Dec
10
Mon
Semantic Relationism and the Relational View of Proposition, Byeong-uk Yi (Toronto) @ CUNY Grad Center, 6494
Dec 10 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

In Semantic Relationism, Kit Fine proposes semantic relationism, the view that semantic relationship among linguistic expressions is not reducible to their intrinsic semantic features, and combines this view with referentialism, the view that intrinsic semantic features of linguistic expressions are exhausted by their referents.  In this talk, I will point out some difficulties with his account and present a way to overcome them by taking a thorough version of semantic relationism.


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

Dec
19
Wed
Rethinking Pregnancy: Two Philosophical Perspectives with Suki Finn and Jennifer Scuro @ Martin E. Segal Theater
Dec 19 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Pregnancy is something that affects all of us: Many of us are, have been, or will be, pregnant; and each and every one of us is the result of a pregnancy. But there remain deep and important questions about pregnancy that are yet to be answered.

What is it to be pregnant?  How can we understand the complex relationship between the fetus and the mother?  What are the myths and assumptions that surround the phenomenon of pregnancy?  Should we challenge the medical and paternalistic interpretations of pregnancy?  Are our current dominant understandings of and cultural scripts about pregnancy harmful?  

Two philosophers discuss these issues regarding pregnancy through a phenomenological and metaphysical lens.

Suki Finn is a Doctor of Philosophy, working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Philosophy Department at the University of Southampton in the UK, on the ERC funded project ‘Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy‘. Suki is currently embarking on a Visiting Research Scholarship at New York University to continue her work on the metaphysics of pregnancy, and she also researches in the areas of metametaphysics and the philosophy of logic. Suki’s research has been published in various academic journals, books, and the popular online magazine Aeon. Her publications can be viewed on Academia or PhilPeople. Suki is also on the Executive Committee for the Society for Women in Philosophy UK, and on the Council for the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Jennifer Scuro, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of New Rochelle in New York and has been recently elected to the governing board of the Cultural Studies Association. She is the author of Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies(Lexington Books, Oct 2017) and The Pregnancy ≠ Childbearing Project: A Phenomenology of Miscarriage, (Rowman & Littlefield International, Feb 2017) a (autobio)graphic novel and feminist phenomenological analysis of pregnant embodiment, miscarriage and the labor of grief. The original tracework art from her graphic novel on miscarriage has been exhibited in several cities with the award-winning arts organization, The ART of Infertility.

This event is co-sponsored by the Gotham Philosophical Society and the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences.  Admission is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at 6:30pm, in the Martin E. Segal Theater

CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue (at 34th Street) New York, New York 10016 (212) 817-7944  cunyacademy@gc.cuny.edu

Feb
4
Mon
Bilattices and Strict Tolerant Logics (Melvin Fitting) @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Feb 4 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Feb
11
Mon
Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Feb 11 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Stages in Spacetime: The Languages of Persistence @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Feb 11 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Feb
25
Mon
Identity, Indeterminacy, and Supervaluationism- Achille Varzi (Columbia) @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Feb 25 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Feb 25 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Mar
4
Mon
CANCELLED – Coverage-Reliance Ignorance, Eric Bayruns Garcia (CUNY) – Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Mar 4 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Mar 4 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Mar
11
Mon
Jeremy Goodman (USC): Deep Structure. Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Mar 11 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

Russell proved over a century ago that a naive conception of structured propositions is inconsistent. Hodes (2015), Dorr (2016), and Goodman (2017) have recently reformulated Russell’s argument in the language of higher-order logic, and concluded from it that distinctions in reality cannot always reflect all the syntactic structure of the language in which we draw those distinctions. But they also float the idea that such distinctions might nevertheless have sentence-like structure, so long as this structure fails to neatly correspond to the syntactic structure of the sentences we use to draw those distinction. Perhaps, that is, the popular metaphor of facts being like sentences written in God’s “book of the world” is tenable after all. In this talk I’ll give a way of making this metaphor precise, and prove a new limitative result showing that, given natural assumptions, it too is inconsistent.

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