One dimension of cognitive success is getting it right, i.e gaining knowledge of facts. Another dimension of cognitive success is using the right concept, i.e. framing a topic in the right way. This view, if correct, tasks inquirers with critically examining the concepts they are using and perhaps replacing those concepts with new and better ones. This task is often known as “conceptual engineering”.
The idea that conceptual engineering is an important task for inquirers in and outside philosophy has recently gained traction. Some philosophers think conceptual engineering is an important task for inquirers to pursue. The conference is focused on foundational issues in connection with conceptual engineering. Topics to be addressed include the following:
- What are the semantic mechanisms that underlie conceptual engineering?
- What are concepts, and which role (if any) do they play in conceptual engineering?
- How can a theory of conceptual engineering be integrated with large-scale semantic theories?
- Which precise changes does a language undergo when its speakers engineer concepts?
- Is conceptual engineering something that speakers can ever purposefully bring about?
- What is the relation between changing concepts and changing reality?
The planned conference will focus especially on the semantic foundations of conceptual engineering and push towards a better understanding of the process.
The conference is organized collaboratively by members of NYU (Vera Flocke and David Chalmers) and members of the research project ConceptLab, located at the University of Oslo (Herman Cappelen and Andrew Peet).
The conference is funded by the New York Institute of Philosophy and ConceptLab.
To attend, please register by following this link no later than August 31, 2018.
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)
The CUNY Graduate Center Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), the Center for the Humanities, and the Philosophy Program present an interdisciplinary conference on:
“#MeToo and Epistemic Injustice”
Over the past year, the #MeToo movement has forced into national consciousness what has long been an underground truth known by women: the horrifying pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault as routine everyday occurrences, largely unpunished. How can one explain the resistance there has traditionally been, as recently brought out in one high-profile case after another, to taking women’s testimony seriously? Using Miranda Fricker’s innovative concept of “epistemic injustice” as a focus—the refusal to give members of subordinated groups a fair hearing—this 2-day interdisciplinary conference will examine the problem in its multiple dimensions. Eighteen theorists from a wide variety of subjects—philosophy, political theory, media studies, history, gender and women’s studies, LGBTQ theory, Africana and Native American studies, law, and disability theory—will look from their distinctive perspectives at women’s vulnerability to sexual harassment and assault, and the ways in which it is complicated by class, race, nationality, sexuality, and disability.
October 5-6, 2018
Venues:
- Oct 5th – Roosevelt House, 47-49 East 65th St.
9:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. - Oct 6th – Skylight Room (9100), CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave.
10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Speakers:
- Linda Martín Alcoff, Philosophy, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Susan Brison, Philosophy, Dartmouth College
- Ann Cahill, Philosophy, Elon University
- Nirmala Erevelles, Disability Studies & Education, University of Alabama
- Karyn Freedman, Philosophy, University of Guelph
- Miranda Fricker, Philosophy, CUNY Grad Center
- Mishuana Goeman, Gender Studies & American Indian Studies, UCLA
- Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia Law School
- Raja Halwani, Liberal Arts, Art Institute of Chicago
- Alison Jaggar, Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
- Kate Manne, Philosophy, Cornell University
- Danielle McGuire, Independent Historian
- Sarah Clark Miller, Philosophy, Penn State University
- Rupal Oza, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Andrea Press, Media Studies & Sociology, University of Virginia
- Tricia Rose, Africana Studies, Brown University
- Dina Siddiqi, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College
- Shatema Threadcraft, Government, Dartmouth College
Conference organizers: Linda Martín Alcoff and Charles W. Mills
The CUNY Graduate Center Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), the Center for the Humanities, and the Philosophy Program present an interdisciplinary conference on:
“#MeToo and Epistemic Injustice”
Over the past year, the #MeToo movement has forced into national consciousness what has long been an underground truth known by women: the horrifying pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault as routine everyday occurrences, largely unpunished. How can one explain the resistance there has traditionally been, as recently brought out in one high-profile case after another, to taking women’s testimony seriously? Using Miranda Fricker’s innovative concept of “epistemic injustice” as a focus—the refusal to give members of subordinated groups a fair hearing—this 2-day interdisciplinary conference will examine the problem in its multiple dimensions. Eighteen theorists from a wide variety of subjects—philosophy, political theory, media studies, history, gender and women’s studies, LGBTQ theory, Africana and Native American studies, law, and disability theory—will look from their distinctive perspectives at women’s vulnerability to sexual harassment and assault, and the ways in which it is complicated by class, race, nationality, sexuality, and disability.
