How is the ancient exhortation to “know thyself” related to consolation, virtue, and the study of nature? How did the commitment to self-knowledge shift over the centuries in writings by Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and early modern natural philosophers? How did medieval women contribute to modern notions of self, self-knowledge, and knowledge of nature? This conference explores the meditative “reflective methodology” from its ancient roots, through medieval Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions to the so-called “new” methodologies of early modern science. Speakers include Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Pierre Force, Clémence Boulouque, Christia Mercer, and Pamela Smith.
Points of focus will be: (1) the relation between the ancient imperative to “know thyself” and medieval concerns to reflect on one’s self as a means to find ultimate truths; (2) the meditative genre as it developed from Augustine’s Confessions through Christian and Islamic spiritual exercises to late medieval Christian meditations and early modern kabbalist writings; (3) the continuity between medieval meditations and the reflective methodology of early modern science; and (4) the meditative genre’s afterlife in Freud, Foucault, Arendt, and contemporary science.
Conference co-sponsored by the Center for New Narratives in Philosophy, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, the Departments of Philosophy, French, English and Comparative Literature and the Maison Française
To download a PDF about this event click here.
Strict/tolerant logic is a formally defined logic that has the same consequence relation as classical logic, though it differs from classical logic at the metaconsequence level. Specifically, it does not satisfy a cut rule. It has been recommended for use in work on theories of truth because it avoids some objectionable features arising from the use of classical logic. Here we are not interested in applications, but in the formal details themselves. We show that a wide range of logics have strict/tolerant counterparts, with the same consequence relations but differing at the metaconsequence level. Among these logics are Kleene’s K3, Priest’s LP, and first degree entailment, FDE. The primary tool we use is the bilattice. But it is more than a tool, it seems to be the natural home for this kind of investigation.
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room TBD of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 18. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room 7314 of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 18. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
Motivated by considerations from relativity theory, philosophers have recently contended that talk about an object’s existence in time should not be taken as fundamental, but rather analysed in the language of a formal theory of location in spacetime. This suggestion has important consequences for the debate about persistence: how do ordinary objects exist at different times? It has triggered a program of recovery whereby the main views from the classical debate, previously expressed using the language of temporal mereology, have been redefined in a locational framework. In this paper, I extend this program to the stage theory of persistence, the view according to which objects are instantaneous three-dimensional stages which exist at different times by virtue of having counterparts at these times. I offer a new characterization of the view, the first in a purely locational language, and argue that this locational approach helps dissolve confusions about the view.
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room TBD of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 18. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
I am a friend of supervaluationism. A statement lacks a determinate truth value if, and only if, it comes out true on some admissible precisifications of the relevant vocabulary and false on others. In this talk I want to focus on the special cases of identity statements. There is, I think, a potentially devastating objection that can be raised against the supervaluationist treatment of such statements—in fact two objections. Luckily, both can be resisted. But seeing how requires that we take a closer look at the ontological presuppositions of supervaluationism, allowing for more leeway than is usually supposed.
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room TBD of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 18. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room 7314 of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 18. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
Join us for a conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer as she helps us rethink, reimagine and, renarrate our relationship to the sacred and the natural world. Can the objective, data-driven approach of science be enriched by non-anthropocentric spiritual worldviews? As a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Dr. Kimmerer draws on both indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge to enrich and animate our understanding of the natural world. This expansive way of seeing and relating to creation privileges regeneration and reciprocity, and offers novel solutions for ecological restoration and climate change resilience.
Dr. Kimmerer will be joined in conversation with Union faculty member John Thatamanil, and Geraldine Ann Patrick Encina, Scholar in Residence for Union’s Center for Earth Ethics.
RSVP Here
About Robin Wall Kimmerer:
Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. Her research interests include the role of traditional ecological knowledge in ecological restoration and the ecology of mosses. In collaboration with tribal partners, she and her students have an active research program in the ecology and restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. Read More.
About The Insight Project:
The Insight Project is a new multi-year program series that explores modern conceptions of theology and spirituality through a diverse array of thought-provoking lectures, screenings, performances, and on-stage conversations. Click HERE to learn more.
Meeting Cancellation: The CUNY Graduate Center will be closed on Monday, March 4th. Therefore, the Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will not be meeting. There is no meeting
I argue that racial injustice can make a subject’s news sources unreliable because of the effect of (1) racial prejudice and (2) society’s unjust structure on the news-gathering-and-disseminating processes a subject relies on. I assume that societies with entrenched racial injustice have widespread racial prejudices and that these societies are unjustly structured. I argue that racial injustice can undermine a subject’s capacity to be properly sensitive to her social conditions such that she is doxastically justified in her coverage-supported belief. In section one, I describe features of coverage-reliance ignorance, its relation to coverage-supported belief and white ignorance, its bad epistemic consequences and a case of coverage-reliance ignorance where a subject holds a true, but unjustified, belief. In section two, I argue that racial prejudice can make a news source less reliable because racial prejudice can make it less likely that news sources report on racial injustice related topics. In section three, I argue that a society’s unjust structure can make a news source less reliable because it can make it less likely that reports on racial-injustice-related topics reach subjects who lack information on these topics. In section four, I argue that racial injustice can undermine a subject’s capacity to be properly sensitive to her social conditions such that she is doxastically justified in her coverage-supported belief.
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room 7314 of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 18. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room 7314 of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 18. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY
What are laws of nature? The predominant view in contemporary philosophy of science is the Humean `best system account’ which holds that the laws of nature are merely descriptive, an efficient summary of contingent regularities that we find in the world. Using the concept of typicality, I will spell out a common anti-Humean intuition into a precise argument: A typical Humean world wouldn’t have any law-like regularities to begin with. Thus (I will argue), Humean metaphysics do not fit the objective order that we find in our universe.
There will be dinner after the talk. If you are interested, please send an email with `Dinner’ in the heading to nyphilsci@gmail.com (please note that all are welcome, but only the speaker’s dinner will be covered). If you have any other questions, please email isaac.wilhelm@rutgers.edu.