Physicists and philosophers question the validity of one of the most observed and seemingly obvious appearance in our world: that time flows. Many in the physics and philosophy communities contend that the flow of time is not a fundamental feature of the world, nor even a fact of the world, but is an illusion. As a case in point, we will consider Brian Greene’s view of time in his PBS exposition “The Elegant Universe” holding that time may not flow, the past may not be gone, the future may already exist, and that now is not special. Most people, as observers of time’s passage, might agree with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who expressed the idea that all is change and that change occurs with the flow of time. I will explore some of the motivation and reasons given for these positions and contrast the arguments made for each viewpoint.
The schedule: a short presentation on topic of 3-D Printing, and then Stuart’s presentation for about 1 hr. plus time for questions. It is necessary to register beforehand to be admitted.
CV: Stuart Kurtz graduated from MIT with an SB in Chemical Engineering and from Princeton with an MS degree in Polymer Engineering and an MA and PhD. in Chemical Engineering. He taught at RPI and in Brazil as Professor Titular in Materials Engineering. This was followed by a research career in industry accumulating around 30 patents and publishing at least a few good papers. He now focuses on Philosophy of Science and Physics and climbing mountains because they are there. He has spoken to the Lyceum Society many times; most recently in January, 2018 he spoke on the topic: Lessons from Science Lysenko, Velikovsky and the Demarcation Problem; In February, 2018 he spoke on Geoengineering for Climate Change Mitigation. In December, 2018 he reviewed the Nobel Prize in Physics for that year.
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.
Various programmes and results in the philosophy/foundations of spacetime theories illustrate themes from reductionism and functionalism in general philosophy of science. I will focus on some programmes and results about how the physics of matter contributes to determining, or even determines, or even explains, chrono-geometry. I hope to say something about most of the following examples: in the philosophical literature, Robb (1914), and Mundy (1983); and in the physics literature: Barbour and Bertotti (1982); Hojman, Kuchar and Teitelboim (1976); Dull, Schuller et al. (2012, 2018); and Gomes & Shyam (2016).
Presented by Metro Area Philosophers of Science
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Armin Schulz (University of Kansas)
Details: 4:30-6:30pm Wednesday Oct 9; 3rd floor seminar room, 5 Washington Place (NYU).
Title: TBD.
Abstract: TBD.
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Christopher Weaver (University of Illinois)
Details: 4:30-6:30pm Wednesday Nov 13; 3rd floor seminar room, 5 Washington Place (NYU).
Title: TBD.
Abstract: TBD.
8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
9 – 9:15 a.m. | Opening remarks: Shiloh Whitney, Conference Director |
Session 1 – Organic Affectivity and Animality Moderator: Emilia Angelova, Concordia University |
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9:15 – 10 a.m. | Hermanni Yli-Tepsa, University of Jyväskylä: “How to feel like our eyes: tracing the theme of instinctive affectivity in Phenomenology of Perception” |
10 – 10:45 a.m. | Sarah DiMaggio, Vanderbilt University: “Flesh and Blood: Reimagining Kinship” |
10:45 – 11 a.m. | Break |
Session 2 – Passivity Moderator: Philip Walsh, Fordham University |
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11 – 11:45 a.m. | David Morris, Concordia University: “The Transcendentality of Passivity: Affective Being and the Contingency of Phenomenology as Institution” |
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Rajiv Kaushik, Brock University “Merleau-Ponty on Passivity and the Limit of Philosophical Critique” |
12:30 – 2 p.m. | Lunch Break |
Session 3 – Theorizing Emotion 1: Outside-in, Inside-Outside Moderator: Duane H. Davis, University of North Carolina at Asheville |
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2 – 2:45 p.m. | Ed Casey, Stonybrook University: “Bringing Edge to Bear: Vindicating Merleau-Ponty’s Nascent Ideas on Emotion” |
2:45 – 3:30 p.m. | Ondřej Švec, Charles University Prague: “Acting out one’s emotion” |
