The 90th Joint Session of
the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association
Cardiff University
7th-8th July 2016
Contents
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Programme…………………………………………….
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Symposia………………………………………………
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Postgraduate sessions………………………………….
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Sunday Panels…………………………………………
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Saturday Open Session with SWIP……………………
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Sunday Open Sessions………………………………...
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Rules for the Open Sessions and the Chairing Thereof
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Open Sessions Abstracts……………………………….
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List of Delegates……………………………………….
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Room maps………………………………....inside back cover
Cardiff maps………………………………..……...back cover
Dear Delegate
Welcome to the Ninetieth Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind
Association. The first Joint Session took place in the summer of 1910 off Albermarle
Street in the Mayfair area of London. Wales has hosted six Joint Sessions since then and
the last one hosted by Cardiff, then University College of South Wales and
Monmouthshire, was exactly 60 years ago in 1956. It is our great pleasure to be hosting
the Joint Session once again and we hope you enjoy the conference.
We have great support from publishers again, including sponsorship of the wine
reception by Oxford University Press. You will find the publishers in their own large room
next to registration. The British Philosophical Association has taken a table in there and
they will also be having their AGM during the conference. The Society for Women in
Philosophy is running an information session and are presenting a strand in the Open
Sessions. The Open Sessions are as packed as always and I regret that there were more
acceptable papers offered than slots available. Inevitably fitting everyone in meant some
of the categorisation got a bit messy, so apologies to anyone who feels I put their talk
under the wrong label. A new feature this year are the Sunday Panels in which the host
department is asked to put on themed panels in their areas of interest.
I must thank the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association, and their staff, for their
help during the last two years of preparation. I must also thank Professor Damian Walford
Davies, the School of English, Communication and Philosophy, the staff of the
conference office and especially my colleagues in Philosophy, for all their help, and also
their forbearance, during this year.
Finally, if you have any questions please ask the staff on the registration desk or myself.
Nicholas Shackel
Reader in Philosophy
Cardiff University
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Cardiff Business School Postgraduate Teaching Centre and
Julian Hodge Building
Programme
Room numbers refer to rooms in the Graduate Centre, see map on inside back cover. Maps for
the campus are on the back of this booklet.
Friday 8th July
13:00
14:00
Lunch
Graduate Centre Concourse
13:00
14:30
Aristotelian Society council
Graduate Centre 0.23
13:00
14:30
Mind Association council
Graduate Centre 0.24
14:30
14:45
Aristotelian Society AGM
Graduate Centre 0.23
14:45
15:00
Mind Association AGM
Graduate Centre 0.24
15:00
16:30
Aristotelian Society & Mind joint
council I
Graduate Centre 0.24
12:00
17:00
Registration
Graduate Centre Concourse
16:30
17:00
Tea and Coffee
Graduate Centre Concourse
17:15
19:00
The Inaugural Address
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
The Unity of Virtue:
Plato’s Models of Philosophy
MM McCabe
19:30
20:30
Wine Reception sponsored by OUP
Marble Hall, Cardiff City Hall
20:30
22:00
Conference dinner
Marble Hall, Cardiff City Hall
22:00
01:00
Bar open extension
Marble Hall, Cardiff City Hall
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Saturday 9th July
08:00
09:00
Breakfast
09:00
10:45
Symposium I
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
Social Relationships and Social Justice
Kimberley Brownlee & Laura Valentini
10:45
11:15
11:15
13:00
Tea and Coffee
Graduate Centre Concourse
British Philosophical Association AGM
Graduate Centre 0.25
Symposium II
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
Intellectual Arrogance
Alessandra Tanesini & Sanford Goldberg
13:00
14:00
Lunch
Julian Hodge Dining Hall
13:00
14:00
Graduate Centre 0.24
14:00
16:00
Aristotelian Society & Mind Association
joint council II
Postgraduate Sessions I: Theoretical
Postgraduate Sessions II: Normative
Graduate Centre
0.16 Lecture Theatre
Graduate Centre Concourse
16:00
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
16:30
Tea and Coffee
Graduate Centre 0.25
16:30
18:30
18:45
19:45
Society for Women in Philosophy
Information session.
Open Sessions including Society for Women
in Philosophy strand.
Dinner
20:00
21:45
Symposium III
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
Graduate Centre
Aberdare Hall
The Subject of Experience
Barry Dainton & Paul Snowdon
19:00
00:30
Bar open extension
Aberdare Hall
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Sunday 10th July
08:00 09:00 Breakfast
09:00 10:45 Symposium IV
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
Ethical Constructivism and Objectivity
Sharon Street & Yonatan Shemmer
Symposium V
Graduate Centre
0.16 Lecture Theatre
Virtue, Health and Excellence
Edward Harcourt & Havi Carel
10:45 11:15 Tea and Coffee
Graduate Centre Concourse
11:15 13:15 Open Sessions
Graduate Centre
13:15 14:15 Lunch
Julian Hodge Dining Hall
14:30 16:30 Panels
Graduate Centre
0.16, 1.19, 2.01, 2.02
Open Sessions
Graduate Centre
16:30 17:00 Tea and Coffee
Graduate Centre Concourse
17:00 18:45 Symposium VI
Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre
Vagueness
John MacFarlane & Robert Williams
19:00 20:00 Dinner
Aberdare Hall
19:00 23:00 Bar open
Aberdare Hall
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Symposia
The Inaugural Address
Friday 8th July 17.15-19.00 chaired by Susan James (Birkbeck)
MM McCabe (KCL)
The Unity of Virtue: Plato’s Models of Philosophy
Plato gives us (at least) two model philosophical figures, apparently in contrast with
each other – one is the otherworldly philosopher who sees truth and reality outside the
Cave and has the knowledge to rule authoritatively within it; the other is the demotic
figure of Socrates, who insists that he does not know but only asks questions. I consider
Plato’s contrasting idioms of seeing and asking or talking, and argue that the rich account
of perception that is represented in the Republic requires both idioms, and both models, to
explain the development of epistemic virtue. Furthermore, the conditions he places on the
giving and taking of reasons show how Plato takes intellectual virtue to be inseparable
from moral virtue (in ways that Aristotle rejects). That integrated picture of virtue may –
however disposed we may be towards the role of virtue in either ethics or epistemology –
have something to say to us about how philosophy might best be carried on.
Symposium I: Social Relationships and Social Justice
Saturday 9th July 9.00-10.45 chaired by Charlotte Newey (Cardiff)
Kimberley Brownlee (Warwick)
The Lonely Heart Breaks: On The Right To Be a Social Contributor
This paper uncovers a distinctively social type of injustice that lies in the kinds of
wrongs we can do to each other specifically as social beings. In this paper, social injustice
is not principally about unfair distributions of socio-economic goods among citizens.
Instead, it is about the ways we can violate each other’s fundamental rights to lead
socially integrated lives in close proximity and relationship with other people. This paper
homes in on a particular type of social injustice, which we can call social contribution
injustice. The paper identifies two distinct forms of social contribution injustice. The first
form involves compromising a person’s social resources so as to deny her adequate scope
to contribute socially. The second form involves unjustly misvaluing a person as a social
contributor, usually by not taking her seriously as a social contributor.
Laura Valentini (LSE)
What’s Wrong with Being Lonely? Justice, Beneficence, and Meaningful Relationships
A life without liberty and material resources is not a good life. Equally, a life devoid of
meaningful social relationships—such as friendships, family attachments, and
romances—is not a good life. From this it is tempting to conclude that just as individuals
have rights to liberty and material resources, they also have rights to access meaningful
social relationships. I argue that this conclusion can be defended only in a narrow set of
cases. “Pure” social-relationship deprivation—i.e., deprivation that is not caused, or
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accompanied, by deficits in liberties and material resources— mostly generates demands
of private beneficence. I suggest that social-relationship deprivation is unjust, hence a
rights-violation, only when it is due to factors—e.g., one’s race—that are irrelevant to
one’s being a good participant in social relationships. I thus conclude that access to
meaningful social relationships is not a fundamental concern for theories of (personal or
political) justice.
Symposium II: Intellectual Arrogance
Saturday 9th July 11.15-13.00 chaired by Lizzie Fricker (Oxford)
Alessandra Tanesini (Cardiff)
"Calm Down Dear": Intellectual Arrogance, Silencing and Ignorance
In this paper I provide an account of two forms of intellectual arrogance which cause
the epistemic practices of conversational turn-taking and assertion to malfunction. I detail
some of the ethical and epistemic harms generated by intellectual arrogance, and explain
its role in fostering the intellectual vices of timidity and servility in other agents. Finally, I
show that arrogance produces ignorance by silencing others (both preventing them from
speaking and causing their assertions to misfire) and by fostering self-delusion in the
arrogant themselves.
Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern)
“Arrogance, Silence and Silencing"
Alessandra Tanesini’s insightful paper (2016) explores the moral and epistemic harms
of arrogance, particularly in conversation. Of special interest to her is the phenomenon of
arrogance-induced silencing, whereby one speaker’s arrogance either prevents another
from speaking altogether or else undermines her capacity to produce certain speech acts
such as assertions (Langton 1993, 2009). I am broadly sympathetic to many of Tanesini’s
claims about the harms associated with this sort of silencing. In this paper I propose to
address what I see as a lacuna in her account. I believe (and will argue) that the arrogant
speaker can put those he silences in the morally outrageous position in which their own
silence contributes to their oppression. While nothing in Tanesini’s account would predict
or explain this, the wrinkle I propose will aim to do so in a way that is in the spirit of her
account. To do so, I will need to expand the focus of discussion: instead of concentrating
on (arrogance-induced) silencing, I will consider the phenomenon of (arrogance-induced)
silence. When one is silent in the face of a mutually observed assertion (whatever the
cause of this silence), one’s silence will be interpreted by others. I argue that (1) under
certain widespread conditions, a hearer’s silence in the face of the arrogant speaker’s
assertions is likely to be falsely interpreted as indicating her assent to the assertion, and
(2) such an interpretation of the hearer’s silence will bring new harms in its wake—in
particular, harms to the hearer who was silenced, and also harms to the community at
large. When we combine these new harms with the ones Tanesini identified in her paper,
we reach the further conclusion that (3) the harms of silencing (whether arroganceinduced or otherwise) are potentially far worse than many have imagined.
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Symposium III: The Subject of Experience
Saturday 9th July 20.00-21.45 chaired by Richard Gray (Cardiff)
Barry Dainton (Liverpool)
The Sense of Self
Different conceptions of the nature of subjects of experience have very different
implications for the sort of relationship which exists between subjects and their
experiences. On my preferred view, since subjects consist of nothing but capacities for
experience, the ‘having’ of an experience amounts to a subject’s producing it. This
relationship may look to be problematic, but I argue that here at least appearances are
deceptive. I then move on to consider some of the ways in which experiences can seem to
have subjects or owners, and argue that those who take a ‘sense of self’ to be an essential
feature of all forms of consciousness may well be mistaken.
Paul Snowdon (UCL)
Dainton on Subjects of Experience
The paper discusses some of the themes in Professor Dainton's article 'The Sense of
Self'. In the first part it is proposed that some of the arguments in favour of his theory that
Dainton proposes are questionable, and that in its more extreme version there are features
which look doubtful. A simpler account of subjects is then proposed. In the second part
some aspects of Dainton's discussion of the sense of self are analysed. it is argued that
although Dainton's own account of our sense of self is not obviously correct, the views he
is opposed to are not well supported, nor is the debate very clear.
Symposium IV: Ethical Constructivism and Objectivity
Sunday 10th July 9.00-10.45 chaired by Hallvard Lillehammer (Birkbeck)
Sharon Street (NYU)
Constructivism in Ethics and the Problem of Attachment and Loss
This paper explores two questions in moral philosophy that might at first seem
unrelated. The first question is practical. While it’s not a truth we like to contemplate,
each of us faces the eventual loss of everyone and everything we love. Is there a way to
live in full awareness of that fact without falling into anxiety or depression, or resorting to
one form or another of forgetfulness, denial, or numbing out? The second question is
metaethical. Is it possible to vindicate a strong form of ethical objectivity without positing
anything metaphysically or epistemologically mysterious? In this paper, I sketch a
partially Buddhist-inspired metaethical view that would, if it could be made to work, give
a positive answer to both questions. The overall view is too much to defend in one paper,
so I focus on developing one limited part of it. I begin by characterizing the general
constructivist strategy for vindicating the objectivity of ethics. After briefly discussing
Christine Korsgaard’s Kantian implementation of the strategy, I suggest an alternative
implementation. I explore the idea that every agent necessarily faces what I call the
problem of attachment and loss. I close with some speculative remarks about why, even
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though the problem of attachment and loss presents itself in a different substantive guise
to each individual agent, it is still possible that the best solution to the problem is
universal, and involves taking up an ethical perspective on the world.
Yonatan Shemmer (Sheffield)
Objectivity and Idolatry
The attempt to vindicate the objectivity of morality tops the list of philosophical
obsessions. In this paper I consider the rationality of searching for such a vindication. I
argue that the only justification of our efforts lies in our belief in moral objectivity; that
this belief can be as well, if not better, explained by wishful thinking and other cognitive
biases; that as a research community we have failed to take precautions against such
biases; and that as a result we have been making disproportionate and therefore irrational
efforts to establish moral objectivity.
Symposium V : Virtue, Health and Excellence
Sunday 10th July 9.00-10.45 chaired by Jonathan Webber (Cardiff)
Edward Harcourt (Oxford)
‘Mental Health’ And Human Excellence
The paper concerns two familiar lines of inquiry. One, stemming from a neoAristotelian naturalism associated with Foot and others, asks whether we can derive
human excellences from what humans need in order to be some way. The second asks
whether (as Plato said) virtue is a kind of health, and vice a kind of illness. The first is
often seen as a failure to the extent that the list of characteristics derived by this approach
does not include familiar moral virtues. However, it is argued that the concept of human
excellence is many-layered, so the fact that the approach may not succeed for moral
virtues does not show that it is no good for anything. Moreover, the kinds of
psychological characteristic derived by a liberalized version of Foot’s approach may also
help to give non-trivial answers to the second, Platonic, line of inquiry.
Havi Carel (Bristol)
Virtue Without Excellence, Excellence Without Health
In this paper I respond to Edward Harcourt’s suggestion that human excellences are
structured in a way that allows us to see the multiplicity of life-forms that can be
instantiated by different groups of excellences. I accept this layered (as he calls it) model,
but suggest that Harcourt’s proposal is not pluralistic enough and offer three critical
points. First, true pluralism would need to take a life-cycle view, thus taking into account
plurality within, as well as between, lives. Second, Harcourt’s pluralism still posits
physical health as a requirement for excellence, whereas I claim that the challenges of
illness give more, not less, opportunity for excellence. Third, I make a more general claim
that in certain salient cases (illness being one of them) it is precisely the absence of
excellence that can facilitate virtue.
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Symposium VI: Vagueness
Sunday 10th July 17.00-18.45 chaired by Patrick Greenough (St Andrews)
John MacFarlane (Berkeley)
Vagueness As Indecision
This paper motivates and explores an expressivist theory of vagueness, modeled on
Allan Gibbard’s (2003) normative expressivism. It shows how Chris Kennedy’s (2007)
semantics for gradable adjectives can be adjusted to fit into a theory on Gibbardian lines,
where assertions constrain not just possible worlds but plans for action. Vagueness, on this
account, is literally indecision about where to draw lines. It is argued that the distinctive
phenomena of vagueness, such as the intuition of tolerance, can be explained in terms of
practical constraints on plans, and that the expressivist view captures what is right about
several contending theories of vagueness.
Robert Williams (Leeds)
Vagueness As Indecision
Paint being red is one thing; it is another for a person to treat paint as red for some
practical purpose. The first is a matter of the paint and its properties; the second involves
activity: placing the pot on a particular shelf, fetching it in response to verbal instructions,
etc.
This essay explores the thesis that for vague predicates uncertainty over whether a
borderline instance x of red/large/tall/good is to be understood as practical uncertainty
over whether to treat x as red/large/tall/good. Expressivist/quasi-realist treatments of
vague predicates due to John MacFarlane and Daniel Elstein provide the stalking horse.
Section 1 introduces a question about our attitudes to borderline cases of vague predicates
F. Section 2 explores the actions of treating and/or counting a thing as F. Section 3
reviews how we might share our practical plans to count-as-F and evaluate those plans.
Section 4 looks at the shapes that the best plans to count-as-F may take. Section 5 links
these practical evaluations to the cognitive evaluations of doxastic attitudes to vague
predications. Sections 6 and 7 concern puzzles for the approach suggested here. Section 6
explores its treatment of normatively defective or contested terms, and section 7 raises a
puzzle about the mechanics of MacFarlane’s detailed implementation of the approach in
connection to gradable adjectives.
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Postgraduate Sessions
Theoretical
Saturday 9th July, chaired by Guy Longworth (Warwick)
14.00. Alison Fernandes (Columbia)
Freedom, Self-Prediction and the Psychology of Time Travel
Clear-thinking metaphysicians have argued that agents retain their normal freedom and
abilities when they travel back in time (Lewis, Horwich, Sider). Time-travelling-Tim can
shoot and kill his young grandfather, his younger self, or whomever he pleases—and so, it
seems, can reasonably deliberate about whether to do these things. He might not
succeed—but he is still just as free as his non-time-travelling counterpart. But what agents
can reasonably deliberate on is sensitive to their beliefs. According to a plausible
ignorance condition, agents must be uncertain of what they will do if they are to
reasonably deliberate. This creates a rational constraint on the time-traveller’s freedom.
Tim can’t reasonably deliberate on killing his grandfather, certain he’ll fail. With this
constraint, time-travellers’ abilities to deliberate and decide are significantly curtailed.
This constraint help makes sense of our competing intuitions about how to evaluate
counterfactuals in such cases. And it shows how the evidential structure of the ordinary
world sustains our freedom to deliberate.
14.30. Joshua Habgood-Coote (St Andrews)
Knowledge-how, Abilities, and Questions
"Knowing-how seems to be a distinctively practical kind of knowledge. Yet according
to the standard semantics for knowledge-how ascriptions, to know how to do something is
to stand is some relation to a set of propositions about how to do it. How can these points
be reconciled? Intellectualists about knowledge-how take their lead from semantic theory,
suggesting that knowledge-how is a species of propositional knowledge. As a
consequence they have trouble explaining the practical properties of knowledge-how,
usually appealing to the somewhat obscure notion of a practical way of thinking. By
contrast Anti-Intellectualists take the practical properties of knowledge-how seriously,
claiming that knowledge-how is a kind of ability. Since abilities are generally relations to
activities rather than propositions, they have the parallel problem in making their view
compatible with linguistic theory. In this paper, I explore a novel compromise between
these two views, which I will call the Interrogative Capacity view. According to this view,
knowing how to do something is a certain kind of ability to generate answers to the
question of how to do it. This view combines the Intellectualist thesis that knowledge-how
is a relation to a question, with the Anti-Intellectualist thesis that knowledge-how is a kind
of capacity. I argue that this view is uniquely well placed to defuse tension between
semantic theory and the practicality of knowledge-how, and that it elucidates the
relationship between knowledge-how, propositional knowledge and the ability to do.
15.00. Lukas Skiba (Cambridge)
Frege's Unthinkable Thoughts
In a famous passage from The Thought Frege endorses the existence of both private
senses and private thoughts. There are two common reactions to this. Intersubjectivists
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reject both private senses and thoughts as incompatible with Frege’s conception of senses
as the vehicles of communication. Privatists accept both private senses and thoughts as
the natural upshot of a Fregean account of personal pronouns. What is striking about the
dispute is that both sides agree on a pair of tacit assumptions: (1) Private senses
automatically give rise to private thoughts. (2) Private thoughts are the most problematic
entities to which private senses give rise. The aim of this paper is to show that both
assumptions are mistaken. As for (2), I argue that in so far as private senses give rise to
private thoughts they also give rise to entities which Frege definitely couldn’t have
accepted, namely unthinkable thoughts, i.e. thoughts which cannot be grasped by anyone.
As for (1), I argue that a conception of Fregean thoughts as intrinsically unstructured
entities can coherently accept private senses without having to accept private thoughts.
This motivates a so far neglected, reconciliatory position between intersubjectivism and
privatism according to which all thoughts are public while some senses are private.
15.30. Matthew McKeever (St Andrews)
Stage Theory about Objects and Predicativism about Names: A Match Made In Heaven
In this paper, I’ll argue that combining predicativism about names with stage theory
about objects leads us to a neat package, which can overcome some of the problems for
the two views to be found in the literature. I’ll also suggest doing so sheds light on the
vexed question of whether there is an acquaintance constraint for singular thought and
reference. My strategy will be to introduce the two views, present a problem for each of
them, and then show how combining them can resolve these problems, before showing
the interesting consequences this has for acquaintance.
Normative
Saturday 9th July 14.00-16.00 chaired by Rory Madden (UCL)
14.00. Michael Lyons (Trinity College Dublin)
Can There Be Moral Progress Without Moral Realism?
"Moral realists have been treated as having the upper hand over moral anti-realists in
explaining moral progress. In spite of this treatment, Catherine Wilson (2010) not only
claims that moral anti-realists can adequately explain moral truth and moral progress, but
also that their account could be preferable to those available to the moral realist. In doing
so she argues that in fact it is the moral anti-realist who has the upper hand over realists
here. First of all, she defends the treatment of moral claims as theoretical conjectures,
analogising between moral beliefs and scientific beliefs, in order to explain moral truth as
a postulated endpoint of the theoretical development of collective morals. Wilson then in
turn explains moral progress in terms of the generating and dissipating of collective
narratives that can ratify a change in collective moral beliefs as being a progression or
deterioration. So moral truths are simply moral claims that will survive scrutiny. Wilson
then argues that the anti-realist realist account is preferable because it avoids commitment
to the following: that moral truths are independent of perspectives, that there are some
that cannot be known, and that in every moral dispute, someone must hold a false moral
belief. In this paper, I will: 1) argue that Wilson’s account of moral progress can be
accommodated within a moral realist framework, 2) defend the realist account against her
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claim that anti-realism is preferable, and 3) subsequently point out inherent issues within
her own account.
14.30. Chong-Ming Lim (UCL)
Re-Examining Resistances to Reconceptualising Disability
Central to the reconceptualisation of disability is the idea that disability is not
intrinsically bad; rather, it is merely part of the spectrum of natural human diversity or
variation. However, not only do philosophers regard the reconceptualisation as
implausible, it has also not gained much traction beyond the small circles of disability
rights activists and theorists. This paper critically re-examines two resistances to
reconceptualising disabilities, in the form of two convictions concerning disability
(Kahane and Savulescu 2009). I argue that these convictions are not basic. Instead, they
depend on our considerations about the costs and extent of change required to
accommodate citizens with a particular disability trait. There are two main payoffs of
clarifying the bases of these convictions. First, it identifies the limitations to both the
project of reconceptualisation, and its rejection. Second, it reveals as overly-quick the
dismissals of those in favour of reconceptualisation by those against it, and vice versa. In
the final section, I consider and assuage two worries about the analysis – that it
confusedly introduces a practical dimension into a normative discussion, and that it leaves
too much room for conservatives to reject reconceptualisation.
15.00. Alison Toop (Leeds)
Is Marriage Compatible with Political Liberalism?
This paper examines four arguments that claim marriage, as a political institution, is
incompatible with political liberalism. These arguments are drawn from Elizabeth Brake
(2012), Clare Chambers (2013) and Tamara Metz (2010). My responses suggest that none
conclusively shows the political institution of marriage to be incompatible with political
liberalism. Argument 1 claims that the political institution of marriage violates the
principles of neutrality and public reason. I question whether a violation really occurs.
Argument 2 alleges that marriage involves the state in unjustified discrimination. I
consider whether there are grounds for the differential treatment. Argument 3 argues that
marriage is ineffective for its maintained purpose of protecting caregiving relationships.
My reply suggests marriage could be particularly good at this task. Argument 4 is
concerned that marriage involves regulating belief (not solely action). My response
considers whether such a distinction can be made, and suggests that the intention of the
state is paramount. Whilst unsuccessful, these arguments do highlight necessary features
of a political liberal defence of marriage, which I draw out in the conclusion.
15.30. Laura Frances Callahan (Rutgers)
Explaining Moral Testimony: A Different Appeal to Understanding
Why is there a felt asymmetry between cases in which agents defer to testifiers for
certain moral beliefs, and cases in which agents defer on other matters? Here, I attempt to
motivate an answer that appeals to the distinctive importance of affectively,
motivationally involved understanding in the moral domain. When it comes to certain
moral matters, we want to grasp them, in a way that involves our affections as well as our
cognitive capacities to perceive reasons and draw connections. But achieving such a grasp
is somewhat in tension with deferring to testimony – hence the felt ‘fishiness’ of many
cases of moral testimony. This explanation incorporates and builds on going explanations
appealing to the importance of understanding in a thinner sense of the word.
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Joint Session Panels: Sunday Afternoon 14:30 to 16:30
The Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association have decided to introduce Panels to the
Joint Session. The rationale is to encourage a greater integration between the Joint Session
and the Host Department, to introduce an additional element of themed sessions within the
established generalist format of the Joint Session and to encourage attendance from
established mid-career philosophers in the UK and continental Europe at the Joint Session.
Cardiff is proud to inaugurate this initiative.
Panel 1: From Personality to Virtue
Room 0.16, introduced and chaired by Jonathan Webber (Cardiff)
From Personality To Virtue is a new volume of essays on the philosophy of character,
edited by Jonathan Webber (Cardiff) and Alberto Masala (Paris-Sorbonne) and published
by Oxford University Press. The volume presents theoretical analyses of character and
motivation alongside arguments concerning practical implications of the nature of
character for individual ethics and public policy. In this panel, four contributors to the
book develop themes from their chapters.
Katharina Bauer (Bochum)
“Here I Stand…” – An ‘Added Weight’ of Practical Necessity?
When we quote Luther’s dictum, “Here I stand. I can do no other,” we express an
incapacity of alternative action, which is not regarded as a restriction or deficit. It rather
seems to “lend some added weight” to the decision. What kind of value is attributed to
experiences of practical necessities or incapacities? It can be related to the ideal of
steadfastness or to the benefit of immediately knowing, what to do. But why should we
value personal necessities, which derive from an individual’s psychological “structure”
and the limits of someone’s personality? Those limits determine how far a person can
continue to value her life as her own life—according to her self-understanding and
through integration into social relationships with others. An ‘added weight’ of personal
necessities corresponds to a value that is attributed to the unfolding of individual
personalities in different meaningful and valuable ways of life.
Roman Altshuler (Kutztown)
The Mutual Constitution of Will and Character
Some philosophers speak as if action stems from volitional acts, others as if action is
largely the product of character. These views appear to be in tension with each other, as
both character and the will have a claim to being the sole determinant of agency. My
chapter in From Personality to Virtue argues that character and will should be seen as two
descriptions of the same underlying phenomenon. Here I attempt to fill out that view with
an existential account that allows characterological and volitional descriptions to capture
different, yet ontologically inseparable aspects of agency. I argue that agency is impossible
without the mutual constitution of facticity and projection. Descriptions in terms of
character rely on the former aspect. Descriptions in terms of the will on the latter. Neither
is by itself able to account for agency, however; in providing an action explanation in
terms of one or the other, we give only incomplete explanations, though ones usually
sufficient for situational purposes.
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Jonathan Jacobs (CUNY)
Character, Incarceration, and Just Deserts
Currently prevailing forms of incarceration in the U.S. and some other liberal
democracies have features and effects that are antithetical to some of the values and
principles of liberal democracy. While a liberal polity should not require persons to be
virtuous, it is also not justified in damaging or worsening persons in known and regular
ways, even though it is justified in imposing criminal sanction. Contemporary
incarceration erodes and undermines the agential capacities of many offenders through its
impact on their characters. Because the damage is often lasting, ex-prisoners struggle to
reintegrate into civil society successfully. Thus, some forms of incarceration exceed the
proportionality of just desert through the ways they are harming and because the
persistence of their effects continues punishment beyond completion of sentence. My
argument focuses on the ethical and explanatory significance of states of character in
regard to this issue.
Nafsika Athanassoulis (independent scholar)
The Psychology of Virtue Education
I argue that moral character education programmes are theoretically possible, given
empirical findings in psychology, and would benefit in their practical application from
those findings. I argue that situationism does not pose a threat for moral education,
properly conceived, and that, in fact, educators can and should make use of situational
factors. It strikes me that much of the debate in this field is hampered by incomplete or
partly inaccurate understandings of the central concepts of virtue ethics, in addition to
conflicting versions of what virtue education should be aiming for.
14
Panel 2: Introspection
Room 1.19 chaired by Liz Irvine (Cardiff)
The popularity of introspection as a method of gaining (more or less) accurate
information about the structure and contents of consciousness waxes and wanes. Recently
the role of introspection in psychology has been both enthusiastically lauded and deeply
criticised by both psychologists and philosophers, who alternatively see it as a privileged
and unique way of accessing first person phenomena, or as a methodologically suspect
process that alters or falsely represents these phenomena. The talks in this panel will
evaluate a number of challenges to introspection and attempt to sketch ways out of
apparent methodological road-blocks.
Maja Spener (Birmingham)
First-person reflection
Auguste Comte raised a problem for introspective psychology: the effort of
introspecting one's own experiences requires splitting one's attention, thus resulting in the
destruction or distortion of the original experience. I will look at different ways in which
introspective psychologists and philosophers have responded to this problem and defend a
pluralist view of introspective access in light of that discussion. Finally, I will draw out
some consequences for the use of introspective methods in psychology.
Tom McClelland (Manchester)
Ensemble Perception and the Grand Illusion Confusion
Advocates of the Grand Illusion Hypothesis claim that our introspective judgements
about visual phenomenology are deeply unreliable. Specifically, they claim that we wildly
overestimate how rich visual experience is outside the focus of attention. Although there
is no doubt that attention constitutes a severe bottleneck in perceptual processing, recent
work on ‘ensemble perception’ has revealed one of the ways in which the perceptual
system compensates for this bottleneck. Even when detailed information about the
periphery of a visual scene is unavailable to us, we accurately encode ‘summary statistics’
that capture the average properties of an array of objects, such as the average size of a set
of circles or the average mood of a set of faces. Many in the ensemble perception literature
have taken these findings to be of great significance for the evaluation of the Grand
Illusion Hypothesis. However, the literature demonstrates a certain amount of confusion
about what exactly its significance is meant to be. This paper aims to address these
confusions and identify the real consequences of ensemble perception for the assessment
of the Grand Illusion Hypothesis.
Liz Irvine (Cardiff)
On the possibility of bootstrapping introspective methods
The methodological problems associated with introspection often seem unique but have
many structural similarities with problems of measurement more generally. Other
phenomena are regularly affected by processes of measurement, methods of measurement
are often deeply tied to both theory and experimental protocols, and other measures
routinely face problems of reliability, accuracy, and scope. Drawing on Chang's
coherentist approach to the development of measurement methods, I will illustrate and
evaluate possible ways of moving forward in debates about how to gather and use
introspective reports, though (currently) point to a pessimistic conclusion.
15
Panel 3: Nietzsche and the Good Life
Room 2.01 chaired by Simon Robertson (Cardiff)
This panel critically examines Nietzsche’s views about a theme central to ethical
enquiry: what is involved in living a good – or excellent – life. Issues considered will
include the nature and value of human flourishing, health, creative excellence, and lifeaffirmation, and how these might connect; whether they represent ideals achievable by
people quite generally; what constraints there might be upon their pursuit; whether they
allow for a codifiable ethics; and metaethical issues concerning the objectivity of
Nietzsche’s positive evaluative claims.
Andrew Huddleston (Birkbeck)
The Uses and Disadvantages of Bildung for Life
In this paper, I chart Nietzsche’s complex relationship to the ‘Bildung’ tradition in 18th
and 19th- century German thought. Talk of ‘Bildung' (education/ culture/ formation)
loomed large in the era preceding Nietzsche, and it served as an ideal of the well-lived
human life. While this is, in broad outlines, a conception of the good life that Nietzsche
shares, he sees it as in danger of being perverted and watered-down. I discuss Nietzsche’s
thoughts on this topic with reference to two early texts— On the Future of our
Educational Institutions [Bildungsanstalten] and his “David Strauss” essay from the
Untimely Meditations. I go on to mention some echoes of these ideas that we see in
Nietzsche’s later work.
Christoph Suringa (New College of the Humanities, London)
Foot Contra Nietzsche
Simon Robertson (Cardiff)
Nietzsche
Central to Nietzsche’s perfectionism are two ideals: flourishing and excellence. This talk
sets out an account of what they each involve, including how they differ and connect, plus
an axiological picture that makes sense of that. It also suggests that the underlying model
of value which emerges––in effect, a model of a good life––is interesting and attractive in
its own right, and that it may therefore have wider philosophical appeal.
16
Panel 4: Normativity of Rationality
Room 2.02 chaired by Nicholas Shackel (Cardiff)
Rationality appears to have some intimate relation with normativity: exactly what
relation is in dispute. There is a view on which the normativity of rationality is a trivial
matter since rationality just is part or all of normativity. By contrast, whether we ought to
conform to rational requirements has recently been subject to skeptical challenges, to
challenges of mere apparent normativity and to challenges of vacuity. I think there are four
broad kinds of positions here: Dogmatic Rationalist, Aristotelian, Humean and Kantian.
The contributors to this panel each offer a variety of a non-dogmatic view.
Lubomira Radoilska (Kent)
Toward an Aristotelian Account of the Normativity of Rationality
In this paper, I will explore the thought that an Aristotelian conception of rationality
does not necessarily commit us to consider the issue of the normativity of rationality as
trivial. More specifically, I will argue that although questions, such as whether and why
something being a rational requirement is also a reason, might seem at odds with, if
intelligible at all from an Aristotelian perspective, a promising line of inquiry emerges
from the articulation of the initial unease. Following on this line of inquiry, I will suggest
that the underlying concerns about the normativity of rationality can be effectively
addressed by, firstly, reframing the central question as one of unity between different types
of rational requirements and, secondly, acknowledging the unifying capacity of the norms
of success for action.
Nicholas Shackel (Cardiff)
Servanthood for the Normativity of Rationality
This paper takes the final step in my instrumentalist account of the normativity of
rationality. Four prior steps have taken us to two propositions: that what is rational for you
is validly first personally predicable as rationally required and that when you are as you
ought to be then what is rational for you to do will be what you ought to do. From here I
argue for an obligation to be rational and subsequently to what I call servanthood for the
normativity of rationality. I then address some challenges that have been thought to rule
out this kind of view.
Christine Tiefensee (Frankfurt)
Rationality, Reasons and Inferentialism
This talk seeks to develop a fresh approach to the normativity of rationality by
considering which novel perspectives inferentialism about meaning can offer on questions
such as whether or not we ought to be rational and have reasons to be rational. It does so
in two parts. In the first, I will present an inferentialist explanation of three, admittedly
controversial intuitions about the normativity of rationality. In the second, I will examine a
serious challenge to this inferentialist explanation and make a tentative suggestion as to
how it
17
Open Sessions: Saturday Afternoon
Topic and Chair
Society for Women
in Philosophy
Alessandra Tanesini
Room 16:30
Geraldine Ng
0.25
Epistemology
Sanford Goldberg
0.16
Metaphysics
Penelope Mackie
1.19
Metaphysics
Sacha Golob
0.22
Mind and
Cognitive Science
Roger Clarke
0.23
Mind
Hemdat Lerman
0.24
What does climate ethics
have to do with two men in a
boat?
Caroline Torpe Touborg
A way of thinking about
knowledge
Jan Westerhoff
Anti-foundationalism all the
way down?
17:00
Elselijn Kingma and Fiona
Woollard
Can you harm your foetus?
Pregnancy, physical
indistinctness, and difficult
deontological distinctions.
Finnur Dellsen
Acceptance, Belief, and
Deductive Cogency
Martin Grajner
Grounding as Entailment and
Explanation
Daniel von Wachter
The Laws of Nature do not
Entail Regularities of
Succession.
Léa Salje
Philip Goff
Priority monism, grounding and
the mind-body problem
Talking our way to
systematicity
On feeling bad: The
psychological basis of the
experience of suffering
Christiana Werner
Real fear of fictional monsters
Alexandria Boyle
Mapping the Minds of Others
Henry Shevlin
17:30
Catherine Hundleby
18:00
Matthew Cull
Beyond the Adversary
Paradigm: Argument Repair
Ontological Injustice
Stephen Wright
Transmission and SubjectSensitive Invariantism
Jules Salomone
Is Existence Univocal? An
Aristotelian Critique of
Quinean Meta-Ontology
Harry Cleeveley
Two-Dimensional Semantics
and the Kripkean A Posteriori
Necessities
Daniel Burnston
Aidan McGlynn
Wh--Misidentification
Is Not Spurious
Jonathan Payton
'Many-One Identity in
Plural Logic'
There is no diachronic
cognitive penetration
Common sensibles
and Molyneux’s
problem
Denis Buehler
Warrant from
Transsaccadic Vision
Mihailis E. Diamantis
'Action' Without Action?
Nathan Wildman
'A brief argument for
contingent necessitymakers'
Andrei Marasoiu
18
Moral Psychology
Edward Harcourt
2.01
Normative Ethics
Roger Crisp
2.02
Philosophy of
Language
Thomas Hodgson
1.26
Politics/Epistemolo
gy/Metaphysics
Brian Berkey
1.29
Rationality
Christine Tiefensee
1.27
Glen Pettigrove
Characters and Roles
Charles Starkey
The (Non-)Psychology of
Virtues: Radical Virtue
Externalism
Robbie Kubala
Paul Knights
Two-Level Consequentialism, De Re Valuing and Human WellRegret, and the Reactive
being
Attitudes
Robin Zheng
Expanding the Moral
Repertoire: Oughts, Ideals, and
Appraisals
Julia Mosquera
Should egalitarians--qua
egalitarians- aim at reducing the
incidence of deprivations?
Sergi Oms
Carsten Held
Benjamin Martin
Horwich’s Fixed Point
Theory of Truth
Indicative conditionals and
logical consequence
Rejection-less Negations: A
Challenge for Rejectivism
Charlotte Newey
Rachelle Bascara
Christos Kyriacou
Alethic Pluralism and
the Problem of Mixed
Atomics
Robert Edward Pezet
Changing the subject(s)The
Ethics of Global Poverty
Alleviation
Joe Cunningham
Williams' Dictum
Responsibility for Oppression
Bifurcated skeptical
invariantism
A Boundary to
Movement
Adam Rieger
Max Hayward
Is Arrow’s theorem more famous Practical Reason, Sympathy
than it deserves to be?
and Reactive Attitudes
Thomas Schramme
The role of empathy in
an agential account of
morality
Cristina Roadevin
Blame as an
Affirmation of
Respect after
Disrespect
Douglas Edwards
Richard Rowland
Reasons First
19
Open Sessions: Sunday Morning
Topic and Chair
Aesthetics/
Vagueness
Nathan Wildman
0.25
Epistemology
Christiana Werner
0.16
Feminism/Episte
mology
Susan James
1.19
Metaethics
Daniel Whiting
0.22
Metaphysics
0.23
Helen Beebee
Methodology
Nick Unwin
0.24
11:15
Kathrine Cuccuru
11:45
Dan O'Brien
12:15
Stephen Bolton
12:45
Hrafn Asgeirsson
Aesthetic Attention
Art, Empathy And The Divine
Is Bobzien's Theory of
Higher-order Vagueness
Inconsistent?
Jumbly Grindrod
Against Epistemic
Comparativism
A Puzzle About Vagueness,
Knowability, and Judicial
Discretion
F. Oliver C. H. Pearson
Luck and the Need for Tensed
Beliefs
Ema Sullivan-Bissett
Natalia Waights Hickman
Roger Clarke
Peter Dennis
Context-Sensitive Pyrrhonism Interpersonal Epistemic
Justification: a NonReductionist Account
Amanda Cawston
Eleanor Gordon-Smith
Looking the Other Way:
Locating the Wrongs of
Pornography
Kirk Surgener
Thick Concepts
Communicate Their
Evaluative Contents
Pragmatically
Tim Button
Refusal, uptake, and the
meaning of 'no'
Implicit Biases as
Unconscious Imaginings
Knowledge, Reasons and
Semantic Understanding
Andres Luco
A Moral Realism Deserving of
the Name: Naturalistic Moral
Realism and Categorical
Reasons
David M. Lindeman
Wouter Floris Kalf
Integrative Moral
Rationalism
Herman Philipse
Truth in Ethics and Elsewhere:
The Criterial Conception
Verena Wagner
Propositions as sets of
possible worlds –or– Possible
worlds as sets of propositions
Jonathan Berg
What are the Data of
Philosophical Thought
The Case against Analytic
Metaphysics
Darragh Byrne, Naomi
Thompson
Is Hyperintensionality
Metaphysical?
