The theme of our conference, “Thinking and Living the Good Life,” asks participants to think upon what it means to live well in contemporary society, how we can know the right or best way to live, and the role of thought in the enterprise of human life. Evocative of ancient theories of virtue, the theme of the good life also bears on prominent areas of discussion in contemporary political philosophy, epistemology, and metaphysics. Papers topics may include, but are not limited to: the relationship between political structures and the shared goal of realizing a common good; the complexities that arise in trying to achieve knowledge of the good; and the nature of the good in and of itself. Our conference aims to bring together graduate students that work in different areas in order to think through this singular theme of the good life and to search for commonalities and intersections amongst a broad array of approaches.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to fordhamredstarline@gmail.com by December 20, 2018. Authors of selected papers will be notified by January 10, 2019.
Keynote speakers:
Organisers:
Conference Schedule
Friday May 10
- 1pm: Rachel Goodman (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Introductory Overview1:30pm: Jake Quilty-Dunn (University of Oxford)
On Elisabeth Camp’s “Putting Thoughts to Work”4:30pm: John Kulvicki (Darmouth College)
On Jacob Beck’s “Perception is Analog”
Saturday May 11
- 1pm: Jacob Beck (York University)
On Jake Quilty-Dunn’s “Perceptual Pluralism”4pm: Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers University)
On John Kulvicki’s “Modeling the Meanings of Pictures”
The Five Essential Readings for the Conference
The conference is predicated on the assumption that everyone in attendance will have read all five of these essays:
- John Haugeland, Representational Genera
- Elisabeth Camp, Putting Thoughts to Work
- Jacob Beck, Perception Is Analog
- Jake Quilty-Dunn, Perceptual Pluralism
- John Kulvicki, Modeling The Meanings of Pictures (excerpt)
Some Helpful Background Readings
Here are ten additional readings that help to fill in some of the background to the topics that will be discussed at the conference. Those new to these topics might start with the Kulvicki, Camp, and Giardino and Greenberg readings, and then move on to the others.
- John Kulvicki, Images in Mind
- Elisabeth Camp, Thinking With Maps
- Valeria Giardino and Gabriel Greenberg, Introduction: Varieties of Iconicity
- John Haugeland, Analog and Analog
- Fred Dretske, Sensation and Perception
- Jerry Fodor, Preconceptual Representation
- Michael Rescorla, Cognitive Maps and the Language of Thought
- Tyler Burge, Origins of Perception
- Tyler Burge, Steps Towards Origins of Propositional Thought
- Jacob Beck, The Generality Constraint and the Structure of Thought
- Whit Schonbein, Varieties of Analog and Digital Representation
If you have any questions about the conference, please contact Zed Adams at zed@newschool.edu.
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.
There is a broad consensus that Aristotle introduced the concept of matter in order to develop a consistent account of substantial change. However, it is disputed which role matter fulfills in substantial change. According to the traditional interpretation, matter persists while taking on or losing a substantial form. According to a rival interpretation, matter does not persist in substantial change; instead, it is an entity from which a new substance can emerge and which ceases to exist in this process. In my view, both interpretations are problematic in the light of Aristotle’s broader ontological project and are at odds with the way Aristotle describes the substantial generation of living beings. On the basis of Aristotle’s biological theory, I will suggest that Aristotelian matter is a continuant in substantial generation, but does not satisfy the common criteria for persistence that apply to individual substances.
Anna Schriefl
Anna Schriefl is Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (assistant professor) at the University of Bonn, and currently a visiting scholar at the New School. She has published a book about Plato’s criticism of money and wealth, and most recently an introduction into Stoicism (both in German).
Selected speakers:
The workshop, which is now in its 10th year, aims to foster exchange and collaboration among scholars, students, and anyone with an interest in Early Modern Philosophy. This year’s workshop will focus on the topic of “Mind, Body, Passion” in Early Modern Philosophy (roughly the period from 1600-1800).
We welcome submissions on the conference topic, which may be broadly construed to include mind-body identity, mind-body interaction, embodiment, philosophy of emotion, aesthetics, etc. For consideration, please submit abstracts of 250-300 words to newyorkcityearlymodern@gmail.com no later than December 31, 2019.
Keynote speakers:
Organisers:
Free Will
Implications from Physics and Metaphysics
The workshop will be hybrid, and anyone interested can participate through Zoom, although there will be limited spots for in-person participants. If you are interested in attending in-person, please reply to this email or write to loewer@philosophy.rutgers.edu.
Barry Loewer (loewer@philosophy.rutgers.edu) Assistant: Diego Arana (diego.arana@rutgers.edu)
Program (All times are EST)
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/freewillzoom
iCal: https://tinyurl.com/freewillical
May 11
10:00am Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame, Duke)
Ginet’s Principle: Our freedom is the freedom to add to the
given past.
11:30am John Perry (Stanford)
Causation, Entailment and Freedom
3:00pm Barry Loewer (Rutgers)
The Consequence Argument Meets the Mentaculus
4:30pm Carlo Rovelli (Aix-Marseille, UWO)
Free will: Back to Reichenbach
May 12
10:00am Kadri Vihvelin (USC)
Why We can’t Change the Past
11:30am Valia Allori (NIU)
Freedom from the Quantum?
3:00pm Tim O’Connor (Indiana, Baylor)
Top-Down and Indeterministic Agency: Why?
4:30pm Jessica Wilson (Toronto)
Two Routes to the Emergence of Free Will
Susan Neiman develops in Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy (2002, Princeton: Princeton University Press) a watershed perspective on the longstanding problem of evil, the perniciously difficult to satisfy “need to find order within those appearances so unbearable that they threaten reason’s ability to go on.” The book thereby also presents a radically new perspective on traditional debates within metaphysics. On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, we gather to celebrate her accomplishment and to advance the research program it reflects. Participants will include, in addition to Neiman herself: Annalise Acorn, Frederick Beiser, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, Omri Boehm, Dan Brudney, Caroline Bynum, Lorraine Daston, Michael Della Rocca, Wendy Doniger, Wolfram Ellenberger, John Faithful Hamer, Carey Harrison, Patricia Kitcher, Philip Kitcher, Christia Mercer, Cornel West, Allen Wood, and James Wood.
Western metaphysics is based on the opposition between reality and appearance. This construction essentially rests on a visual model, or more exactly on some staging of what visual experience is.
I am going to question the basis of this metaphysics, by taking into account the reality of appearances and reflecting on their various uses, in particular artistic ones. This path will be taken in the first place by shifting the focus of philosophical analysis from visual to acoustic models. Thus, I will envisage a realism of echoes, as opposed to the metaphysics of shadows.
Biography:
Jocelyn Benoist, born in 1968, is Professor at the university Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he teaches Contemporary Philosophy, and currently a member of the ‘Institut Universitaire de France’. He has dedicated his early work to phenomenology and the bridges between phenomenology and early Analytic philosophy. For some time he was the Director of the Husserl Archive of Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Then, he developed a personal investigation into the meaning of realism in philosophy. He has published many books, including recently: Toward a Contextual Realism, H.U.P., 2021, and Von der Phänomenologie zum Realismus, Mohr Siebeck, 2022.