3:30 – 3:45 p.m. | Break |
Session 4 – Theorizing Emotion 2: Intersubjective Dimensions Moderator: April Flakne, New College of Florida |
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3:45 – 4:30 p.m. | Jan Halák, Palacky University Olomouc: “On the diacritical value of expression with regard to emotion” |
4:30 – 5:15 p.m. | Corinne Lajoie, Penn State University: “The equilibrium of sense: Levels of embodiment and the (dis)orientations of love” Winner of the M. C. Dillon Award for best graduate essay |
5:15 – 5:45 p.m. | Snack Break (light refreshments provided) |
Thursday Keynote Introduction: Shiloh Whitney, Fordham University |
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5:45 – 7:15 p.m. | Alia Al-Saji, McGill University “The Affective Flesh of Colonial Duration” |
8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
Session 5 – Affective Pathologies and Empathy Moderator: Lisa Käll, Stockholm University |
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9 – 9:45 a.m. | Ståle Finke, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim: “Structuring Affective Pathology: Merleau-Ponty and Psychoanalysis” |
9:45 – 10:30 a.m. | Catherine Fullarton, Emory University: “Empathy, Perspective, Parallax” |
10:30 – 10:45 a.m. | Break |
Session 6 – Eating and Breathing Moderator: Ann Murphy, University of New Mexico |
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10:45 – 11:30 a.m. | Whitney Ronshagen, Emory University: “Visceral Relations: On Eating, Affect, and Sharing the World” |
11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Amie Leigh Zimmer, University of Oregon: “Rethinking Chronic Breathlessness Beyond Symptom and Syndrome” |
12:15 – 2 p.m. | Lunch Break (and graduate student Mentoring Session in Lowenstein 810) |
Session 7 – Critical Phenomenologies 1: Work and Freedom Moderator: Whitney Howell, La Salle University |
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2 – 2:45 p.m. | Talia Welsh, University of Tennessee Chattanooga: “Toward a Critical Phenomenology of Work and Its Discontents” |
2:45 – 3:30 p.m. | Laura McMahon, Eastern Michigan University: “The ‘Great Phantom’: Merleau-Ponty on Habitus, Freedom, and Political Transformation” |
3:30 – 3:45 p.m. | Break |
Session 8 – Critical Phenomenologies 2: The “I Can” Moderator: Cheryl Emerson, SUNY Buffalo |
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3:45 – 4:30 p.m. | Kym Maclaren, Ryerson University: “Criminalization and the Self-Constituting Dynamics of Distrust” |
4:30 – 5:15 p.m. | Joel Reynolds, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Lauren Guilmette, Elon University: “Rethinking the Ableism of Affect Theory with Merleau-Ponty” |
5:15 – 5:45 p.m. | Snack Break (light refreshments provided) |
Friday Keynote Introduction: Shiloh Whitney, Fordham University |
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5:45 – 7:15 p.m. | Matthew Ratcliffe, York University “Towards a Phenomenology of Grief: Insights from Merleau-Ponty” |
8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
Session 9 – Feeling Beyond Humanism Moderator: Wayne Froman, George Mason University |
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9 – 9:45 a.m. | Marie-Eve, Morin, University of Alberta. “Merleau-Ponty’s ‘cautious anthropomorphism’” |
9:45 – 10:30 a.m. | Jay Worthy, University of Alberta: “Feelings of Adversity: Towards a Critical Humanism” |
10:30 – 10:45 a.m. | Break |
Session 10 – Art and Affect Moderator: Stephen Watson, Notre Dame |
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10:45 – 11:30 a.m. | Veronique Foti, Pennsylvania State University. “Body, Animality, and Cosmos in the Art of Kiki Smith” |
11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Rebecca Longtin, State University of New York New Paltz: “From Stone to Flesh: Affect and the Poetic Ambiguity of the Body” |
12:15 – 2:15 p.m. | Lunch Break (and Business Lunch at Rosa Mexicano, 61 Columbus Ave) |
Session 11 – Voice and Silence Moderator: Gail Weiss, George Washington University |
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2:15 – 3 p.m. | Susan, Bredlau, Emory University. “Losing One’s Voice: Merleau-Ponty and the Lived Space of Conversation” |
3 – 3:45 p.m. | Martina, Ferrari, University of Oregon. “The Laboring of Deep Silence: ‘Conceptless Opening(s),’ the Suspension of the Familiar, and the Dismemberment of the Ego” |
3:45 – 4 p.m. | Break |
Session 12 – Affectivity and Language Moderator: Galen Johnson, University of Rhode Island |
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4 – 4:45 p.m. | Silvana de Souza Ramos, University of São Paulo. “Merleau-Ponty and the Prose of Dora’s World” |
4:45 – 5:30 p.m. | Katie Emery Brown, University of California Berkeley. “Queer Silence in Merleau-Ponty’s Gesture” |
Banquet | |
7 – 10 p.m. | At Salam, 104 W 13th St. |
The philosophical and psychological literature on well-being tend to focus on the prudential value of positive emotions such as pleasure, joy, or gratitude. But how do the negative emotions such as grief fit into our understanding of well-being? It is often assumed that negative emotions are intrinsically bad far us and that we should work toward eliminating them, especially from the perspective of our own well-being.
In this presentation I want to question this assumption by drawing on the ideas of Zhuangzi (a prominent early Daoist thinker from the 4th Century BCE) to argue that negative emotions are not intrinsically bad for us, and that their prudential value or disvalue is context dependent. Zhuangzi’s outlook, with his focus on the flexibility of perspectives and living according to our natural, spontaneous inclinations, gives us reason to reconsider the role of negative emotions in our lives and how we might think about them in a more constructive way.
With responses from: CHRISTOPHER GOWANS (Fordham University)
The Fall dates for the Comparative Philosophy seminar:
September 20 – Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University)
October 11 – Richard Kim (Loyola University, Chicago
November 8 – Sungmoon Kim (City University of Hong Kong)
December 6 – Paul R. Goldin (University of Pennsylvania)
More details (such as titles, abstracts, and respondents) to follow. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy, The City University of New York, Baruch College
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Co-Director, Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy
https://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/
Speakers:
Biyu Jade He (NYU Medical Centre)
Hakwan Lau (UCLA)
Victor Lamme (University of Amsterdam)
Johannes Fahrenfort (University of Amsterdam)
Where in the brain are the neural correlates of perceptual consciousness? Some leading theories of consciousness, including global workspace and higher-order thought theories, hold that these correlates centrally involve prefrontal cortex. Other leading theories, including first-order and integrated information theories, hold that these correlates centrally involve sensory cortices, with prefrontal cortex playing at most a secondary role. In recent years much experimental evidence has been brought to bear on both sides of the question.
In this debate, Hakwan Lau (UCLA) and Biyu Jade He (NYU) will defend the view that neural activity in prefrontal cortex is important for conscious perception, while Victor Lamme (Amsterdam) and Johannes Fahrenfort (Amsterdam) will argue that prefrontal activity is not important for conscious perception.
I will argue, pace a great many of my contemporaries, that there’s something right about Boltzmann’s attempt to ground the 2nd law of thermodynamics in deterministic time-reversal invariant classical dynamics, and that in order to appreciate what’s right about (what was at least at one time) Boltzmann’s explanatory project one has to fully apprehend the nature of (a) microphysical causal structure, (b) time-reversal invariance, and (c) the relationship between Boltzmann entropy and the work of Rudolf Clausius.
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 denise.dykstra@rutgers.edu.
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).
David Albert’s work has been of seminal importance to the foundations of physics, exerting central influence on the direction the field and laying foundations for much of its ongoing development. In celebration of David’s many past and continuing contributions, we will be hosting a conference at Columbia University on the foundations of physics. We expect talks on a range of topics, including the foundations of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, the possible emergence of space and time, the metaphysics of science, and the nature of agency.
Confirmed Speakers
Jeff Barrett (UC Irvine)
Gordon Belot (Michigan)
Craig Callender (UC San Diego)
Sean Carroll (Caltech)
Eddy Chen (UC San Diego)
Sidney Felder (Rutgers)
Alison Fernandes (Dublin)
Shelly Goldstein (Rutgers)
Ned Hall (Harvard)
Barry Loewer (Rutgers)
Tim Maudlin (NYU)
Michael Miller (Toronto)
Alyssa Ney (UC Davis)
Lev Vaidman (Tel Aviv)
David Wallace (Pittsburgh)
Nino Zanghi (Genoa)
Organizing Committee
Alison Fernandes (alison.fernandes@tcd.ie)
Michael Miller (mike.miller@utoronto.ca)
Porter Williams (porterwi@usc.edu)
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The conference is open to the public. Please direct any questions to Porter Williams (porterwi@usc.edu).
Friday, November 15
8:45 am: Breakfast
9:30 am: Jeff Barrett (UC Irvine): Quantum Randomness and Empirical Underdetermination
10:15 am: Shelly Goldstein (Rutgers): Typicality, Humean Probability, and the Mentaculus
11:00: Coffee Break
11:20 am: Craig Callender (UC San Diego): No Time for Time from No-Time
12:05 pm: Alyssa Ney (UC Davis): WFR or QFT?
12:50: Lunch
2:20 pm: Gordon Belot (Michigan): The Mach-Einstein Principle of 1917-1918
3:05 pm: Sean Carroll (Caltech): The Mentaculus as a Causal Network
3:50: Coffee Break
4:10 pm: David Wallace (Pittsburgh): TBA
4:55 pm: Ned Hall (Harvard): Respectful Deflationism
5:45 pm: Adjourn
Saturday, November 16
8:45 am: Breakfast
9:30 am: Lev Vaidman (Tel Aviv): The many-worlds interpretation and the Born rule
10:15 am: Eddy Chen (UC San Diego): Nomic Vagueness
11:00: Coffee Break
11:20 am: Michael Miller (Toronto): Infrared Cancellation and Measurement
12:05 pm: Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin): The Direction of Records
12:50: Lunch
2:20 pm: Sidney Felder (Rutgers): Gödel’s Rotating Solutions, Bilking, and Natural Laws
3:05 pm: Nino Zanghi (INFN Genova): TBA
3:50: Coffee Break
4:10 pm: Tim Maudlin (NYU): S = k ln(B(W)): Boltzmann entropy, the Second Law, and the Architecture of Hell
4:55 pm: Barry Loewer (Rutgers): The Consequence Argument Meets the Mentaculus
5:45 pm: Adjourn
This will be the third (and, time permitting, some material from the fourth) of a series of lectures that I aim to write up formally as a book. We will begin with a brief review of the most familiar theory of Chinese aesthetics: works of art are the products of sensitive human beings who cannot suppress their sincere responses to emotional stimuli. If art is understood as a sincere statement of this kind by a great genius, it stands to reason that, by correctly interpreting the work, one can communicate with that genius’s mind (xin 心) even after his or her death–and, likewise, that an artist today can communicate with audiences yet unborn. Art is thus timeless and offers the possibility of incorporeal immortality. If there is extra time, I will also survey two interrelated phenomena that I call meta-criticism and meta-writing (since there are no technical terms for them in Chinese). Meta-criticism, i.e. criticism of criticism, is a major feature of Chinese theories about art. Meta-criticism must be related to meta-writing, or the practice of writing about writing while exemplifying the very styles and techniques that one recommends: for example, artfully rhyming a couplet about rhyming.
With responses from: SANDRA SHAPSHAY (Hunter College, CUNY)
The Fall dates for the Comparative Philosophy seminar:
September 20 – Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University)
October 11 – Richard Kim (Loyola University, Chicago
November 8 – Sungmoon Kim (City University of Hong Kong)
December 6 – