concept CAT, I acquire the ability to represent things in
the world as cats, whereas before acquiring CAT I could not do so. Thus in acquiring the concept CAT
I increase the expressive power of my representational repertoire. That is, the full power of my
representational abilities after acquiring CAT cannot be described using only the expressive power of
my representational abilities before I acquire CAT. It is famously puzzling how we could acquire new
ways of representing that cannot be semantically decomposed into concepts that we already have. I
propose that there are at least three dimensions to this puzzle: a semantic dimension, an epistemic
dimension and a process-dimension. Each dimension generates its own question: (1) How can new
meaning be created? (2) Can we be warranted in the creation of new meaning? And, (3) what is the
nature of the process by which new meaning is created? I argue that much of the philosophical
literature fails to distinguish and thus adequately address these three questions. An advantage of my
analysis is that it gives a new perspective on the dialectical stalemate surrounding the concept
acquisition puzzle. I address each of these questions and highlight the underappreciated
epistemological dimension of the concept acquisition puzzle. I argue that we can and should have an
epistemology of concept acquisition
Drawing on empirical research in cognitive, developmental, and perceptual psychology, I
offer an empirically plausible unified account of how we form a wide range of general empirical
concepts. Examples of these concepts include: natural kind concepts such as KOALA, LEMON, and
CARIBOU; artifact kind concepts such as CARABINEER, KNISH, and PHONE; as well as many other
concepts that defy easy classification such as MOUNTAIN, LAKE, and PUDDLE.
I develop and defend a theory embedded in a larger teleological account of the capacity for
forming empirical beliefs and the goal of empirical discovery. I argue that we need an epistemology of
empirical concept formation in order to explain the epistemic continuity from perceiving the world to
achieving empirical knowledge. My account explains how forming concepts on basis of perceptual
experience can yield prima facie warrant to apply such concepts, even in cases where one knows nearly
nothing about the properties indicated by such concepts. According to my theory, our warrant for
forming beliefs about empirical subject matter of which we know nearly nothing is inextricably linked
to the process by which we form new ways of representing the world. On my view, while the process
by which a concept is formed is not part of the explanation of the truth of a true empirical belief, it is
part of the explanation of the warrant of an empirical belief.
That we can and should have an epistemology of concept formation is surprising.
Epistemology is traditionally done at the level of propositional states and inferences. Unlike beliefs,
concepts are not evaluable for truth or falsity. Independently of application, the concept CAT cannot
be true, false, veridical, or non-veridical. And unlike the case of propositional transitions in reasoning,
there are no valid inference rules for acquiring a concept on the basis of perceptual experience. Yet it
seems intuitive that the representational content of a concept C will bear a non-arbitrary relation to the
representational content of the perceptual experience on the basis of which C is acquired.
I argue that there are epistemic standards by which we judge the process of acquiring a
concept. Only some cases of having a concept come with prima facie warrant to apply that concept.
These cases are the ones in which the formation process is non-accidental relative to our capacity for
veridically representing objective empirical subject matter. A further advantage of my analysis is that it
shows that epistemic norms do not just appear at the level of beliefs disconnected from the nature of
our representational capacities. Thus according to my theory the epistemology of sub-propositional
representational elements is ultimately part of an explanation of the possibility of warranted empirical
belief and knowledge.
Tamar Weber
CV & Dissertation Abstract
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