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

Mar
14
Thu
Andrea Long Chu “Females: A Concern “ @ Wolff Conference Room, D1103
Mar 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

“Everyone is female”—this is the first of several “untenable claims” presented by Andrea Long Chu in her forthcoming book Females: A Concern (Verso, 2019). Drawing inspiration from Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto and her forgotten play Up Your Ass, this lecture in numbered theses whips through a variety of ugly objects (films, manifestos, performance art, psychoanalysis, porn, and the alt-right) to give a portrait of femaleness as a universal category of self-ablation against which all politics—even feminist politics—revolts.

Andrea Long Chu is a writer and critic completing her doctorate at New York University. Her writing has appeared, or will soon, in n+1Boston ReviewThe New York TimesNew YorkArtforumBookforumChronicle of Higher Education4ColumnsdifferencesWomen & PerformanceTSQ, and Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Her book Females: A Concern is forthcoming this year from Verso.

People in Support of Women in Philosophy is a group dedicated to the advancement of women and those who experience marginalization within the field of philosophy. Our group meets weekly to workshop papers, help members prepare for conference presentations and seminars, host guest speakers, and in general celebrate the work of our women and gender-non-conforming colleagues and mentors. Men are welcome and encouraged to take part as allies.

Mar
15
Fri
Black Women Philosophers Conference @ Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Grad Center
Mar 15 – Mar 16 all-day

What does a philosopher look like? Inevitably, our mental pictures are shaped by the dominant imagery of the white male marble busts of Greco-Roman antiquity—Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca—and their modern European heirs—Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Mill. Even today Western philosophy is largely male and overwhelmingly white—about 97 percent in the U.S., close to 100 percent in Europe. Diversifying the field requires expanding our corporeal imaginary of its practitioners. This conference, timed to honor Professor Anita Allen-Castellitto (Penn), the first black female President in the 100-year-plus history of the American Philosophical Association, aims to showcase the work of a traditionally under-represented population, challenging these preconceptions. Allen and fifteen other black women will speak on their research across a wide variety of philosophical topics.

ORGANIZED BY:
Charles W. Mills & Linda Martín Alcoff

LIST OF SPEAKERS

Anita Allen-Castellitto, University of Pennsylvania
Kathryn Belle, Penn State University
Emmalon Davis, New School for Social Research
Nathifa Greene, Gettysburg College
Devonya Havis, Canisius College
Janine Jones, University of North Carolina Greensboro
Axelle Karera, Wesleyan University
Michele Moody-Adams, Columbia University
Mickaella Perina, University of Massachusetts Boston
Camisha Russell, University of Oregon
Jackie Scott, Loyola University Chicago
Kris Sealey, Fairfield University
Jameliah Shorter-Bourhanou, Georgia College, College of the Holy Cross
Anika Simpson, Morgan State University
Briana Toole, CUNY Baruch College
Yolonda Wilson, Howard University

Stay tuned for schedule details!

Hosted by: The Center for the Humanities and the PhD Program in Philosophy at the The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Co-sponsored by: The American Philosophical Association Committee on the Status of Black Philosophers, and the Advanced Research Collaborative at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

——————————————
Free and open to the public, but please register for Friday, March 15th here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-women-philosophers-conference-day-1-march-15th-2019-registration-56225763773

Please register for Saturday, March 16th here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-women-philosophers-conference-day-2-march-16th-2019-registration-56225886139

The venue is wheel-chair accessible.

To download a PDF version of the flyer, click here.

Mar
18
Mon
Romina Padró (CUNY): Inferences First. Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Mar 18 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

Two ways of giving an epistemic justification of basic logical principles will be introduced, intuition-based accounts and concept or meaning constitution-based accounts. We will briefly consider different versions of these views and argue that they face parallel dilemmas. While ‘robust’ accounts are subject to what I call the ‘adoption problem,’ ‘weak’ accounts fail to ground our basic inferential dispositions. Either way, intuitions and meaning-constituting rules turn out to be irrelevant. A more general moral for the epistemology of logic and its priorities will be drawn from the discussion.

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
25
Mon
Kit Fine (NYU): A Theory of the Conditional. Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Mar 25 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

Abstract: I provide a truth-maker semantics for the conditional and consider the application to imperative and deontic conditionals.

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
28
Thu
Is it wrong for feminists to pay other women for housework? Johanna Oksala, Pratt @ Wolff Conference Room, NSSR, D1103
Mar 28 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Many philosophers have suggested that the aim of imaginative philosophical inquiry is not to provide right answers, but right questions. This means demonstrating why certain questions are meaningless, based on false assumptions, or become senseless when posed in a wrong context. The question in my title appears to be a good candidate for this type of philosophical inquiry and I will try to show why. However, I will also argue that posing the question is nevertheless important, perhaps not for moral philosophy, but for feminist politics.

The argument proceeds in three stages. In the first section, I will discuss Gabrielle Meagher’s article, Jstor, Spring 2002, ‘Is it Wrong to Pay for Housework?’. I will contend that rather than posing this question as an abstract philosophical question, it is crucial to place it in the specific historical and socio-economic context in which we encounter it today. A thorough politico-economic analysis of paid housework should then open our eyes to the fact that feminists need to make demands that are not merely ameliorative but embody a radically emancipatory future for all women. In the second section, I will critically assess one such demand, the idea of universal basic income (UBI) – a monthly income paid by the government to each member of society regardless of income from other sources and with no conditions attached. My contention is that a feminist demand for UBI could contribute to the attempts to tackle the deep causes behind the growing socio-economic disparities between women, as well as improving the status of unpaid care work, but only in the context of a feminist revolution of everyday life. In the third section, I will ask what such a revolution might entail and return to the question of individual choice. While I insist that scapegoating women who pay other women for housework misses the real political problem, I will nevertheless conclude by suggesting that there are compelling political reasons for feminists to answer the question in my title with a resolute yes.

Apr
1
Mon
What does it mean that Contradiction is the Norm of Truth? Elena Ficara (Paderborn) Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Apr 1 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

In my talk I argue for the thesis CT: contradiction is the norm of truth, and ask about its relevance for contemporary philosophical logic. I first present three positions in the history of philosophy that have advocated some versions of CT, namely Plato’s idea of the “dialectical gymnastics” in the Parmenides (Plato, Parmenides 136 B-E), Aristotle’s notion of dialectics in the Topics (Aristotle, Topics I, 2-3) and Metaphysics (Aristotle, Met III 1, 995 a 24-29), and Hegel’s contradictio est regula veri (Hegel Werke 2, 533), then derive from them some answers to the questions:

What is meant by “contradiction” in CT?

What is meant by “truth” in CT?

What is meant by “norm” in CT?

I will show that to examine the meaning of CT in historical perspective is useful to understand the seeds of genuine glut theories.

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

Apr
8
Mon
Classical Logic and the Strict Tolerant Hierarchy (Chris Scambler) @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Apr 8 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

In this talk I will do three things. First: I will present the central results from Barrio, Pailos and Szmuc’s recent paper “A hierarchy of classical and paraconsistent logics” (forthcoming in the JPL) along with some generalizations derived by observing certain symmetries; second, I will discuss the relation between the strict tolerant logics and classical logic, K3 and LP; third, I will try to convey the exact state of uncertainty about the philosophical significance of the foregoing I find myself in on the day.

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

Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Apr 8 @ 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

Apr
15
Mon
Logic & Metaphysics Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Apr 15 @ 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