Apr
6
Sat
Rutgers-Columbia Undergraduate Philosophy Conference @ Rutgers Philosophy Dept
Apr 6 all-day
Rutgers-Columbia Undergraduate Philosophy Conference
Saturday, April 06, 2019, 09:30am – 06:00pm
TBA
Location Rutgers Philosophy Department, 106 Somerset St, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
Apr
13
Sat
NYU-Columbia Graduate Conference in Philosophy, Keynote: Laurie Paul @ NYU Philosophy Dept. rm 202
Apr 13 all-day

The graduate students and faculty of the Columbia and NYU Philosophy Departments invite graduate submissions in any area of philosophy for a conference to be held on Saturday, April 13th, 2019 at New York University.

Submission Guidelines

Please send submission as attachments in .doc or .pdf format to columbianyu.philgradconference@gmail.com by February 3rd, 2018 (Notification by February 17th, 2019).

Papers must meet the following requirements:

  • All papers must be between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length, suitable for a presentation of 30-40 minutes to a general philosophical audience.
  • Submit papers with a separate cover sheet in .doc or .pdf format that includes the following information: name, home institution, contact details, area of paper (e.g. metaphysics, meta-ethics, philosophy of mind, etc.) and an abstract of no longer than 300 words.
  • Papers must be submitted by email in blind-review format.
Apr
25
Thu
Mind, Attention, & World Themes in Indian and Buddhist Philosophical Theory @ NYU Events Space 2nd Floor
Apr 25 – Apr 26 all-day

The philosophical traditions of India offer contemporary researchers an unparalleled and mostly untapped resource for fresh thinking about attention, its relations to mind and world. From Nyāya manas-theory to the extensive Buddhist theories about attention’s relationship with consciousness, and from precise taxonomies of the varieties of attention to discussions about the norms governing attention, epistemic, moral, and practical, the wealth and sophistication of Indian analysis is astounding. Our workshop will look at the ways in which Indian, including Buddhist, philosophical theory can enrich contemporary discussion, and there will be presentations by a world-class panel of speakers.

We hope too that this workshop will serve as a catalyst to Indian philosophical studies in the New York area. The workshop is open to everyone, free and without registration, and the program is here.

April 25, 2019|DAY 1 

8:45 am – 9:00 am

Coffee & Welcome  (Jonardon Ganeri NYU)

9:00 am – 10:45 am

Panel 1. Attending to Oneself

Chair: Nic Bommarito (Buffalo)

        9:00 am – 9:50 am

Sharon Street (NYU, via video conferencing)

  “On Recognizing Oneself in Others: A Meditation-Based Response to Mackie’s Argument from Queerness”

        9:55 am – 10:45 am

Muhammad Faruque (Fordham)

“Attending to Oneself: Muḥammad Iqbāl and his Indian Contemporaries”

10:45 am – 11:00 am

   Morning Break

11:00 am – 12:45 pm 

Panel 2. Attention and Affect

Chair: Joerg Tuske (Salisbury)

11:00 am – 11:50am

Evan Thompson (British Columbia)

    “Affect Biased Attention and Concept Formation”

11:55 am – 12:45 pm

Sonam Kachru (Virginia)

    “Attention and Affect: A View from Indian Buddhist Philosophy”

12:45 pm – 2:00 pm

Lunch Break

2:00 pm – 3:45 pm 

Panel 3. Decision and Exclusion

Chair: Emily McRae (New Mexico)

2:00 pm – 2:50 pm

Arindam Chakrabarti (Stonybrook)

     “Deciding to Attend and the Problem of Disjunctive Attention”

2:55 pm – 3:45 pm

Catherine Prueitt (George Mason)

“At the Limits of Pain: Attention, Exclusion, and Self-Knowledge in Pratyabhijñā Śaivism.”

   3:45 pm – 4:00 pm

Afternoon Break

   4:00 pm – 5:45 pm 

Panel 4. The Ethics of Attention

Chair: Eyal Aviv (George Washington)

        4:00 pm – 4:50 pm

   Curie Virag (Edinburgh)

“Attention as Cognitive Resonance”

       4:55 pm – 5:45 pm

   Shalini Sinha (Reading)

   “The Ethics of Attention in Śāntideva and Simone Weil”

April 26, 2019|DAY 2 

10:15 am – 10:30 am

Coffee

10:30 am – 12:15 pm

Panel 5. Self-Awareness and Attention

Chair: Payal Doctor (LaGuardia)

       10:30 am – 11:20 am

Amit Chaturvedi (Hong Kong)

“Phenomenal Priority and Reflexive Self-Awareness: Watzl meets Yogācāra”

       11:25 am – 12:15 pm

Nilanjan Das  (University College London)

“Śrīharṣa on Self-knowledge and the Inner Sense”

12:15 pm – 1:30 pm

Lunch Break

   1:30 pm – 3:15 pm

Panel 6. Mindfulness and Justification

Chair: Bryce Huebner (Georgetown)

         1:30 pm – 2:20 pm

Georges Dreyfus (Williams)

   “But What is Mindfulness? A Phenomenological Approach”

         2:25 pm – 3:15 pm

Anand Vaidya (San Jose)

    “Attention and Justification”

   3:15 pm – 3:30 pm

Afternoon Break

3:30 pm – 5:15 pm

Panel 7. The Wandering Self

Chair: Adriana Renero (NYU)

         3:30 pm – 4:20 pm

Carolyn Jennings (UC Merced)

    “From Attention to Self”

         4:25 pm – 5:15 pm

Zac Irving (Virginia)

    “Harnessing the Wandering Mind”

https://philevents.org/event/show/71418

May
3
Fri
Rutgers Epistemology Conference 2019 @ Hyatt Regency, Conference rm. BC
May 3 – May 4 all-day

The REC is a pre-read conference. The papers will be made available on April 15.

Friday, May 3, 2019

1:30 – 3:15 pm

    Alex Byrne (MIT)

    Chair: TBD

Coffee Break

3:45 – 5:30 pm

    Susanna Rinard (Harvard)

    Chair: TBD

Dinner

7:30 – 9:15 pm

    Jonathan Kvanvig (Washington University St Louis)

    Chair: TBD

Reception 9:30 – 11:00 PM

Saturday, May 4, 2019

9:30 – 11:15 am

    Anil Gupta (University of Pittsburgh)

    Chair: TBD

Coffee Break

11:45 – 1:30 pm      Winner of the Young Epistemologist Prize

    TBD

    Chair: TBD

Lunch

2:45 – 4:30 pm

    Maria Lasonen-Aarnio (University of Helsinki)

    Chair: TBD

Discussants

Heather Battaly (University of Connecticut)

John Bengson (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Annalisa Coliva (University of California Irvine)

Thomas Kelly (Princeton)

Participants

Chris Copan, Andy Egan, Megan Feeney, Peter Klein, Matthew McGrath, Susanna Schellenberg, Ernie Sosa

The REC is a pre-read conference, so papers are to be read in advance. There is no registration fee for the conference, but please notify Megan Feeney, the conference manager, if you plan to attend by sending an email to rutgersepistemologyconference@gmail.com. If you wish to participate in the meals, please send a check made out to “Rutgers University” to Megan Feeney by April 15 ($80 if you are a faculty member or a postdoc; $60 if you are a graduate student or an undergraduate): Megan Feeney; Rutgers Epistemology Conference; 106 Somerset St, 5th Floor; New Brunswick, NJ 08901.

Debate: Is Psychoanalysis Relevant to Neuroscience? @ Cantor Film Center
May 3 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Speakers:

Cristina Alberini (NYU, Neural Science)
Heather Berlin (Mt. Sinai, Psychiatry)
Mark Solms (Cape Town, Neuropsychology)
Robert Stickgold (Harvard, Psychiatry)

May
16
Thu
Conference in Honor of Jerry Fodor @ Academic Building, Room 1180, Rutgers
May 16 – May 17 all-day

Thursday, May 16th

9:00-9:30 am Breakfast (Provided)
9:30-9:45 am Opening Remarks, James Swenson, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
9:45-10:45 am Session 1 – Tom Bever, “Foundational cognitive science themes that Jerry explored”
10:45-11:00 am Coffee Break
11:00 am – Noon Session 2 – Rochel Gelman, “Innate learning and beyond: The case of number”
Noon – 2:30 pm Lunch (Not provided, see below for options)
2:30-3:30 pm Session 3 – Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini“What Jerry and I got right about what Darwin got wrong”
3:30-3:45 pm Coffee Break
3:45-4:45 pm Session 4 – David Rosenthal“Fodor’s Representationalism”
4:45-5:45 pm Session 5 – Terry Horgan“Morphological content and chromatic illumination in belief fixation”
6:00 pm Dinner Reception Open to All (6th Floor WEST Wing of the Academic Building)

