PoPRocks (formerly known as ‘WoPoP’) is an ongoing series in the NYC area for early career researchers – typically grad students and postdocs – working on philosophy of psychology/mind/perception/cognitive science/neuroscience/… . We usually meet roughly once every 2 weeks to informally discuss a draft paper by one of our members, but Spring 2018 we will be meeting less frequently. Typically presenters send a copy of their paper around 1 week in advance, so do join the mailing list (by emailing poprocksworkshop@gmail.com or one of the organizers) or email to ask for a copy of the paper. We aim for a friendly, constructive discussion with the understanding that the drafts discussed are typically work in progress.
Feb 26 Martin Pleitz, Muenster
Mar 5 Vera Flocke, NYU
Mar 12 Roy Sorensen, WUSTL
Mar 19 Alex Citkin, Private Researcher
Mar 26 Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 2 SPRING RECESS. NO MEETING
Apr 9 Greg Restall, Melbourne
Apr 16 Daniel Nolan, Notre Dame
Apr 23 Mel Fitting, CUNY
Apr 30 Sungil Han, Seoul National
May 7 Andreas Ditter, NYU
May14 Rohit Parikh
Indefinite extensibility is the thesis that any domain of quantification can always be expanded. But how is the possibility of expanding domains of quantification reflected in the semantics of quantified sentences? This paper discusses the relevant meta-semantic options within a framework that distinguishes between semantic values and assertoric contents. This choice of a framework is independently motivated, helps received accounts of indefinite extensibility to escape weighty objections and adds to the available metasemantic options. I then argue for a hitherto overlooked view according to which quantified sentences express stable semantic values but variable assertoric contents. Specifically, the semantic value of quantified sentences are sets of possible worlds that are structured by two equivalence relations, one of which models counterfactual necessity and the other one of which models objectivity. Assertoric contents however are ordinary possible worlds propositions. The advantage of this view is that it explains succinctly what’s at issue in the debate between generality-absolutists, who think that quantification over absolutely everything is possible, and generality-relativists. If the box expresses objectivity, this disagreement concerns the Barcan formula, which entails that domains do not grow as one moves to objectively-accessible worlds.
This meeting is open to all who are interested. Please feel free to pass this announcement on, or direct others to our website at logic.commons.gc.cuny.edu.
Logic and Metaphysics Workshop
Spring 2018
Feb 26 Martin Pleitz, Muenster
Mar 5 Vera Flocke, NYU
Mar 12 Roy Sorensen, WUSTL
Mar 19 Alex Citkin, Private Researcher
Mar 26 Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 2 SPRING RECESS. NO MEETING
Apr 9 Greg Restall, Melbourne
Apr 16 Daniel Nolan, Notre Dame
Apr 23 Mel Fitting, CUNY
Apr 30 Sungil Han, Seoul National
May 7 Andreas Ditter, NYU
May14 Rohit Parikh
The Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Chapters of Columbia, The New School, Rutgers, CUNY, NYU, and Princeton invite submissions from graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from underrepresented groups for a workshop series (NY-MAPWorks) in spring 2018.
Dates: Jan 30th (NYU), Feb. 20th (New School), March 6th (CUNY), April 17th (Columbia), May 8th (NYU), 7-9:30pm.
Submission Guidelines:
To apply, please compete the following by December 15th, 2017:
- Send an extended abstract of 750-1,000 words (.pdf or .doc), prepared for blind review, suitable for a 25-30 minute presentation to a general philosophical audience to nymapshop@gmail.com.
- Provide your contact information by completing this google form.
Applications will only be accepted from individuals from groups underrepresented in academic philosophy.
Accepted participants will be notified by January 14th. For further details, see our philpapers posting at https://philevents.org/event/show/37294.
Each colloquium is held on Wednesday at 4:15 P.M. All colloquia will take place at the Graduate Center in rooms 9204/9205 except as otherwise noted. Please call (212) 817-8615 for further information.
February 7th • Jerrold Katz Memorial Lecture
David Papineau (CUNY Graduate Center | King’s College London)
“Kinds and Essences: Taming Metaphysical Modality”
February 14th
Jane Friedman (NYU)
“The Epistemic and the Zetetic”
February 21st
Muhammad Ali Khalidi (York U)
“Are Sexes Natural Kinds?”
February 28th
Laurie Paul (UNC)
“De Se Truth and Epistemic Revolution”
March 7th • Marx Wartofsky Memorial Lecture
Steven Lukes (NYU)
Title TBD
March 14th
Collin O’Neill (CUNY Lehman College)
“Consent and Third-Party Coercion in Medicine and Research”
March 21st
Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh)
TBD
March 28th
Greg Restall (Melbourne)
“Accommodation, Inference, Generics and Pejoratives”
April 4th: No Colloquium (Spring Recess)
April 11th: No Colloquium (CUNY Friday Schedule)
April 18th
Shaun Nichols (Arizona)
“The Wrong and the Bad: On the Rational Acquisition of Moral Rules”
April 25th
Quayshawn Spencer (UPenn)
“A Radical Solution to the Race Problem”
May 2nd
Tim Crane (CEU)
“Putnam’s Ant: On the Reduction of Meaning and Intentionality”
May 9
Kathryn Tabb (Columbia)
“Locke on the Complexity of Ideas and the Ethics of Belief”
Download an interactive PDF version of the schedule here.