October 5-6, 2018
Venues:
- Oct 5th – Roosevelt House, 47-49 East 65th St.
9:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. - Oct 6th – Skylight Room (9100), CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave.
10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Speakers:
- Linda Martín Alcoff, Philosophy, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Susan Brison, Philosophy, Dartmouth College
- Ann Cahill, Philosophy, Elon University
- Nirmala Erevelles, Disability Studies & Education, University of Alabama
- Karyn Freedman, Philosophy, University of Guelph
- Miranda Fricker, Philosophy, CUNY Grad Center
- Mishuana Goeman, Gender Studies & American Indian Studies, UCLA
- Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia Law School
- Raja Halwani, Liberal Arts, Art Institute of Chicago
- Alison Jaggar, Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
- Kate Manne, Philosophy, Cornell University
- Danielle McGuire, Independent Historian
- Sarah Clark Miller, Philosophy, Penn State University
- Rupal Oza, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Andrea Press, Media Studies & Sociology, University of Virginia
- Tricia Rose, Africana Studies, Brown University
- Dina Siddiqi, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College
- Shatema Threadcraft, Government, Dartmouth College
Conference organizers: Linda Martín Alcoff and Charles W. Mills
From basic arithmetic to the calculation of rocket trajectories, mathematics provides an elegant means of systematically understanding and quantifying the world around us. Beyond its computational functions, however, mathematics serves an even more vital purpose: It illuminates the most fundamental knowledge of our universe, furnishing the tools that classical physics, quantum mechanics, and astronomy use to develop and build upon their findings.
But why should mathematics be so effective in explaining our universe, as first noted by Nobel laureate physicist Eugene Wigner? Why have fundamental laws discovered through pure mathematics turned out to describe the behavior of our physical world with such remarkable precision, from the fundamental law of gravitation to Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations? Given that our physical universe is comprised of mathematical properties, some have posited that mathematics is the language of the universe, whose laws reveal what appears to be a hidden order in the natural world. But are there also limits to what mathematics can reveal about the mystery of our universe?
Theoretical physicist S. James Gates Jr. and science writer Margaret Wertheim join Steve Paulson to explore the mystery of our universe and the uncanny potential of mathematics to reveal the laws of nature.
*Reception to follow
This event is part of the Conversations on the Nature of Reality series.
Moderated by journalist Steve Paulson, Executive Producer of Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge, this three-part series at the New York Academy of Sciences brings together leading scientists and thinkers to explore the fundamental nature of reality through the lens of personal experience and scientific inquiry.
To learn more about each lecture and to purchase tickets, click on the links below.
- The Mystery of Our Mathematical Universe, Wednesday, October 10, 2018
- Human Cognition and the AI Revolution, Thursday, December 6, 2018
- Reality is Not As it Seems, Thursday, February 7, 2019
The Minorities and Philosophy Chapters of The Graduate Center CUNY, NYU, Princeton, Columbia, Rutgers, and the New School present: Oppression and Resistance, a conference on understanding and resisting oppression inside and outside the academy.
Highlights include:
- an afternoon of practical workshops
- a panel on activism and philosophy with Linda Martín Alcoff, Lori Gruen, Kate Ritchie, and Briana Toole
- six fantastic talks on the topic of the conference
- a keynote address by José Medina, “Resisting Racist Propaganda”
- delicious all-vegan food and a house party!
The full schedule is below. We hope to see you there!