 

Friday, May 17th

9:00-9:15 am Breakfast (Provided)
9:15-10:15 am Session 6 – Louise Antony, “Not psychological, but not brutely causal either”
10:15-10:30 am Coffee Break
10:30-11:30 am Session 7 – Kevan Edwards“Fodor* on concepts, Frege’s Problem, and the division of explanatory labor”
11:30 am – 12:30 pm Session 8 – Eric Margolis, “Understanding concept nativism”
12:30-3:00 pm Lunch (Not provided, see below for options)
3:00-4:00 pm Session 9 – Susan Schneider, “Conscious machines? A sober-minded approach”
4:00-4:15 pm Coffee Break
4:15-5:15 pm Session 10 – Georges Rey, “Fodor’s mis-guided Quineanism”
5:15-6:15 pm Session 11 – Randy Gallistel“It’s numbers all the way down”
6:15-6:30 pm Closing Remarks

 

Space is limited, so if you plan to attend, please click here to RSVP.

Jun
10
Mon
Rutgers-Bristol Workshop on the Metaphysical Unity of Science @ Rutgers U, Newark. Conklin Hall 455
Jun 10 – Jun 11 all-day

Schedule – June 10th 

(Talks are aprox. 45 minutes with 30 minutes for Q&A)

9:00    Mazviita Chirimuuta, Emergence in Science & the Unity of Science

10:15  Joyce Havstad, TBA

12:00  Lunch, Marcus P&B.  Part of RUN and Newark’s Community Development.

2:00    Ricki Bliss, Fundamentality: From Epistemology to Metaphysics

3:15    Tuomas Tahko, Laws of Metaphysics for Essentialists

 

Schedule – June 11th 

9:00    Kelly Trodgon, Grounding and Explanatory Gaps

10:15  Stuart Glennan, Rethinking Mechanistic Constitution 

12:00  Lunch, Mercato Tomato Pie.

2:00    Alex Franklin,  How Do Levels Emerge?

3:15    Ken Aizawa, New Directions in Compositional Explanation: Two Cases Studies

Abstracts


Mazviita Chirimuuta – Emergence in Science & the Unity of Science

This paper considers the implications of recent accounts of emergent phenomena for the question of the unity of the sciences. I first offer a historical account of physicalism in its different guises since the mid 19th century. Two threads connecting these otherwise quite different views have been the rejection of emergent phenomena and the commitment to the unity of science. In section two I provide an exposition of emergence as presented in recent philosophy of science, where the key claim is that “parts behave differently in wholes”, based on the empirical finding of what Gillett (2016) calls “differential powers.” Gillett argues that the empirical evidence does not yet support the strong emergentist claim that there is downward causation or any other form of influence from the whole system to its constituent parts, but that such evidence might be obtained. In section 3 I propose instead that the question of whether or not the finding of differential powers is taken to provide overwhelming evidence for strong emergence depends on the further interpretation of differential powers, and ultimately on very broad metaphysical commitments. The interpretation of differential powers that is most resistant to objections from opponents of strong emergence involves a rejection of substance ontology, and hence the rejection of physicalism. Thus, as I conclude in section 4, philosophers should not wait in expectation for empirical results that will settle the question of whether or not there is strong emergence.  I offer a preliminary costs/benefits analysis of the different ontologies of differential powers, intended to aid the reader in their decision over the status of strong emergence. On the most radical interpretation, the usual physicalist conception of the unity of science must be rejected, while a different kind of metaphysical wholism stands in its place.

Joyce Havstad, TBC

Ricki Bliss – Fundamentality: from Epistemology to Metaphysics

In this talk, I explore what might follow for the metaphysics of fundamentality if we take seriously certain reasons to believe there is anything fundamental in the first place.

Tuomas Tahko – Laws of Metaphysics for Essentialists

There is a line of thought gathering momentum which suggests that just like causal laws govern causation, there needs to be something in metaphysics that governs metaphysical relations. Such laws of metaphysics would be counterfactual-supporting general principles that are responsible for the explanatory force of metaphysical explanations. There are various suggestions about how such principles could be understood. They could be based on what Kelly Trogdon calls grounding-mechanical explanations, where the role that grounding mechanisms play in certain metaphysical explanations mirrors the role that causal mechanisms play in certain scientific explanations. Another approach, by Jonathan Schaffer, claims to be neutral regarding grounding or essences (although he does commit to the idea that metaphysical explanation is ‘backed’ by grounding relations). In this paper I will assess these suggestions and argue that for those willing to invoke essences, there is a more promising route available: the unificatory role of metaphysical explanation may be accounted for in terms of natural kind essences.

Kelly Trogdon – Grounding and Explanatory Gaps

 Physicalism is the thesis that all mental facts are ultimately grounded by physical facts. There is an explanatory gap between the mental and physical, and many see this as posing a challenge to physicalism. Jonathan Schaffer (2017) disagrees, arguing that standard grounding connections involve explanatory gaps as a matter of course. I begin by arguing that Schaffer and others mischaracterize the explanatory gap between the mental and physical—it chiefly concerns what I call cognitive significance rather than priori implication or related notions. The upshot is that standard grounding connections normally don’t involve explanatory gaps. Then I consider two grounding-theoretic proposals about how to close explanatory gaps in the relevant sense, one involving structural equations (Schaffer 2017) and the other mechanisms (Trogdon 2018). While each of these proposals seeks to illuminate grounding connections, I argue that neither is helpful in closing the explanatory gap between the mental and physical.  

Stuart Glennan – Rethinking Mechanistic Constitution

  

The relationship between a mechanisms and its working parts is known as mechanistic constitution.   In this paper we review the history of the mechanistic constitution debate, starting with Salmon’s original account, and we  explain what we take to be the proper lessons to be drawn from the extensive literature surrounding Craver’s mutual manipulability account.  Based on our analysis, we argue that much of the difficulty in understanding the mechanistic constitution relation arises from a failure to recognize two different forms of mechanistic constitution — corresponding to two different kinds of relationships between a mechanism and the phenomenon for which it is  responsible.  First, when mechanisms produce phenomena, the mechanism’s parts are diachronic stages of the process by which entities act to produce the phenomenon.  Second, when mechanisms underlie some phenomenon, the phenomenon is a activity of a whole system, and the mechanism’s parts are those of the working entities that synchronically give rise to the phenomenon.  Attending to these different kinds of constitutive  relations will clarify the circumstances under which mechanistic phenomena can be said to occur at different levels.

Alex Franklin – How Do Levels Emerge?

 Levels terminology is employed throughout scientific discourse, and is crucial to the formulation of various debates in the philosophy of science. In this talk, I argue that all levels are, to some degree, autonomous. Building on this, I claim that higher levels may be understood as both emergent from and reducible to lower levels. I cash out this account of levels with a case study. Nerve signals are on a higher level than the individual ionic motions across the neuronal membrane; this is (at least in part) because the nerve signals are autonomous from such motions. In order to understand the instantiation of these levels we ought to identify the mechanisms at the lower level which give rise to such autonomy. In this case we can do so: the gated ion channels and pumps underwrite the autonomy of the higher level.

Ken Aizawa – New Directions in Compositional Explanation: Two Cases Studies

The most familiar approach to scientific compositional explanations is that adopted by the so-called “New Mechanists”. This approach focuses on compositional explanations of processes of wholes in terms of processes of their parts. In addition, the approach focuses on the use of so-called “interlevel interventions” as the means by which compositional relations are investigated. By contrast, on the approach I adopt, we see that there are compositional explanations of individuals in terms of their parts and properties of individuals in terms of the properties of their parts. In addition, I draw attention to the use of abductive methods in investigations of compositional relations. I illustrate my approach by use of Robert Hooke’s microscopic investigations of the cork and the development of the theory of the action potential.