Eugen Fischer
Stereotypes, intuitions and
hallucinations
Stephanie Rennick
Metaphysical Dystropia: A
New Philosophical
Miguel Egler
'Philosophical Expertise(s)
Indeterminism Matters for
Compatibilism
20
Mind
Daniel Burnston
2.01
Normative Ethics
Emma Bullock
2.02
Perception
Léa Salje
1.26
Philosophy of
Science/Maths
Finnur Dellsén
Late registrant
papers
Robert Pezet
Experiments?
Andrew Kirton
Trust and distrust: attitudes
and activity
Brian Berkey
Intuitions, Distinctions, and
Permissibility Verdicts
Demian Whiting
The myth of the dispositional
emotions
Finlay Malcolm
Complimenting by Believing
Simon Brown
Time for Scrub Jays
Benjamin Matheson
Tracing and Personal
Identity
Nicholas Young
Hearing Events
1.27
Hemdat Lerman
On Brewer’s notion of thick
looks
Antonios Basoukos
A genus-differentia definition
and natural kinds
Benjamin Smart
The Centre of Mathematics
1.29
Epistemic normativity in Ian
Hacking’s entity realism
Sophie Grace Chappell
Because
Two new objections to
biostatistical conceptions of
disease
Explaining Addiction
Kazutaka Inamura
Abigail Connor
Measuring Phenomenal
Duration
Graham White
Daniel Morgan
Methodology
Henry Taylor
The Ontology of Phenomenal
Properties
Nathan Hauthaler
Private intentional action? On
privacy vs. relativity vs.
publicity of intentional action
Sebastián Sanhueza Rodríguez
The Assertive Character Of
Experience
Demetra Christopoulou
Aristotle on number as a
property
TBA
21
Open Sessions: Sunday Afternoon
Topic and Chair
Philosophy of
Language
Richard Gray
Room 14:30
Fiona Teresa Doherty
1.26
Epistemology
Alessandra Tanesini
1.27
Metaphysics
Stephanie Rennick
1.29
The Structure of Frege's
Thoughts
Barnaby Walker
Enquiry and the Value of
Knowledge
Daniel Kodaj
The sad truth about powerbased counterfactuals
15:00
Owen Griffiths
15:30
Siu-Fan Lee
16:00
Thomas Hodgson
Permutations and modality
The Semantics of Empty
Names
Robin McKenna
Is Knowledge a Social Kind?
The alleged transparency of
propositional structure
Milena Ivanova
Aesthetic Values in Science
Casey D McCoy
Classical Motion and
Instantaneous Velocity
Pascal Massie
Diodorus Cronus’
Motionless Time
Emma Bullock
The Limits of Epistemic
Paternalism
Natalja Deng
Does time seem to pass
22
Rules for Open Sessions and the Chairing thereof
1. Each half-hour slot in the open sessions starts at its allotted time whether or not
anyone has started speaking and lasts for precisely 29 minutes
2. Experience shows that the 29 minutes is exhausted entirely by 20 minutes
speaking and 5 minutes questions.
3. Previous chairs have observed that it doesn’t matter if speakers start speaking
late, if they want any questions they stop by the 22nd second of the 23rd minute.
4. There are no finger questions.
5. There is never time for just one more question.
6. On the basis of our currents best estimates of philosophical inertia, chairs are
instructed to interrupt eminent philosophers at the 27th minute and everyone else
at the 28th.
23
Open Sessions Abstracts: Saturday
Society for Women in Philosophy
16:30 Geraldine Ng
What does climate ethics have to do with two men in a boat?
Climate ethics concerns our obligations or duties of justice towards future others. In
Emile, Rousseau argues that the sense of justice is the natural outcome of our affections.
Yet, our failure to reach a binding global agreement on curbing carbon emissions might be
evidence to the contrary. The question we have to ask is: Do we naturally lack the
evaluative resources to deal with the unique demands of climate ethics? To address this
problem, I return to the broader question of the ground of justice. In this paper, I explore
how Hume’s science of human nature can expand our thinking about climate ethics.
17:00 Elselijn Kingma and Fiona Woollard
Can you harm your foetus? Pregnancy, physical indistinctness, and difficult deontological
distinctions.
Contemporary discussion of maternal behaviour often treats mothers who fail to act in
the best interests of their children as if they violated the strongest deontological
constraint: the constraint against doing harm to others. This paper argues that most such
behaviour should not be treated in the same way as standard cases of doing harm to
others. The analysis has relevance beyond the doing and allowing distinction: it seems
likely that similar difficulties to the ones we identify for doing and allowing may apply to
other key moral concepts in the context of pregnancy, for example, bodily autonomy, selfownership and self defence. Care may have to be taken when applying these concepts
within the context of pregnancy.
17:30 Catherine Hundleby
Beyond the Adversary Paradigm: Argument Repair
The Adversary Method that Janice Moulton (1983) argued dominates philosophy as a
Kuhnian paradigm creates both epistemological problems and social injustices. Critical
thinking textbooks by philosophers often reflect the Adversary Paradigm but can also
serve as sites for resisting the Method’s operation as a default mode of reasoning.
Narrowing of argumentative discourse facilitates complete defeat of one position by
another and allows for the operation of the Adversary Method. The consideration of
argument repair, described most fully by Richard L. Epstein, broadens discourse and so
hedges against the narrowing pressures of the Adversary Method. It constitutes a basic
way to allow room for other approaches to argumentation, to resist default assumption of
the Adversary Method, and to keep in mind the greater collaborative purposes that
Method serves epistemologically.
18:00 Matthew Cull
Ontological Injustice
In this paper I outline a form of injustice I have called ‘ontological injustice’, injustice
in virtue of the social construction of reality by the powerful. I begin by giving the
motivation for the account, drawn from Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice
and by spelling out three kinds of distinctively ontological injustice, drawing on women’s
24
cricket, my own experience coming to terms with my nonbinary gender identity, and
police violence against African Americans. I then briefly spell out some methods of
counteracting ontological injustice. Finally, I discuss the possibility of two different forms
of ontological injustice derived from the existence of wrongful identities, but conclude
that only one of those forms seems to exist.
Epistemology
16:30 Caroline Torpe Touborg
A way of thinking about knowledge
In this paper I propose a way of thinking about knowledge, which can handle the
original Gettier cases, is immune to Zagzebski-style revenge cases, and is compatible with
the intuition that one can be justified in holding a false belief. My proposal is based on the
diagnosis that the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief does not ensure
a sufficiently strong link between justification and truth. The cure is then obviously to
strengthen this link. To do so, I first suggest a particular account of justification. I then
suggest a weakened condition to replace the truth-condition in the traditional analysis of
knowledge. The crucial feature of this weakened condition is that its satisfaction does not
on its own guarantee truth; however, it does guarantee truth when it is satisfied together
with the condition requiring justification.
17:00 Finnur Dellsen
Acceptance, Belief, and Deductive Cogency
For a given propositional attitude, the requirement of Deductive Cogency holds that the
set of propositions towards which one has, or is willing to have, this attitude should be
consistent and closed under logical consequence. While this requirement seems, prima
facie, to apply to (full) belief, a number of philosophers have recently argued that it does
not. In this paper I argue that Deductive Cogency is still an important epistemic
requirement, albeit not as a requirement on belief. Instead, building on a distinction
between belief and acceptance proposed by Jonathan Cohen, I argue that Deductive
Cogency applies to the attitude of treating propositions as given in certain intellectual
contexts.
17:30 Stephen Wright
Transmission and Subject-Sensitive Invariantism
It has recently been argued that transmission theories in the epistemology of testimony
are incompatible with Subject-Sensitive Invariantism about knowledge ascriptions. In this
paper, I show that the appearance of incompatibility is an illusion.
18:00 Aidan McGlynn
Wh--Misidentification Is Not Spurious
This paper responds to an attempt due to Annalisa Coliva that try to demonstrate that
James Pryor's notion of wh--misidentification is ‘spurious’. In particular, I show that her
proposal about the kind of justificatory architecture that underlies cases of wh-misidentification can’t even be applied to Pryor’s principal example of wh-misidentification.
25
Metaphysics
16:30 Jan Westerhoff
Anti-foundationalism all the way down?
In the contemporary ontological literature we find various arguments against the
existence of an ontologically fundamental level, and arguments for a non-well-founded
ontology. Such ontologies would either incorporate an infinite downward descent of
ontological dependence, or they would close up on themselves, forming a cycle of
dependence. When foundationalism is abandoned, the options are either dependence all
the way down, or all the way round. There are various contemporary philosophers (such
as Jonathan Schaffer, James Ladyman, and Graham Priest, to name just a few) who
endorse such non-well-founded ontologies.
17:00 Martin Grajner
Grounding as Entailment and Explanation
Most proponents of grounding claim that the predicate ‘grounds’ expresses a notion that
resists analysis in more primitive terms. Audi (2012), Rosen (2010), and Schaffer (2009)
subscribe to this view. They motivate the primitivist view by pointing out that grounding
does not appear to be analyzable in counterfactual or modal terms. In this paper, I propose
an analysis of ‘grounds’ that maintains that grounding might be understood by reference
to the notions of entailment and explanation. I will try to show that this account is able to
accommodate the features that we pre-theoretically associate with the notion of
grounding.
17:30 Jules Salomone
Is Existence Univocal? An Aristotelian Critique of Quinean Meta-Ontology
"According to Quine, the task of ontology is to draw up the list of the kinds of entities
that exist. This meta- ontological view compels any Quinean ontologist to argue for
univocalism, i.e. the claim that existence means the same thing regardless of the entities
which are said to exist. Drawing on Aristotle’s refutation of univocalism, I argue that the
Quinean ontologist is led to an indefensible position. On the one hand, she must reject the
Parmenidian view that there exists one and only one kind of individuals, for otherwise
there would be no task for the Quinean ontologist to undertake. On the other hand, she
cannot argue against it: for she cannot say what differentiates the ontologically
committing entities from one another, the claim that there are entities instantiating
essentially distinct kinds, and not just one, lacks substance.Regarding van Inwagen's
meta-ontology as faithful to Quine's own, I first present and criticizes van Inwagen’s
arguments for univocalism. I then set them against Aristotle’s (at first, obscure) defense of
multivocalism. I conclude by showing why the Quinean ontologist is vulnerable to
Aristotle’s arguments."
18:00 Jonathan Payton
'Many-One Identity in Plural Logic'
According to ‘composition as identity’, a whole is identical to its parts – not identical to
each part, but identical to them all together. This idea seems paradoxical: how can the
parts be identical to the whole, when they are many while it is one? I argue that these two
claims are consistent. Unlike other recent defenses of many-one identity, mine does not
require that number predicates like ‘one’ and ‘many’ be relativized to sorts or kinds. It
26
does, however, require us to understand the claim that x is one differently than opponents
of composition as identity have understood it.
Metaphysics
16:30 Daniel von Wachter
The Laws of Nature do not Entail Regularities of Succession.
According to the most popular theories of laws, laws of nature entail regularities of
succession of the form `All events of type x are followed by events of type y'. In this talk I
shall argue against this assumption. Perhaps there even are no regularities of succession.
17:00 Philip Goff
Priority monism, grounding and the mind-body problem
Most philosophers think that facts about wholes are grounded in facts about their parts.
Priority monists, in contrast, think that facts about parts are grounded in facts about
wholes; all facts being ultimately grounded in facts about the whole universe. I give
reasons to doubt that facts about a conscious mind could be grounded in facts about its
parts. Therefore, if facts about consciousness are not fundamental, we are led to the
priority monist’s conception of how they are grounded.
17:30 Harry Cleeveley
Two-Dimensional Semantics and the Kripkean A Posteriori Necessities
It would once have been philosophical orthodoxy that the conceivability of a scenario
entails its metaphysical possibility. But in recent decades, especially since the work of
Kripke (1971, 1980), it has become commonly accepted that there are a posteriori
necessities: that there are some statements that are true in all possible worlds, but whose
negation is conceivable, and which can therefore only be known a posteriori. I argue that
the Kripke cases are not really all that they seem, and that the application of twodimensional semantic analysis shows that they do not present any unambiguous examples
of a posteriori necessities.
18:00 Nathan Wildman
'A brief argument for contingent necessity-makers'
There has been some recent discussion about whether contingencies can serve as
necessity-makers – that is, whether any contingent fact q is able to fully ground the
necessity of some fact p – with received opinion being that contingencies lack the modal
chutzpah to be necessity-makers. This paper offers a simple, novel argument to the
opposite effect. Specifically, I here detail a case where a contingent fact fully grounds the
(metaphysical) necessity of another, related fact. And while this result doesn’t show that
all necessities are grounded in contingencies, it does show that, contra popular opinion,
some necessities are fully grounded in contingent matters.
Mind and Cognitive Science
16:30 Léa Salje
Talking our way to systematicity
The generality constraint is a widely accepted condition on conceptual thought. It is
also widely accepted that humans meet it to a far greater extent than other animals (if,
27
indeed, there are others that meet it at all). Many writers in this area locate the relevant
different in our unique capacity for language. This paper explores three ways of teasing
out the idea that it’s our capacity for language that sponsors our comparative success with
the generality constraint, and finds that it’s harder than it looks to make that idea
satisfactory.
17:00 Henry Shevlin
On feeling bad: The psychological basis of the experience of suffering
In this short paper, I present a new account of the experience of suffering, focusing on
cases like pain, nausea, and negative emotion. I briefly review the major existing theories,
then present my own theory, which claims that an experience of suffering occurs when a
conscious sensation or emotion acquires an appropriate motivational role for an organism.
I go on to spell out this account of motivation in terms of ‘motivational tradeoff’
paradigms common in contemporary animal research.
17:30 Daniel Burnston
There is no diachronic cognitive penetration
Several theorists have recently argued that perception is diachronically cognitively
penetrated. That is, the kinds that we can come to perceive over time, over the course of
perceptual learning, depend in a systematic way on the content of the beliefs that we
have. I argue that once we think seriously about how perceptual category learning works,
and about the content of the beliefs we are likely to have in the course of that learning, the
cognitive penetration comes out as a poor description of the process.
18:00 Andrei Marasoiu
Common sensibles and Molyneux’s problem
Molyneux's problem (Essay II.IX.VIII) has customarily been thought (Degenaar 1996)
to concern either how sensations of sight and touch relate, or how concepts of shape apply
in experience. I propose an alternative: Molyneux's problem is about non-conceptual
perceptual representations. Perceptual representations originate in the sense modalities,
and are usually (Martin 1992) thought to be modally-specific and coordinated by thinking.
I challenge this Berkeleyan assumption. I propose a common-sensible approach to
Molyneux's problem, and argue Locke could have endorsed it. Common sensible ideas are
conscious, crossmodal, perceptual representations. This approach is more theoretically
parsimonious than Berkeley's, and should be preferred.
Mind
16:30 Alexandria Boyle
Mapping the Minds of Others
Mindreading is the capacity to ascribe mental states to others. The idea that all creatures
are either mindreaders or mere ‘behaviour readers’ is under increasing pressure. It seems
some creatures are ‘minimal mindreaders’ – they can read minds very efficiently, but only
in a limited range of situations. How should minimal mindreading be explained? I argue
that minimal mindreading is the result of using a map-like, rather than linguistic,
representational format to represent the mental states of others.
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17:00 Christiana Werner
Real fear of fictional monsters
Some philosophers deny that emotions towards fiction are genuine emotions because of
the role of imagination and a general lack of action tendencies. I will argue that
imagination is also involved in emotions towards non-fiction and that fictional emotions
don’t generally lack action tendencies but only tendencies to specific actions. This is also
a feature of emotions towards representations in general. Therefore there is no basis for
distinguishing between fictional emotions and emotions towards representations. It is only
if we claim that emotions towards representations are no proper emotions that fictional
emotions can be anything other than genuine.
17:30 Mihailis E. Diamantis
'Action' Without Action?
There is a commonsense connection between an event being an action of ours and our
being responsible for it. If this is right, we should probably be irrealists about action.
Philosophers of action typically channel their own intuitions about responsibility to
develop their theories, implicitly assuming there is an underlying uniformity to when
people hold each other responsible. However, citing examples from law and psychology,
I show that practices actually vary widely. In particular, the common philosophers’
intuition about the connection between responsibility and intention is much less
widespread than philosophers of action seem to think. I suggest this diversity pushes us
toward irrealism, or at a minimum, a much messier metaphysics of action.
18:00 Denis Buehler
Warrant from Transsaccadic Vision
In this paper I discuss the role of visual attention in transsaccadic vision. An important
subset of our visual perceptions integrates information across saccades and shifts of
attention. Explaining our warrant for basic visual perceptual beliefs formed on the basis of
transsaccadic vision therefore requires appeals to visual attention. This role of visual
attention in explaining our warrant for perceptual belief has been overlooked in recent
work on the epistemic role of attention.
Moral Psychology
16:30 Glen Pettigrove
Characters and Roles
The 18th century conception of character differed from the standard 21st century
conception. This paper considers some of the attractions of the 18th century conception
and responds to three objections that must be faced by any conception of character that
includes social roles among its constituents.
17:00 Charles Starkey
The (Non-)Psychology of Virtues: Radical Virtue Externalism
Virtue externalism has gained widespread attention in recent years and holds that
virtues are character traits that systematically produce good or some other desirable state.
The most popular and powerful theory of this sort has been articulated and defended by
Julia Driver. In this essay I will argue for a radical shift in our assumptions about the
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psychology of virtue by demonstrating that Driver’s view - what I call moderate virtue
externalism (MVE) - is untenable, but that recent work in virtue epistemology decisively
supports radical virtue externalism (RVE) over virtue internalism or traditional mixed
views, so that no psychological feature is a necessary component of the virtues. The
arguments that substantiate this have a surprising but undeniable implication: virtues are
not character traits.
17:30 Robin Zheng
Expanding the Moral Repertoire: Oughts, Ideals, and Appraisals
Philosophers have overwhelmingly focused on blame, resentment (along with other
reactive attitudes), and punishment. However, I argue for the existence of other important
forms of moral criticism that have hitherto gone overlooked. I introduce a new category of
what I call “non-appraising responses” as opposed to “appraisal-based” responses like
blame and resentment, and provide both moral-theoretical and psychological arguments
for this distinction. I argue that two distinct domains of morality (Ought vs. Ideal), along
with two distinct psychological systems of motivation (Approach vs. Avoidance), call for
these different types of moral criticism. Non-appraising responses set aside the appraisal
function of blame in favor of its communicative and exhortative functions. This makes
them appropriate responses to an agent's failing on a particular occasion to carry out some
action that would contribute to carrying out an imperfect duty, unlike blame, which is only
appropriate for wholesale violations of imperfect and perfect duties.
18:00 Thomas Schramme
The role of empathy in an agential account of morality
I defend a constitutive role of empathy for morality. I will rely on a particular reading
of the notion of morality that is often neglected. I call the approach agential. It focuses on
mental and behavioural aspects of moral agents, not on moral codes. In conclusion, I
believe there is a constitutive role of the capacity for empathy in the development of
moral agency. We are justified to draw this conclusion on the basis of our current
scientific knowledge about the psychopathology of autism and psychopathy and on the
basis of a philosophical account of human moral agency.
Normative Ethics
16:30 Robbie Kubala
Two-Level Consequentialism, Regret, and the Reactive Attitudes
In a recent article, Dale Miller (2014) has argued that by adopting a Strawsonian moral
psychology of reactive and objective attitudes, the consequentialist can avoid objections
to the effect that an agent who follows a consequentialist moral theory necessarily has an
unstable set of attitudes. Miller focuses on the version of the objection pressed by Bernard
Williams against R. M. Hare’s two-level utilitarianism, but Miller takes his response to
ramify beyond that particular debate. After introducing the two-level view and Williams’
objection in §1, I defend three claims. In §2, I argue that although supplementing Hare’s
moral psychology with Strawson’s constitutes a genuine advance in our understanding of
consequentialism, there is nonetheless an important disanalogy, namely that the two-level
consequentialist, unlike the Strawsonian pessimist, has reason by her own lights to regret
her contingent psychological makeup. In §3, I show that this implication is no objection to
two-level consequentialism, however, because non- consequentialist views also imply that
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we have fitting reasons to regret our psychology. And in §4, I explain how the
consequentialist can argue that we have telic reasons not to regret our psychology. If those
telic reasons are weightier than the fitting reasons, then the two-level consequentialist is
vindicated against Williams’ objection.
17:00 Paul Knights
De Re Valuing and Human Well-being
An influential criticism of objective list and other enumerative theories of well-being is
that they are rendered implausible by their insensitivity to welfare agents’ attitudes to the
purported welfare goods. One response to this criticism is to argue that the welfare goods
enumerated are objective-subjective hybrids, with pro-attitudes towards the good as a
necessary component. This paper argues that there is an additional necessary subjective
component for some welfare goods, namely, the de re mode of valuing. In making this
argument the application and usefulness of the de re/de dicto distinction is extended into
new territory.
17:30 Julia Mosquera
Should egalitarians--qua egalitarians- aim at reducing the incidence of deprivations?
"It is an intuitive and common sense belief that reducing deprivations such as poverty
leads to more equality. Indeed, most people who advocate poverty reduction describe
themselves as egalitarians. This is indisputably true for the elimination of deprivations.
Equality favours the total elimination of deprivations. In fact, all else equal, eliminating
deprivations is the ideal with respect to equality; if there were no deprived individuals,
there would not be inequality stemming from poverty. Since eliminating deprivations is
favoured by equality, it is natural to think that where we cannot eliminate it, reducing it
would be a good second best, from the point of view of equality.
Nevertheless, a mere reduction in the incidence of poverty—as opposed to its
elimination— could lead to non-egalitarian outcomes. This paper argues that there is an
egalitarian reason against the mere reduction in the incidence of poverty."
18:00 Cristina Roadevin
Blame as an Affirmation of Respect after Disrespect
Recent literature on blame has tended to emphasize its interpersonal forms, whether in
terms of a rupture of relationship [T.M. Scanlon 2008; 2013], or the communication of
fault [Miranda Fricker 2014]. However, these accounts fail to successfully explain the
moral significance of two central forms of blame: 1. Distant blame and 2. Third-party
blame. I propose instead an expressive view of blame, according to which blame is a
corrective affirmation of respect for the wronged party. The expressive view I’m
defending is able to not only account for the interpersonal forms of blame, but also for
these two other forms.
Philosophy of Language
16:30 Sergi Oms
Horwich’s Fixed Point Theory of Truth
Horwich’s theory of truth, Minimalism, is inconsistent in classical logic due to the Liar
paradox. Horwich has tried to overcome this difficulty by restricting the instances of the
T-schema that constitute the minimalist theory of truth so that no paradox can be
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formulated. In this paper I will make precise Horwich’s attempt to give a fixed point
construction to specify which instances of the T-schema are to be included in the theory
and I will show that the fixed point exists and it is consistent.
17:00 Carsten Held
Indicative conditionals and logical consequence
Unlike the material conditional, the natural-language indicative conditional is not
generally true when its antecedent is false or its consequent true. I propose to analyse the
latter conditional as strong, i.e. as containing a tacit quantification over a domain of
possible situations, with the if-clause specifying that domain such that the conditional gets
assigned the appropriate truth conditions. Now, one definition of logical consequence
proceeds in terms of a natural-language conditional. Interpreting it as strong leads to a
paraconsistent consequence relation, though the motivation behind it is not to reason
coherently about contradictions but to reason entirely without them.
17:30 Benjamin Martin
Rejection-less Negations: A Challenge for Rejectivism
This paper offers a challenge to rejectivism, the theory that negation should be
explained in terms of the act of denial, by proposing a logic, gD-V, containing a negation
operator which fails to express denial. The existence of such operators should be
precluded by rejectivism, yet reasons are advanced for concluding that the operator does
indeed express negation. Two possible rejectivist replies to the challenge are considered
and found to be inadequate, while a potentially more successful response based on
inferential semantics is suggested.
18:00 Douglas Edwards
Alethic Pluralism and the Problem of Mixed Atomics
Alethic pluralism holds that the property that makes propositions true varies across
domains of discourse. Recently the view has faced the ‘problem of mixed atomics’, which
challenges it to account for atomic propositions that seem to be, say, both physical and
moral claims. I divide the supposed examples of mixed atomics into different classes, and
argue that they either do not pose a problem for alethic pluralism, or that they collapse
into problems of mixed compounds.
Politics/Epistemology/Metaphysics
16:30 Charlotte Newey
Changing the subject(s)The Ethics of Global Poverty Alleviation
The effectiveness of aid to alleviate global poverty is highly contentious, dividing
expert opinion. Even so, the extent and persistence of poverty and suffering lead many
philosophers to ask what the affluent owe to the global poor. I highlight certain challenges
to the success of global poverty alleviation through both official and private aid efforts,
taking seriously the proposition that aid may make some people in other countries worseoff. What is our moral obligation in the light of such a possibility? I explore two
responses. The epistemic response suggests that we should change the recipients of aid,
focusing on those subjects for whom we have most confidence that aid will do more good
than harm. The theoretical response suggests that we should change the question.
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17:00 Rachelle Bascara
Responsibility for Oppression
This paper adumbrates a framework for ascribing responsibility for oppression. I start
by defining what oppression is, emphasizing its dual nature by situating acts of oppression
within an oppressive societal or structural arrangement. There are three main distinctions
important for ascribing responsibility for oppression: forward-looking and backwardlooking perspectives of responsibility, the interactional and institutional domains of the
realization of morality, and acts and omissions. Given these six concepts, I demonstrate
how we can ascribe responsibility by considering a story about a single mother on the
brink of homelessness. Throughout, I engage with various oppression theorists claims
about responsibility and show how my account can accommodate and even reconcile most
of their concerns better than their own frameworks.
17:30 Christos Kyriacou
Bifurcated skeptical invariantism
I present an argument for a sophisticated version of skeptical invariantism: Bifurcated
Skeptical Invariantism (BSI). I argue that BSI can, on the one hand, (dis)solve the Gettier
problem and, on the other hand, show some due respect to the Moorean methodological
incentive of ‘saving epistemic appearances’. BSI can achieve this much because it
distinguishes between two distinct but closely interrelated (sub)concepts of
(propositional) knowledge, fallible-but-safe knowledge and infallible-and-sensitive
knowledge, and explains how the pragmatics and the semantics of knowledge discourse
operate at the interface of these two (sub)concepts of knowledge.
18:00 Robert Edward Pezet
A Boundary to Movement
It’s widely assumed that a certain geometric model of boundaries can be
unproblematically extended from regions to material-objects. This model prescribes a
tripartite topological characterisation of the boundaries for material-objects: fully- open,
fully-closed, and partially-open/closed. Drawing on a disanology between regions and
material-objects – that only the latter move – I draw out the incoherence of fully- or
partially-open material-objects through two related arguments. The first is a dilemma
taking separately the alternatives that the fully- or partially-open material- object in
motion is mereologically simple or a composite composed by closed material-objects. The
second shows how the movement of such objects reignites a problem regarding the
moment of change within a dense temporal topology.
Rationality
16:30 Joe Cunningham
Williams' Dictum
According to Hornsby (2008) and Roessler (2014) we should reject a highest common
factor view of rationalising explanation ((HCF)) of the sort com- mitted to by Davidson
(1963) and Dancy (2000). This paper argues that once care is taken to formulate (HCF) in
a way that takes into account the distinction between kinds of explanation and particular
explanations which exemplify the relevant kind, the arguments of Hornsby and Roessler
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against (HCF) can be shown to be unsound. It then offers a fresh argument against (HCF)
which, I hope, is more successful.
17:00 Adam Rieger
Is Arrow’s theorem more famous than it deserves to be?
Arrow’s theorem has typically been interpreted as demonstrating that an adequate
system of voting, or even democracy itself, is impossible. I question this interpretation. Of
the conditions Arrow shows jointly unsatisfiable, one, the so-called independence of
irrelevant alternatives, lacks intuitive justification, and is easily seen to be undesirable
given the existence of preference cycles. I conclude that Arrow’s theorem has less
significance than is generally thought.
17:30 Max Hayward
Practical Reason, Sympathy and Reactive Attitudes
This paper has three aims. First, I defend, in its most radical form, Hume’s scepticism
about the normative status of the rules of practical reason, as it applies to purely selfregarding matters. It is not always irrational to discount the future, to be inconstant in
one’s preferences, to have incompatible desires, to not pursue the means to one’s ends, or
to fail to maximise one’s own good. Second, I explain how our response to the agent who
breaks these rules should be understood as an expression of frustrated sympathy, rather
than a genuine judgement about Reason. We judge these people because we cannot
imaginatively identify with the desiderative and intentional patterns they instantiate, and
this is frustrating. Third, compared to the standard cognitive view, I argue this
sentimentalist theory better explains the nature of our criticism of the “irrational,” and, by
portraying imprudence as a cause of upset to other people, provides a better normative
basis for caring about the rules of practical reason.
18:00 Richard Rowland
Reasons First
Some have argued that we should hold that facts about fittingness are more basic than
facts about normative reasons and we should analyse facts about reasons in terms of facts
about fittingness. I first show that the only arguments that have been made for the view
that we should analyse reasons in terms of fittingness, and so put fittingness rather than
reasons first, fail to show that we should put fittingness first. I then argue that other things
equal we should analyze fittingness in terms of reasons and so accept the reasons first
view rather than the fittingness first view.
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Open Sessions Abstracts: Sunday Morning
Aesthetics/Vagueness
11:15 Kathrine Cuccuru
Aesthetic Attention
Paying attention appears essential to experiencing art, music, and the aesthetic in nature
and even the everyday. Although often assuming, even appealing to, its role, the actual
nature of attention is little discussed in aesthetic theory, and where it is discussed it
appears to be assumed, or reducible to, a basic, common understanding of attention. But
in broader philosophy, explanatory accounts of attention do not seem basic nor commonly
understood. I suggest that aestheticians should consider these philosophical accounts to
establish a full understanding of ‘aesthetic attention’. My purpose in this paper is to
demonstrate the need and motivate the value of such a consideration. I shall examine one
recent account from the philosophy of attention in relation to aesthetic theory. It
characterises attention as ‘selection for a task’. I ask: if aesthetic attention is to be
understood as ‘selection for a task’, what is the relevant task? I shall offer a tentative
assessment of this using existing candidates from aesthetic theory, showing that they do
not sufficiently explain the role of attention in aesthetic experience. I conclude with the
speculative proposal that aesthetic attention is best characterised as ‘selecting for the sake
of selection’.
11:45 Dan O'Brien
Art, Empathy And The Divine
In §1 I survey various arguments for the claim that empathy must be involved in God’s
understanding of man. §2 turns to artistic representations of divine understanding. §3
considers various ways religious art may illuminate divine understanding. Paintings can
play a supporting role to an argument, with their iconography translatable into textual
theology. Pacht argues for an alternative: ‘[v]isual art, like music, can say things, in its
own medium that cannot be said in any other’ (1999, 84). I suggest a distinct
interpretation of this claim and a new interpretation of how religious art can help us
understand God’s omniscience.
12:15 Stephen Bolton
Is Bobzien's Theory of Higher-order Vagueness Inconsistent?
Vague predicates are typically taken to exhibit borderline cases. But intuitively they
also exhibit what we can call ‘higher-order’ vagueness, and in particular ‘radical’ higherorder vagueness. We can understand this as the claim that they exhibit borderline cases,
borderline borderline cases, borderline borderline borderline cases, and so on (where a
border- line borderline case of φ is a borderline case of ‘borderline case of φ’). Susanne
Bobzien’s theory of higher-order vagueness tries to capture this phenomenon. But I will
show that two core features of this view are in tension: one of its characteristic axioms,
(V), seems to be inconsistent with the ‘margin for error’ principles that Bobzien endorses,
which she uses to motivate the theory’s other characteristic axiom, (4). More specifically,
a consequence of (V), and therefore a theorem of Bobzien’s view, is that no predicate
could exhibit clear borderline cases, but an apparent consequence of Bobzien’s margin for
error principles is that there could be some clear borderline cases of some predicates. I
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will first briefly ex- plain some salient features of Bobzien’s view, and then demonstrate
the above inconsistency. I will then show why a potential reply from Bobzien would not
be successful.
12:45 Hrafn Asgeirsson
A Puzzle About Vagueness, Knowability, and Judicial Discretion
In this paper, I point out what I take to be a deep but unacknowledged tension between
two seemingly consistent theses, endorsed on one occasion or another by Joseph Raz,
along with several other legal positivists: That in cases in which it is indeterminate
whether the relevant legal language applies to the relevant set of facts, officials have
discretion to decide either way; and that there are no unknowable reasons. If what I say is
correct, legal positivists need to say much more about the way vagueness affects the
reasons for action that (the enactment of) legal norms give rise to
Epistemology
11:15 Roger Clarke
Context-Sensitive Pyrrhonism
Several recent strands of work in epistemology treat belief as context-sensitive in one
sense or another. I sketch one such account here, and apply it to suggest a new
interpretation of Sextus Empiricus's Pyrrhonian scepticism. The Pyrrhonists, famously,
aim to avoid all belief, to suspend judgment on every question. Sextus distinguishes,
though, between a “wide” and a “narrow” sense of belief (PH 1.13). What Sextus's
distinction amounts to has been a topic of lively debate; this paper offers a new option.
11:45 Peter Dennis
Interpersonal Epistemic Justification: a Non-Reductionist Account
We seek not only to be justified in our beliefs, but also to justify our beliefs to one
another. While epistemologists have tended to focus on the former kind of justification
(viz. individual epistemic justification), it is thorough the second kind of justification (viz.
interpersonal epistemic justification) that our most successful forms of enquiry make
progress. The aim of this paper is to present an account of interpersonal epistemic
justification (IPEJ) according to which IPEJ is a form of shared rational inquiry capable of
generating second-personal epistemic reasons. My paper is divided into four sections. In
section (i), I give a pre-theoretical description of IPEJ and distinguish it from related
practices. In section (ii), I outline five desiderata that any account of IPEJ can be expected
to meet. In section (iii), I canvass some reasons to be suspicious of ‘reductionist’
accounts, on which the epistemic significance of IPEJ can be fully explained in terms of
non-interpersonal epistemic concepts like (individual) epistemic justification, knowledge,
or information (cf. Goldman 1994; 1997; 1999; 2003). In section (iv), I present my
alternative, non-reductionist account.
12:15 Jumbly Grindrod
Against Epistemic Comparativism
A common objection to epistemic contextualism is that there is no semantic basis for
treating ‘know’ as a context-sensitive term. Schaffer & Szabó (2013) propose a solution to
this worry: they argue for a semantic treatment of ‘know’ that treats the expression as
similar to adverbial quantifiers and so captures the fact that both sets of expressions are
36
question-sensitive. I argue that their proposed solution faces two important objections.
First, their account does not allow for a true knowledge attribution when an inappropriate
discourse question is in play. Secondly, the motivation for their account is undermined by
the fact that there is a general phenomenon of question-sensitivity throughout natural
language.
12:45 F. Oliver C. H. Pearson
Luck and the Need for Tensed Beliefs
Whatever one’s metaphysics of time, we need tensed beliefs throughout life. I offer a new
account of this phenomenon grounded in the clarification that tensed beliefs are only
required for rational timely actions. With normativity to the fore, we can see that luck is of
import: actions that succeed by luck fail standards of rationality. Actions from tenseless
beliefs succeed by luck in a way that those from tensed beliefs do not, thus the latter, not
the former are required for rational timely action. This account links to, but has
advantages over the prominent tenseless account offered by Mellor.
Feminism/Epistemology
11:15 Amanda Cawston
Looking the Other Way: Locating the Wrongs of Pornography
The anti-pornography debate has been critically hampered by its attempt to understand the
wrongs of pornography in terms of what pornography is, the harms it causes, or the rights
it violates. While each of these threads picks up on important points, they fail to identify
the core wrong of pornography. Moreover, these attempts have prompted responses that
illustrate the ability to modify, re-describe or reinterpret pornography, or the conceptual
framework that permits and legitimises it, in ways that fail to represent genuine solutions
to the problem. In this paper, I propose an alternative understanding of pornography's
wrongs, an understanding that directs our attention towards the attitudes of pornography
consumers and away from features of pornographic objects. In this brief sketch, I aim to
introduce the attitudinal account of pornography, and discuss its preliminary advantages
over traditional accounts.
11:45 Eleanor Gordon-Smith
Refusal, uptake, and the meaning of 'no'
What sort of thing is a refusal? A popular view holds that it is a communicative act that
requires ‘uptake’, that is, that an utterance only counts as a refusal if it is recognised as
one by its addressee. If this view is correct, women’s ability to verbally refuse sex will
depend on their partners taking their ‘no’s as refusals. Rae Langton, among others,
worries that pornography could render women unable to verbally refuse sex by teaching
their partners that women who say ‘no’ in sexual settings are not really refusing. This
paper argues that not all refusals require uptake.
12:15 Ema Sullivan-Bissett
Implicit Biases as Unconscious Imaginings
I argue that implicit biases are unconscious imaginings. Following Jules Holroyd
(forthcoming) I outline four desiderata on a successful account of implicit bias, and argue
that my account is able to meet all of them. In light of its success here I conclude that the
thesis that implicit biases are unconscious imaginings should be taken seriously.
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12:45 Natalia Waights Hickman
Knowledge, Reasons and Semantic Understanding
I exploit two recent proposals in epistemology in support of semantic cognitivism, the
view that speakers (a) possess (implicit) semantic knowledge and (b) exploit this
knowledge in language use and comprehension. I will appeal to Hawthorne and Stanley’s
(2008) ‘knowledge action-principle’ and the ‘knowledge view of reasons’ advanced by
Hornsby (2007) and Hyman (2015), and argue that: (1) Non-cognitivism has the
consequence that language use is systematically irrational. (2) Non-cognitivism is
inconsistent with the rational sensitivity to semantic facts exhibited by speakers, inter alia,
in resolving structurally ambiguous sentences.
Metaethics
11:15 Kirk Surgener
Thick Concepts Communicate Their Evaluative Contents Pragmatically1
This paper argues that our practice of applying thick concepts to animals favours a
pragmatic view of how a use of those concepts communicates their evaluative
components over a view that builds the evaluative components into the semantics of the
terms in question. Insofar as we wish to avoid ascribing wide spread error to ordinary
users of thick concepts we should then reject the semantic view.
11:45 Andres Luco
A Moral Realism Deserving of the Name: Naturalistic Moral Realism and Categorical
Reasons
A categorical reason for action is a normative reason to perform an action that obtains
independently of the agent’s desires, interests, and evaluative attitudes. It’s often said that
naturalistic moral realism cannot explain why we have categorical reasons to fulfil our
moral obligations. There is seemingly no naturalistic explanation for how it can be true
that, necessarily, if an agent morally ought to φ, then he or she has a categorical reason to
φ. This essay argues, however, that categorical reasons to comply with moral obligations
are grounded in the fact that compliance with moral obligations promotes the collective
good.
12:15 Wouter Floris Kalf
Integrative Moral Rationalism
I formulate and defend a new version of moral rationalism. I first explain what moral
rationalism is and I explain that moral rationalists can formulate their theory in three
different ways. I then argue for three theses. (1) Moral rationalism understood exclusively
as reasons-responsiveness is not plausible. (2) Moral rationalism understood exclusively
as requirements-responsiveness is not plausible. (3) Integrative moral rationalism, which
has not yet been formulated in the literature and which integrates rationality understood as
reasons-responsiveness and rationality understood as requirements responsiveness, can be
more plausible. I conclude that this gives us some reason to develop integrative moral
rationalism.
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12:45 Herman Philipse
Truth in Ethics and Elsewhere: The Criterial Conception
In this article, I endorse a version of monistic minimalism with regard to the meaning of
the truth-predicate and the truth-operator, while I propose a pluralistic and substantial
account of the criteria for truth in different domains of discourse, such as matters of fact,
arithmetic, or prescriptive morality. I argue that this combination of monistic minimalism
concerning the concept of truth and substantial pluralism as regards truth-criteria resolves
a number of stubborn conundrums about the notion of truth.
Metaphysics
11:15 Tim Button
Propositions as sets of possible worlds –or– Possible worlds as sets of propositions
What is the relationship between possible worlds and propositions? Some philosophers
adopt the Worldly Perspective: that propositions are sets of possible worlds (e.g. Robert
Stalnaker 1976). Other philosophers adopt the Propositional Perspective: that possible
worlds are sets of propositions (e.g. Robert Adams 1974). Both positions are tenable,
given three assumptions: that logic is bivalent, that propositions are coarse-grained, and
that we can refer to ‘enough’ propositions. Moreover, given these assumptions, the two
Perspectives are dual. We can move harmlessly back and forth between them, without any
gain or loss.
11:45 David M. Lindeman
The Case against Analytic Metaphysics
In their 2007 Every Thing Must Go (ETMG), Ladyman and Ross (L&R) provide what
is perhaps the most devastating critique of analytic metaphysics offered since the hey-day
of logical positivism – though unlike the logical positivists, L&R’s critique is importantly
concerned not with the meaning of metaphysical claims but with the method employed in
arriving at them. I set forward this critique and take a look at the defence of analytic
metaphysics offered in Dorr’s (2010) review of ETMG. I rebut this defence in turn.
12:15 Darragh Byrne, Naomi Thompson
Is Hyperintensionality Metaphysical?
Much of the recent discussion in metaphysics has focussed on notions which many take
to be hyperintensional. One prominent example is the notion of essence, which has been
thought to carve reality more finely than familiar modal notions. In this paper, we argue
that it a mistake to think of the hyperintensionality of essence and other such notions as
anything metaphysical. We claim that hyperintensionality arises as a consequence of our
ways of representing the world, a position we label conceptualism about
hyperintensionality. Our argument for this view is inspired by broadly Fregean accounts
of intensionality.
12:45 Verena Wagner
Indeterminism Matters for Compatibilism
Compatibilists claim that determinism does not preclude freedom. Questions
concerning indeterminism seem to be none of their business and the libertarian’s burden
alone. But this view is mistaken. I aim at showing that indeterminism matters for
39
compatibilist theories: firstly, the prevalent compatibilist position is committed to the
compatibility of freedom and indeterminism. Secondly, I will illustrate that libertarians
and compatibilists use the same arguments for their respective compatibility. Thirdly, I
will show that the luck objection does not support the compatibilist position but rather
weakens it. I will conclude that the two compatibilities need to be rejected or affirmed
together.
Methodology
11:15 Jonathan Berg
What are the Data of Philosophical Thought Experiments?"
I argue that the data collected by philosophical thought experiments--the “intuitions”
we appeal to regarding hypothetical situations constructed to test philosophical
hypotheses--should be construed as metalinguistic, about what we are inclined to say. For
one thing, although concepts cannot be directly perceived, they are reflected in our use of
the words associated with them; moreover, our beliefs about what we would say in a
given situation are typically less vulnerable to objection than our object-level beliefs
about the situation itself.
11:45 Miguel Egler
'Philosophical Expertise(s)
A great number of studies in experimental philosophy make use of experimental
techniques and empirical findings in order to advance a forceful critique of the method of
cases in philosophical inquiry. Proponents of the ‘expertise defence’ argue that this
critique is unfounded, for it rests on the illicit comparison between non-philosophers’ and
professional philosophers’ judgments on philosophical cases. However, they propose
philosophers are experts at judging such cases. In this paper, I argue that debates about the
expertise defence have been hindered by an inadequate discussion on the nature of socalled philosophical expertise. .
12:15 Eugen Fischer
Stereotypes, intuitions and hallucinations
Experimental philosophy’s ‘sources project’ seeks to develop psychological
explanations of philosophically relevant intuitions which help us assess their evidentiary
value. This paper develops a psycholinguistic explanation of intuitions prompted by brief
philosophical case-descriptions. For proof of concept, we target intuitions underlying a
classic paradox about perception (‘argument from hallucination’). We trace them to
stereotype-driven inferences automatically executed in verb comprehension. We employ a
forced-choice plausibility-ranking task to show that contextually inappropriate
stereotypical inferences are made from less salient uses of the verb “to see”. This yields a
debunking explanation which helps resolve the philosophical paradox.
12:45 Stephanie Rennick
Metaphysical Dystropia: A New Philosophical Methodology
Most of us ‘do’ philosophy on a daily basis: any time we ask, for instance, whether
something is good, or true, or possible. As philosophers, if we want our conceptual
analyses to build on or engage with the kind of thoughts that result from this ubiquitous
questioning – our ‘folk intuitions’ – then we need a way of accessing that data. I propose a
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new methodology for accessing philosophical folk intuitions: identifying and appealing to
common patterns (i.e. tropes – e.g. ‘you can’t fight fate’, ‘you can’t change the past’) in
speculative fiction across different media, including literature, film, and video games.
While such patterns may not reveal what people believe, they do – I contend – reveal
what people are willing to suspend disbelief about. That is, they indicate which ideas,
concepts, theories and notions people will entertain – at least for the length of the
experience – and thus provide real insight into what people consider to be the boundaries
of the landscape of possibility (after all, if an idea is too unbelievable, it does not survive
to become a trope). In this paper I explore the usefulness of this method – which
complements, but is distinct from, both traditional armchair philosophising and
conventional X-Phi – drawing on examples in time travel and foreknowledge.
Mind
11:15 Andrew Kirton
Trust and distrust: attitudes and activity
"Trust is commonly understood as reliance on another’s acting, plus additional
conditions, or as ‘reliance plus X’.1 I show that this view of trust is misguided. I claim
that you can trust another without relying on her. This is because your trust can simply be
a mental attitude of assurance about another’s performance. I show this by focusing on
distrust: I show that distrust is just a mental attitude of anxiety about non- performance,
rather than being a type of non-reliance. But, as distrust is the contrary of trust, we should
infer that there is an attitude of trust.
My conclusion then is that ‘trust’ can refer to (i) an attitude that disposes one to rely (Ftrust), or (ii) the reliance itself (R-trust). But, the attitude and the reliance can come apart:
you can distrust another and R-trust her without inconsistency. So, the prevailing ‘reliance
plus X’ view of trust is incomplete. Those discussing trust must pay heed to the
attitude/activity (or F-trust/R-trust) distinction, in order to not misconstrue the subject."
11:45 Demian Whiting
The myth of the dispositional emotions
I argue the idea there are dispositional emotions is a myth. There are only episodic
emotions. But to say there are no dispositional emotions is not to say that those mental
states commonly thought to be dispositional emotions – e.g. a fear of spiders – are not
genuine emotions. The mental states in question are emotions, but they are emotions only
because they turn out also to be episodic.
12:15 Simon Brown
Time for Scrub Jays
C an animals represent time? Recent experiments with the scrub-jay, a kind of bird that
stores and retrieves food in the wild, have provided what many take to be the best
evidence yet of a non-human animal representing time. I briefly review some of the key
findings in this literature, and argue that as the data currently stand, they suggest a
philosophically suggestive qualification on the temporal properties scrub-jays are able to
represent. Scrub-jays have only been shown to represent durations relative to now - and
what’s more these have always been durations from a p ast time to now. Although
scrub-jays’ temporal representations are in many ways remarkably sophisticated, and
although scrub-jays plan, or at least cache foods for future retrieval in ways that are
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responsive to a large number of surprisingly complex features such as their preferences at
time of retrieval and which (if any) scrub-jays observe them whilst caching, they do not
seem to use their temporal representations in planning. This qualification on scrub-jays’
abilities suggests categorizing capacities for temporal representation along two interesting
and relatively independent dimensions of sophistication, which I call detail and
allocentricity.
12:45 Henry Taylor
The Ontology of Phenomenal Properties
This paper will assess the prospects of dispositional theories of properties in terms of
how well they can give an account of the properties of conscious experiences. I start by
introducing dispositional essentialism (the view that at least some properties are
essentially dispositional). I then examine the objection that this view cannot account for
the ‘occurrent’ nature of consciousness. I clarify this objection, and consider various
proposed solutions. I ultimately argue that by adopting the ‘powerful qualities’ view, the
problem can be solved.
Normative Ethics
11:15 Brian Berkey
Intuitions, Distinctions, and Permissibility Verdicts
I argue that there is an important gap in many arguments in defence of the
permissibility verdicts represented in the content of case-based intuitions. Recognizing
this gap highlights that revisionists about intuitive permissibility verdicts have a wider
range of argumentative strategies available to them than have been widely pursued, and
that we have reasons to take seriously combinations of views about, on the one hand, the
moral significance of distinctions, and, on the other, permissibility verdicts, that tend to be
neglected.
11:45 Finlay Malcolm
Complimenting by Believing
It is sometimes claimed that we insult a speaker when we don’t believe her testimony.
Does it follow, then, that by believing a speaker, we compliment her in some way? I argue
that while both of these claims are defensible, their truth turns on a distinction between
believing the speaker, and believing the speaker’s testimony. The insult or compliment is
in believing or disbelieving a speaker, not just the speaker’s testimony. I describe the tacit
compliment paid to a speaker in terms of her acknowledged trustworthiness and authority,
and the social engagement a hearer enters into with the speaker.
12:15 Benjamin Matheson
Tracing and Personal Identity
An appeal to tracing is widespread in contemporary accounts of the conditions on moral
responsibility. This paper first presents a counterexample to the ‘tracing view’ of moral
responsibility – namely, a case of temporally distant self-manipulation. Second, it shows
that the counterexample arises because tracing theorists implicitly take personal identity
to be the temporal condition on derivative moral responsibility. It proposes that tracing
theorists instead use character connectedness as their temporal condition to avoid this
counterexample
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12:45 Nathan Hauthaler
Private intentional action? On privacy vs. relativity vs. publicity of intentional action
Wittgenstein’s ‘private language argument’ has received its fair amount of philosophical
attention. It has also motivated various analogous arguments in domains of practical
philosophy, such as Korsgaard’s argument against the privacy of reasons for action, or
Thompson’s against the privacy of life forms. Here I advance another related argument,
against the privacy of intentional action, taking as my point of departure Anscombe’s
account of intentional action. I conclude by sketching how the argument against private
intentional action has (limiting, moderating) upshots for relativist accounts of intentional
action such as Velleman’s.
Perception
11:15 Hemdat Lerman
On Brewer’s notion of thick looks
According to relational views of experience a visual experience of a mind-independent
thing is an unanalysable relation between the perceiver and the seen thing, where the
phenomenal character of the experience is constituted by seen things. Proponents of the
view thus need to account for the ways in which the phenomenal character of visual
experience differ from the seen things. In this talk I focus on Bill Brewer’s attempt to
address this challenge; specifically, his appeal to what he calls ‘thick looks’ – looks that
involve conceptual registration. I argue that conceptual registration isn’t required for
explaining the aspects of the phenomenology which Brewer’s thick looks are meant to
explain.
11:45 Nicholas Young
Hearing Events
Through hearing we learn about events involving material objects. We can, for
example, tell whether an object is struck, scraped or rolled. My aim here is to provide an
account of auditory perceptual content which explains how we might represent events
such as these. Firstly, I introduce two uncontroversial features of v isual event perception:
the sequential attribution of properties to objects, and the idea of a temporally extended
specious present. However, I argue that hearingevents cannot be modelled on seeing
events because it is implausible to think that audition involves the attribution of sequences
of properties to objects, and propose an alternative model: Auditory Parsing. On this
account, hearing events involves the representation of t wo types of individual
simultaneously: the material object itself and the temporally extended force applied to that
object. Finally, I suggest that the visual perception of shapes as extending through space
provides a good model for the auditory perception of forces as extending through time.
12:15 Abigail Connor
Measuring Phenomenal Duration
Survivors of life threatening accidents report an experience of phenomenal time as
slowed down. Such reports conflict with the naïve realist account of perception, which
claims that physical events determine the phenomenal character of our experience.
Phillips presents a relative account of phenomenal duration with the aim of defending
naïve realism against these reports of slow time. Phillips’ defence relies on the claim that
43
the increased phenomenal duration in slow time can be accounted for through a relative
increase in non-perceptual mental activity. I argue that we must reject Phillips’ relative
account, as it is inconsistent with reports of slow time in meditation.
12:45 Sebastián Sanhueza Rodríguez
The Assertive Character Of Experience
Visual experiences are in general assertive. Tat is, the worldly items or states of afairs a
subject experiences are presented to her as being the case. Or again, experiences are
assertive insofar as their subjects do not passively entertain, but are actually commited to
the existence of the worldly items or states of afairs such experiences present them with.
Although the notion of assertive character refers to an experiential feature widely
acknowledged by philosophers of mind, relatively litle work has been done on the
question how that notion should be more precisely understood. Tis piece aims to stimulate
some discussion in this area. More specifcally, I aim to do two things here. First, I shall
put the notion of assertive character into focus. Ten, I describe how this feature may be
analysed in functional terms and, relying on the aforementioned link between perception
and belief, I argue that it is extremely plausible to think of it in terms of the functional
role that perceptual experiences have within a larger psychological and epistemological
economy.
Philosophy of Science/Maths
11:15 Antonios Basoukos
Epistemic normativity in Ian Hacking’s entity realism
A common explanation for the success of science is that science represents the world
accurately most of the time. This philosophical stance is called scientific realism.
Scientific realism combines two apparently incompatible positions: a) that there is a world
independent of us, and 2) that we can have knowledge of this world. But, if the world is
independent of us, then how can we know that our scientific representations correspond to
it? I show that Ian Hacking has provided an original answer to the previous question,
which is that beliefs arising from the scientific practice are self-evident
11:45 Kazutaka Inamura
'A genus-differentia definition and natural kinds'
This paper examines J. S. Mill's positive view of a genus-differentia definition in his A
System of Logic. In particular, as opposed to the Lockean nominalist and Kripkean
essentialist criticism that it merely expresses the connotations of a general name that are
given from humans' subjective perspectives, I argue that Mill offers useful insights into
the role of a genus-differentia definition as a basis for scientific classification. I also show
how the Millian view can understand the practices of contemporary biological taxonomy
and its various concepts of a species supported by Darwinian evolutionary biology.
12:15 Graham White
The Centre of Mathematics
We argue that the tendency to view mathematical objects as being assembled from sets
has two roots: the desire for intuitively secure foundations, and the idea the a reduction of
mathematics to sets says something about the constitution of mathematical objects in
general. We argue that, in practice, set theoretical reductions do not give certainty
44
(because of the likelihood of mistakes), and that the constitution story depends on such
reductions being objective: in fact, they are often based on arbitrary and ineleminable
choices. We give an example of such arbitrariness, and we close with a plea for regulative
considerations in the philosophy of mathematics.
12:45 Demetra Christopoulou
Aristotle on number as a property
This paper attempts to present an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of natural number
as a dispositional property of a natural kind. In the first place, it elaborates Aristotle’s
position on mathematical objects according to which they are not substances and they are
appropriately related to the sensible objects. Secondly, it defends an account of natural
numbers as properties of natural kinds. Thirdly, it takes under consideration the
Aristotelian assertion that mathematical objects exist hylikos. In accordance with a rival
interpretation of that expression, it highlights the aspect of the properties in question as
dispositional.
Late registrant papers
11:15 Sophie Grace Chappell
Because
I develop the notion of a because-relation, and consider its applicability to emergence
and supervenience theses in philosophy of mind and metaethics.
11:45 Benjamin Smart
Two new objections to biostatistical conceptions of disease
Unquestionably the most frequently discussed analysis of pathological condition (that
of Boorse) takes the notion of disease to be value-free, wherein ‘normal (or supernormal)
function' is the mark of health, and disease is the absence of health. In this paper I outline
what I take to be the most troublesome objection raised against Boorse’s biostatistical
theory (BST); namely, the line-drawing problem (Schwartz 2007). Peter Schwartz
attempts to solve this problem by introducing an additional (supposedly value-free)
component to BST, but even Schwartz's view cannot escape the two new objections I set
out here – the no instances objection, and the universal diseases objection
12:15 Daniel Morgan
Explaining Addiction
Notoriously, addiction can cause people to behave in ways that go against their own,
and any reasonable, sense of which options are good options for them to take. There is a
simple but shallow explanation of this: addictive desires can be incredibly strong. A
deeper explanation will have to say what it is about addictive desires that accounts for
their strength. Neuophysiological Monism says that there is a single explanatory factor:
the impact of addictive substances on the dopamine system. Pluralism gives a role to
personal level factors in addition to this neurophysiological factor. This paper makes the
case for Pluralism, and in particular it looks at the personal level factor that is the motive
of self-escape.
12:45 TBA
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Open Sessions Abstracts: Sunday Afternoon
Philosophy of Language
14:30 Fiona Teresa Doherty
The Structure of Frege's Thoughts
In the discussion regarding Frege’s view of the structure of thoughts, a particular
remark from his posthumous writing is often taken in support of the view that Frege held
there to be no unique structure of a thought (Frege, 1979:17). By careful exposition of the
remark and articulation of the opposing views regarding the structure of thoughts by
Schlick and Dummett, this paper will argue that Frege’s remark does not, in fact, imply
either of the accounts since it is consistent with both.
15:00 Owen Griffiths
Permutations and modality
The permutation invariance demarcation of the logical constants has much to
recommend it: it is philosophically motivated by the thought that logic is topic neutral,
capable of precise formulation and respects the logical constants of rst-order logic with
identity. Recently, however, it has been accused of undergeneration by failing to deem
certain modal operators as logical. I argue that the modal operators we should want as
logical { those of S5 { are permutation invariant.
15:30 Siu-Fan Lee
The Semantics of Empty Names
Empty names present some persistent challenges to theories of reference. This paper
argues for the limitations of the direct reference theory of names and the existing pretence
theories in giving a satisfactory semantic account of empty names. My main arguments
include: the hermeneutic circle implicit in using the story operator, the importance of
explaining what it is to pretend and the inability of the present pretence theories to answer
it, the problems of intentionality and collective intentionality, and the category mistake in
explaining empty names using socially constructed abstract entities. I then call for a third
approach I coin the Counterfactual Reference Theory. I explain its motivation though I
may not have the space to discuss it fully in this short paper.
16:00 Thomas Hodgson
The alleged transparency of propositional structure
Some problems of empty names would be solved by the thesis that the emptiness of the
name triggers a difference in the structure of the proposition expressed (Variation).
Variation is in tension with the thesis that the structure of what is expressed is detectable
by the subject (Transparency). I argue that Transparency is unmotivated. Therefore,
Variation is more plausible than it at first appears.
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Epistemology
14:30 Barnaby Walker
Enquiry and the Value of Knowledge
Philosophical writings about the value of knowledge, inspired by Plato’s seminal
discussion in Meno, focus on the following ‘comparative state question’: why is it
advantageous for the subject to know that p rather than to merely truly believe that p? By
contrast, there has been little discussion of a closely related question about enquiry: why
do we desire and seek knowledge of the answers to questions, and not just true beliefs
about the answers?1 Neither has there been much discussion of how this ‘enquiry
question’ relates to the comparative state question. My aim in this paper is to address this
neglected issue. I will argue that the enquiry question identifies a more fundamental
problem about the value of knowledge than the comparative state question, and that
tackling the comparative state question is only one way of tackling the problem posed by
the enquiry question. I conclude with a sketch of an alternative proposal about how to
answer the enquiry question.
15:00 Emma Bullock
The Limits of Epistemic Paternalism
Epistemic paternalism is the thesis that a paternalistic interference with an individual’s
inquiry is justified when it is likely to bring about an epistemic improvement in her. I
claim that in order to motivate epistemic paternalism we must first account for the value
of epistemic improvements. I propose that the epistemic paternalist has two options: either
epistemic improvements are valuable because they contribute to wellbeing, or they are
epistemically valuable. I will argue that these options constitute the foundations of a
dilemma: either epistemic paternalism collapses into general paternalism, or a distinctive
project of justified epistemic paternalism is implausible.
15:30 Robin McKenna
Is Knowledge a Social Kind?
Some groupings of things reflect the structure of the social world rather than the natural
world. That is, some kinds are social rather than natural. For instance, money is a social
kind. But is knowledge a social kind? In this paper I argue for a conditional claim. If
pragmatic encroachment in epistemology is true, then knowledge is a social kind. While
my claim is conditional, it has implications for mainstream analytic epistemology.
Feminist epistemologists like Elizabeth Anderson, Helen Longino and Lynn Nelson argue
that epistemic facts hold partly in virtue of the contingent needs and interests of particular
communities. If I am right, pragmatic encroachment in epistemology has reached the
same conclusion, albeit for different reasons.
16:00 Milena Ivanova
Aesthetic Values in Science
In this paper I explore the epistemic justification of aesthetic values in scientific
practise. It is well documented that scientists use aesthetic values in the evaluation and
choice of theories they employ. Aesthetic values are not only regarded as leading to
practically more convenient theories, but are very often taken to stand in a special
epistemic relation to the truth of a theory. That is, the aesthetic properties of a theory are
47
regarded as intrinsically linked to the theory’s truthlikeness, justifying our belief that a
beautiful theory is a true one. I examine the empirical justification for this link and its
challenges. I explore an alternative link which could overcome the noted difficulties and
captures better scientific practise.
Metaphysics
14:30 Daniel Kodaj
The sad truth about power-based counterfactuals
Powers have become quite fashionable in metaphysics in recent years, with a number of
their proponents claiming or implying that powers are the truthmakers for modal facts in
general and of counterfactuals in particular. I argue that power-based counterfactual
semantics has no chance of getting off the ground unless it posits possible worlds. As a
result, the power ontologist’s ambition to ground modality in powers is doomed.
15:00 Natalja Deng
Does time seem to pass
This paper is about one of the current philosophical debates about temporal experience,
namely the one relating to the metaphysical question of whether time robustly passes. Atheorists think it does, B-theorists think it does not. I outline the A-theoretic argument
from experience, understood as an inference to the best explanation. I don’t question the
inference, but focus on the premise that we perceptually experience time as robustly
passing. I provide some reasons to reject it, and thereby to adopt a view sometimes known
as veridicalism.
15:30 Casey D McCoy
Classical Motion and Instantaneous Velocity
The impetus theory of motion states that to be in motion is to have a non-zero
instantaneous velocity. The at-at theory of motion states that to be in motion is nothing
over and above being at di erent places at di erent times. I first argue that there should be a
preference for the at-at theory over the impetus theory. I note, however, that this point
relies on the well-entrenched assumption that space is fundamental. This assumption is
the basis for what I call the spatial view. I raise the possibility of a fundamental velocity
based in “velocity space,” and then develop this velocital view in a way that is symmetric
to the spatial view. I conclude therefore that there are no obvious grounds for choosing
one over the other.
16:00 Pascal Massie
Diodorus Cronus’ Motionless Time
The master argument posits a metaphysical thesis: Diodorus rejects Aristotle’s
conception of dunamis as a power simultaneously oriented toward being and non-being
and proclaims that possibilities that fail to actualize are simply nothing. To justify this
claim, Diodorus proposes a conception of temporality that envisions the future sub specie
praeteriti: since the future is destined to become past, and since what will have been can
never be the accomplishment of a possibility that did not obtain, any possibility that
doesn’t actualize is neither futural nor even possible. Yet, this solution is not more
successful than Aristotle’s at avoiding Parmenides’ injunction.
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Adrian
Daniel
Joe
Julia
Charlotte
Geraldine
Paul
Lucy
Dan
Sergi
Jonathan
Francis
Glen
Robert
Herman
Alexandra
Jack
Lubomira
Clea F
Lynette
Lloyd Robert
Stephanie
Adam
Cristina
Simon
Richard
Leng
Lerman
Lewis
Lillehammer
Lim
Lindeman
Longworth
Luco
Lyons
MacFarlane
Mackie
Madden
Malcolm
Marasoiu
Martin
Massie
Matheson
McCabe
McClelland
McCoy
McGlynn
McKeever
McKenna
Meadows
Mellor
Moore
Morgan
Morrison
Mosquera
Newey
Ng
Noordhof
O'Brien
O'brien
Oms
Payton
Pearson
Pettigrove
Pezet
Philipse
Plakias
Price
Radoilska
Rees
Reid
Reinhardt
Rennick
Rieger
Roadevin
Robertson
Rowland
University of York
University of Warwick
Cardiff University
Birkbeck, University of London
University College London
Johns Hopkins University
University of Warwick
Nanyang Technological University
Trinity College Dublin
University of California, Berkeley
University of Nottingham
University College London
University of Manchester
University of Virginia
University College London
Miami University
University of Gothenburg
King's College London
University of Manchester
University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
University of St Andrews
University of Vienna
UAE University
Cambridge University
St Hugh's College Oxford
University of Barcelona
Queen's University Belfast
University of Reading
Cardiff University
University of Reading
University of York
UCL
Oxford Brookes
University of Barcelona, Logos
University of Toronto
Durham University
University of Auckland
University of Leeds
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Hamilton College
Cardiff University
University of Kent
Cardiff University
Dalhousie University
Sydney Uni retired
Cardiff University
University of Glasgow
University of Sheffield
Cardiff University
Australian Catholic University
51
Dr
Mr
Ms
Dr
Dr
Dr
Professor
Dr
Dr
Dr
Mr
Mr
Mr
Dr
Professor
Professor
Dr
Mr
Professor
Dr
Dr
Professor
Dr
Dr
Mrs
Miss
Dr
Mr
Dr
Dr
Dr
Mr
Dr
Dr
Miss
Dr
Mr
Dr
Dr
Dr
Dr
Dr
Dr
Dr
Professor
Dr
Mr
Mr
Mr
Dr
52
Lea
Jules
Jospehine
Sebastian
John
Sarah
Thomas
Christoph
Nicholas
Yonatan
Henry
Lukas
Benjamin
Benjamin
Paul Francis
Matthew
Maja
Charles
Sharon
Ema
Kirk
Alessandra
Henry
Christine
Alison
Caroline
Robert
Kei
Nick
Laura
Naomi
Daniel
Daniel
Verena
Natalia
Barnaby
Martin
Jonathan
Christiana
Jan
Graham
Daniel
Demian
Nathan
J Robert
Stephen
Wesley
Nick
Ruoyu
Robin
Salje
Salomone
Salverda
Sanhueza Rodriguez
Saunders
Sawyer
Schramme
Schuringa
Shackel
Shemmer
Shevlin
Skiba
Smart
Smart
Snowdon
Soteriou
Spener
Starkey
Street
Sullivan-Bissett
Surgener
Tanesini
Taylor
Tiefensee
Toop
Touborg
Trueman
Udono
Unwin
Valentini
van Steenbergen
Vanello
von Wachter
Wagner
Waights Hickman
Walker
Warner
Webber
Werner
Westerhoff
White
Whiting
Whiting
Wildman
Williams
Wright
Wrigley
Young
Zhang
Zheng
Leeds University
CUNY - The Graduate Center
Aristotelian Society / UCL
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Cardiff University
University of Sussex
Hamburg University
NCH
Cardiff University
University of Sheffield
CUNY Graduate Center
University of Cambridge
ENCAP, Cardiff University
University of Johannesburg
UCL
University of Warwick
University of Birmingham
Clemson University
New York University
University of Birmingham
University of Warwick
Cardiff University
University of Cambridge
Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
University of Leeds
University of St Andrews
University of Cambridge
University of Reading
Lancaster University
LSE
Utrecht University
Warwick
IAP Liechtenstein
University of Konstanz
University of Oxford
University of Warwick
University of Warwick
Cardiff University
Goettingen University
University of Oxford
Queen Mary, University of London
University of Southampton
University of Hull
University of Hamburg
University of Leeds
Jesus College, University of Oxford
University of Cambridge
Universiteit Antwerpen
Durham University
University of Cambridge
Joint Session
Conference Dinner
Marble Hall,
Cardiff City Hall