Oct
20
Fri
“What Does a Model Show?” Patricia Blanchette (Notre Dame) @ NYU Philosophy Dept. rm 202
Oct 20 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

The standard way to show the consistency of a theory, or the independence of a given statement from that theory, is to exhibit a model. But there’s more than one thing that’s been called a “model” as this notion has evolved from its original role in 19th century foundations of geometry to its current role as a universallyapplicable tool in logic. This talk investigates some of the changes that bring us to the modern notion, and asks to what extent various kinds of model do, or don’t, successfully demonstrate various kinds of consistency and independence.

When: Friday October 20, 11:00am-1:00pm (with reception to follow)
Where: NYU Philosophy Department, 5 Washington Place, Room 202

 

Nina Emery (Mount Holyoke), November 3, The Graduate Center, CUNY

SWIP-Analytic Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, rm tba
Oct 20 @ 12:00 pm

Karen Bennett (Cornell), September 15, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Patricia Blanchette (Notre Dame), October 20, NYU Philosophy Department

Nina Emery (Mount Holyoke), November 3, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Dec
7
Thu
“A Genuinely Aristotelian Guise of the Good” Katja Maria Vogt @ Wolff Conference Room, D1103
Dec 7 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The paper draws on the first sentence of Nicomachean Ethics I, but goes beyond interpretation in putting forward a new version of the Guise of the Good (GG). This proposal is Aristotelian in spirit, but defended on philosophical grounds. GG theorists tend to see their views as broadly speaking Aristotelian. And yet they address particular actions in isolation: agents, the thought goes, are motivated to perform a given action by seeing the action or its outcome as good. The paper argues that the GG is most compelling if we distinguish between three levels: the motivation of small-scale actions, the motivation of mid-scale actions or pursuits, and the desire to have one’s life go well. The paper analyzes the relation between small-, mid-, and large-scale motivation in terms of Guidance, Substance, and Motivational Dependence. In its Aristotelian version, the argument continues, the GG belongs to the theory of the human good.

Katja Maria Vogt, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She specializes in ancient philosophy, ethics, and normative epistemology. In her books and papers, she focuses on questions that figure both in ancient and in contemporary discussions: What are values? What kind of values are knowledge and truth? What does it mean to want one’s life to go well?

 

Presented by The New School for Social Research (NSSR) Philosophy Department.

Feb
15
Thu
CUNY-Milan Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop on Belief @ CUNY Grad Center, Philosophy Dept.
Feb 15 – Feb 16 all-day

CUNY-Milan Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop in Philosophy, a joint initiative of both institutions’ philosophy departments, is aimed at promoting advanced studies in core analytic topics. This year’s workshop, first in a series of annual events, will focus on belief. Albeit this workshop’s main objective is to advance research in Philosophy of Mind and Logic, the organizers are committed to maintain the interdisciplinary character of the workshop.

This year’s inaugural conference will focus on belief. It is the aim of the organizers to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the topic of belief. Some of the topics to be discussed include:

Mental states/attitudes and beliefs; the connection between imagination and belief; group beliefs; logic of belief; belief and logical omniscience; beliefs about blame and forgiveness; the difference between conscious and unconscious beliefs; confabulations of belief; the experience of belief; what it is like to believe; norms of beliefs; knowledge and belief; metaphysics of belief; religious beliefs; political beliefs; manipulation of belief; content of belief; belief and bias; belief and language; belief as constituting sexual, racial and gender based identity; delusional beliefs; continental perspectives on belief; historical perspectives on belief.

Keynote speakers:

Sergei Artemov
City University of New York
David Rosenthal
City University of New York
Giuliano Torrengo
University of Milan

Organisers:

Daniel Boyd
CUNY Graduate Center
Kasey Mallette
CUNY Graduate Center
V. Alexis Peluce
CUNY Graduate Center
Daria Vitasovic
University of Milan
Sep
20
Thu
Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid – Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame) @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 9205
Sep 20 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events

Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”

Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA

Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA

More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.

Oct
3
Wed
Racial Justice – Talk & Book Panel @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 9204/5
Oct 3 @ 4:15 pm – 7:30 pm

The CUNY Graduate Center Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) and the Philosophy Program present a talk and book panel on:
RACIAL JUSTICE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3 (Rooms 9204-5)

4:15-5:00 PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM LECTURE:
“Racial Justice”: Charles W. Mills, Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center

5:00-5:05 Break

5:05-5:45 BOOK PANEL on Charles W. Mills’s 2017 book, Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism

Frank M. Kirkland (CUNY Hunter College & the Grad Center)

John Pittman (CUNY John Jay College)

5:45-6:30 Q & A

6:30-7:30 BOOK PARTY—Philosophy common room, 7113 (food and drink)

Oct
18
Thu
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth) @ CUNY Grad Center
Oct 18 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events

Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”

Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA

Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA

More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.

Nov
8
Thu
Causal Composition, Jessica Wilson (Toronto) @ CUNY Grad Center
Nov 8 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

On the face of it, we live in a world rife with materially composed objects. But what is it exactly for some (smaller, spatiotemporally located) objects to materially compose, or ‘make up’, another? Intuitively, this has something to do with causal interactions among the parts, but causal accounts of composition have been surprisingly rare, due to their seeming to face pressing difficulties associated with extensional inadequacy, vague existence, and causal overdetermination. Here I motivate, present, and defend a causal account of composition, highlighting along the way its advantages over accounts based in classical mereology.

SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events

Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”

Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA

Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA

More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.

Oct
9
Wed
Choosing to Live a Just Life: On the Republic’s Depiction of Justice as Good in and of Itself. Daniel Davenport @ Philosophy Dept, St. John's U. rm 210
Oct 9 @ 5:45 pm – 6:45 pm

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates argues that justice is good not only for its consequences but also in and of itself. Challenged by Glaucon and Adeimantus, who suggest that all human interactions are inherently competitive and that being unjust could help you get the better in these conflicts, Socrates establishes that justice is good because it is harmony in the city and in the soul. If justice is a kind of health of the soul, then surely it is better to be just than unjust. This claim might ameliorate the concerns of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but I will argue that Plato does more than address the vision of justice brought forth by Socrates’ interlocutors. Particularly through the contrasts among the different kinds of lives that are either described or depicted in the Republic, Plato points his readers toward a conception of justice that reveals it as the ground of mutuality, reciprocity, dialogue and friendship. In fact, the Republic reveals justice to be necessary to the philosophical life and, hence, to the best kind of life.

Nov
14
Thu
Aristotle’s concept of matter and the generation of animals. Anna Schriefl @ Wolff Conference Room, D1106
Nov 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

There is a broad consensus that Aristotle introduced the concept of matter in order to develop a consistent account of substantial change. However, it is disputed which role matter fulfills in substantial change. According to the traditional interpretation, matter persists while taking on or losing a substantial form. According to a rival interpretation, matter does not persist in substantial change; instead, it is an entity from which a new substance can emerge and which ceases to exist in this process. In my view, both interpretations are problematic in the light of Aristotle’s broader ontological project and are at odds with the way Aristotle describes the substantial generation of living beings. On the basis of Aristotle’s biological theory, I will suggest that Aristotelian matter is a continuant in substantial generation, but does not satisfy the common criteria for persistence that apply to individual substances.

Anna Schriefl
Anna Schriefl is Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (assistant professor) at the University of Bonn, and currently a visiting scholar at the New School. She has published a book about Plato’s criticism of money and wealth, and most recently an introduction into Stoicism (both in German).