Sep
13
Fri
Balzan Conference: Dworkin’s Late Work @ Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, 9th Flr Furman Hall
Sep 13 – Sep 14 all-day

Ronald Dworkin’s work always spanned a wide array of topics, from the most abstract jurisprudence through the details of American constitutional law all the way over to political philosophy and theories of justice and equality. In the last decades of his life, however, Dworkin’s work flowered in ways that went beyond even this prodigious range. Though he continued his central work in the philosophy of law and constitutional theory, he also addressed issues in international law, human dignity, the philosophy of religion, the relation between ethics, morality and legal theory, and the unity of practical thought generally. This conference will explore some of these themes in Dworkin’s late work. Beginning with a panel on his understanding of religion, we will also convene discussions of his work on legal integrity, international law, and the relation between law and morality. There will be a total of nine presentations, with plenty of time for discussion. All are welcome.

Panel 1 (Friday 1:30 p.m.): Dworkin’s Religion without God.
Eric Gregory (Princeton),
Moshe Halbertal (NYU and Hebrew U.) Ronald Dworkin Religion Without God: Morality and the Transcendent
Larry Sager (Texas) Solving Religious Liberty

Panel 2 (Friday 4:30 p.m.): Dworkin on international law.
Samantha Besson (Fribourg)
The Political Legitimacy of International Law: Sovereign States and their International Institutional Order

John Tasioulas (King’s College, London)

Panel 3 (Saturday 10 a.m.): The idea of integrity in Law’s Empire.
Andrei Marmor (Cornell) Integrity in Law’s Empire
Jeremy Waldron (NYU)  The Rise and Decline of Integrity

Panel 4 (Saturday 2:15 p.m.): Law and morality in Justice for Hedgehogs.
Mark Greenberg (UCLA)
What Makes a Moral Duty Legal?  Dworkin’s Judicial Enforcement Theory Versus the Moral Impact Theory

Ben Zipursky (Fordham)

Oct
24
Thu
Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) @ Seminar Room at Gateway Transit Building
Oct 24 – Oct 26 all-day

Ian Hacking wrote that probability is a Janus-faced concept with one face looking toward the world and the other toward the mind. The face looking toward the world is central to laws and explanations in physics (especially quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics) and the special sciences. The face looking toward the mind is central to epistemology and decision theory. This conference concerns both aspects and especially their relation to each other. What is probability that it possesses both aspects? This three-day conference will focus on answering this and related questions.

There is no registration fee and attendance is open to all; however, RSVP is required. Please RSVP here before Oct 15, if you plan to attend. All are welcome!

General information is available here.

Conference Organizers

Barry Loewer (Rutgers)
Denise Dykstra (Rutgers)

Invited Participants

David Albert (Columbia)
Valia Allori (NIU)
Katie Elliott (UCLA)
Ned Hall (Harvard)
Carl Hoefer (Barcelona)
Jenann Ismael (Columbia)
Christopher Meacham (Amherst)
Wayne Myrvold (Western)
Richard Pettigrew (Bristol)
Jack Spencer (MIT)

Schedule Overview

(A detailed schedule is available here.)

Thursday, October 24

  • 3:00 – 6:00: Metaphysics of Objective Probability: Ned Hall (Harvard); Jenann Ismael (Columbia).

Friday, October 25

  • 9:00 – 9:50: Breakfast in the philosophy department
  • 9:50 – 10:00: Welcome & Introductory Remarks (Barry Loewer)
  • 10:00 – 1:00: Chance: Katie Elliott (UCLA); Christopher Meacham (Amherst).
  • 1:00 – 2:30: Lunch
  • 2:30 – 5:30: Probabilities in the Special Sciences: Carl Hoefer (Barcelona); Wayne Myrvold (Western Ontario).

Saturday, October 26

  • 9:00 – 10:00: Breakfast in the philosophy department
  • 10:00 – 1:00: Chance-Credence Principles: Richard Pettigrew (Bristol); Jack Spencer (MIT).
  • 1:00 – 2:30: Lunch
  • 2:30 – 5:30: Typicality and the Statistical Postulate: David Albert (Columbia); Valia Allori (NIU).

Please contact the conference organizers (LawsAndChanceProject@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

Conference Poster

Nov
8
Fri
Conference on Issues in Modern Philosophy: Normativity @ Kimmel Center, Room 914
Nov 8 – Nov 9 all-day

Speakers and Commentators