In a famous passage from Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus presents four different accounts of the conditional in increasing strength. Contemporary analogues have been identified (subject to various degrees of controversy) for the first three, but the last, which even fails to satisfy A>A, has proved elusive. In this talk, I discuss ways of modeling this heterodox conditional. Taking a cue from Sextus, I regard the characteristic feature of this conditional as one of proper (conceptual) containment and approach it using the framework of containment logic. Different implementations of this approach are discussed and evaluated both for their historical and technical merits. In the course of the talk, I will discuss (among other things) the relationship between Sextus’ third and fourth accounts, how Kripke semantics can be and has been used to deepen our understanding of various ancient conditionals, and how ancient notions of containment might yield interesting new (old) perspectives on contemporary containment logic.
Saul Kripke Center, Young Scholars Series: Yale Weiss, “Sextus Empiricus’ Fourth Conditional and Containment Logic”
SWIP-Analytic Schedule for Spring 2018
Here is a sneak peak at our exciting line-up of speakers and events for Spring 2018. Some times and rooms TBA.
Elanor Taylor, February 8, CUNY Graduate Center, The Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, Room 5307, 4:00-6:00pm
Virginia Aspe Armella and Ma. Elena García Peláez Cruz (co-sponsored with SWIP-Analytic Mexico), March 2, NYU Room 202, 2:00-4:30pm
Round Table Women in Philosophy: Publishing, Jobs, and Fitting In (co-sponsored with NYSWIP), March 8, CUNY Graduate Center, The Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, Room 5307, 4:30-7:30pm
Graduate Student Essay Prize Winner Presentation, April 12
Sophie Horowitz (UMass, Amherst), April 26
The United States, supposedly founded on the “self-evident” principle of human equality, has in fact been a profoundly racially unequal society from the start. Yet for many years the striving for racial justice and racial equality has been obscured by an evasive discourse of “diversity.” Particularly with the recent rise of white nationalism, however, it has become urgently important to recognize and address the ongoing inequalities of race. This 2-day interdisciplinary conference will bring together 18 theorists from a wide array of subjects—philosophy, political theory, ethnic studies, critical psychology, urban studies, gender theory, and anthropology—to look from their distinctive perspectives at the enduring problem of racial inequality, and how it is perpetuated in a democratic society.
SPEAKERS:
Alia Al-Saji (Philosophy: McGill University)
Bernard Boxill (Philosophy: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, emeritus)
Derrick Darby (Philosophy: University of Michigan)
Michelle Fine (Critical Psychology: CUNY Grad Center)
Mark Golub (Politics: Scripps College)
Juliet Hooker (Political Science: Brown University)
Frank Kirkland (Philosophy: Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center)
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Latino & Caribbean Studies: Rutgers University)
Howard McGary (Philosophy: Rutgers University)
José Mendoza (Philosophy: University of Massachusetts-Lowell)
Naomi Murakawa (African-American Studies: Princeton University)
Michael Paris (Political Science & Global Affairs: CUNY Staten Island)
Tommie Shelby (Philosophy: Harvard University)
Falguni Sheth (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: Emory University)
Stephen Steinberg (Urban Studies: Queens College & CUNY Grad Center)
Ronald Sundstrom (Philosophy: University of San Francisco)
Andrew Valls (Political Science: Oregon State)
Gary Wilder (Anthropology: CUNY Grad Center)
Co-organizers: Charles W. Mills and Linda Martín Alcoff.
Free and open to the public, the conference will take place on Friday, March 9th in the Skylight Room (9100) and Saturday, March 10th in the Elebash Recital Hall.
Co-sponsored by the PhD Program in Philosophy and the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
February 9: Jessie Munton Philosophy, New York University “How Long Is ‘a’ Visual Experience?”
March 9: Taylor Webb Neuroscience Institute and Cognitive Science, Princeton University Title TBA
April 13: Eleni Manolakaki Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens “Propositions as Measures of Mind”
For spring 2018, the CUNY Cognitive Science Speaker Series will meet once a month. We’ll return to weekly talks in fall 2018.
All talks are at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, room 7-102, Fridays, 1-3 pm. http://bit.ly/cs-talks
In a hurried letter to beleaguered brethren, Blaise Pascal (1658) confesses to a lapse of concision: “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.” Pascal’s confession was emulated with the same warmth as philosophers now emulate the apology introduced by D. C. Mackinson’s “The Preface Paradox”. Could Pascal’s confession of superfluity be sound? Pascal thinks his letter could be conservatively abridged; the shortened letter would be true and have the exact same content. In contrast to the Preface Paradox, where Mackinson’s author apologizes for false assertions, Pascal apologizes for an excess of true assertions. He believes at least one of his remarks could be deleted in a fashion that leaves all of its consequences entailed by the remaining assertions. Pascal’s confession of superfluity is plausible even if we count the apology as part of the letter (as we should since this is the most famous part of the letter). Yet there is an a priori refutation. Any conservative abridgement must preserve the implication that there is a superfluous assertion. This means any abridged version can itself be abridged. Since the letter is finite, we must eventually run out of conservative abridgements. Any predecessor of an unabridgeable abridgement is itself an unabridgeable. So the original letter cannot be conservatively abridged.
Manuscript: for those interested, the manuscript has been available for advance reading here.
This meeting is open to all who are interested. Please feel free to pass this announcement on, or direct others to our website at logic.commons.gc.cuny.edu.
Logic & Metaphysics Workshop
Feb 26 Martin Pleitz, Muenster
Mar 5 Vera Flocke, NYU
Mar 12 Roy Sorensen, WUSTL
Mar 19 Alex Citkin, Private Researcher
Mar 26 Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 2 SPRING RECESS. NO MEETING
Apr 9 Greg Restall, Melbourne
Apr 16 Daniel Nolan, Notre Dame
Apr 23 Mel Fitting, CUNY
Apr 30 Sungil Han, Seoul National
May 7 Andreas Ditter, NYU
May14 Rohit Parikh