You can register (optionally) here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbVIij40xlFYKPpBRbIFB1NqiqB-xJNMStKn-wNhwZYgHuCA/viewform
FULL SCHEDULE:
Friday Oct 12
- Panel 1 – MAP Panel: 1.00-2.00pm (6th Floor)
Elise Woodard, Carolina Flores, Keyvan Shafiei - Panel 2 – Graduate Employee Unions and Social Justice: 2.10-3.10pm (6th Floor)
Danny Echikson, Nadia Mehdi, Chris Nickell
- Panel 3 – Teaching outside the Academy & Inclusive Pedagogy: 3.20-4.20pm (6th Floor)
Sukaina Hirji, Allysa Lake, Victoria Emery
- Panel 4 – Faculty Panel on Activism and Public Philosophy: 4.30-6.30pm (202)
Linda Martín Alcoff, Lori Gruen, Briana Toole, Kate Ritchie
- Reception: 6.30-7.30pm
Saturday Oct 13
- Session 1: 10.00-11.30am (101)
Rebecca Harrison, “Experiencing Resistance: Disruptive Protest as a Site of Moral Learning”
Claryn Spies, “Ideas Spring from Deeds: Rethinking Black Bloc Aesthetically” - Session 2: 11.45am-1.15pm (101)
Noel Dominguez, “Are We Blameworthy for Implicit Biases? We Might As Well Be”
Javiera Perez-Gomez, “Microaggressions: Failings and Prospects” - Session 3: 2.30-4.00pm (101)
Emmalon Davis, “What we Owe To Ourselves: Resisting a Self-Directed Duty to Resist Oppression”
Matt Andler, “What Is Sexual Identity?” - Keynote: 4.30-6.30pm
José Medina, “Resisting Racist Propaganda: Distorted Visual Communication and Epistemic Activism” (101) - Reception: 6.30-7.30pm
Philosophers
Economists
Ethan Lewis, Dartmouth
Giovanni Peri, University of California, Davis
Chad Sparber, Colgate University
Organizers
K. Anthony Appiah, NYU Philosophy and Law
Jess Behabib, NYU Economics
Giovanni Peri, UC Davis Economics; Director, UC Davis Migration Research Cluster
n his seminal work Counterfactuals, David Lewis presents a family of systems of conditional logic—his V-family—which includes both his preferred logic of counterfactuals (VC/C1) and Stalnaker’s conditional logic (VCS/C2). Graham Priest posed the problem of finding systems of (labeled) tableaux for logics from Lewis’s V-family in his Introduction to Non-Classical Logic (2008, p. 93). In this talk, I present a solution to this problem: sound and complete (labeled) tableaux for Lewis’s V-logics. Errors and shortcomings in recent work on this problem are identified and corrected (especially close attention is given to a recent paper by Negri and Sbardolini, whose approach anticipates my own). While most of the systems I present are analytic, the tableaux I give for Stalnaker’s VCS and its extensions make use of a version of the Cut rule and, consequently, are non-analytic. I conjecture that Cut is eliminable from these tableaux and discuss problems encountered in trying to prove this.
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room 6494 of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Sep 17. Sander Breckers, Utrecht
Sep 24. Hanoch Ben-Yami, CEU
Oct 1. Otavio Bueno, Miami
Oct 8. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Oct 15. Alfredo Freire, Campinas
Oct 22. Yale Weiss, GC
Oct 29. Boris Kment, Princeton
Nov 5. Melissa Fusco, Columbia
Nov 12. Amy Seymour, Fordham
Nov 19. Andrew Tedder, UConn
Nov 26. Justin Bledin, Johns Hopkins
Dec 3. Suki Finn, Southampton
Dec 10. Byong Yi, Toronto
Over the course of his 49 year career (48 years of which were spent at Rutgers), Peter established himself as a giant in the field of aesthetics, especially in the philosophy of music. Sadly, Peter passed away in 2017. To honor his memory, the Rutgers Philosophy Department is hosting a one-day conference on October 26, 2018, celebrating his life’s philosophical work.
The Conference will include talks by Christy Mag Uidhir (Houston), Jenefer Robinson (Cincinnati), Jerrold Levinson (Maryland), and David Davies (McGill). In addition, Aaron Meskin (Leeds) will introduce and read Peter Kivy’s unpublished ‘The Case of (Digital) Wagner.’ Finally, there will be a time set aside for remembrances from Peter’s friends and colleagues.
All are welcome to attend the conference. There is no registration fee; however, attendees are encouraged to pre-register (so that we have an accurate headcount for the lunch and reception). To pre-register, please email us at kivymemorial@philosophy.rutgers.edu
Conference Information
October 26, 2018
9:30 am – 5:00 pm – Conference
5:00 am – 6:15 pm – Reception
The conference and reception will take place at the Teleconference Room on the 4th Floor of Alexander Library (169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ). In addition to the reception at the close of the conference, a catered lunch will be served.
The exact conference schedule will be posted soon.
Questions can be directed to kivymemorial@philosophy.rutgers.edu
Perceptual Capacities and Pyschophysics
Saturday, October 26-27, 2018, 09:30am – 06:00pm
Location Rutgers Philosophy Department, 106 Somerset St, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA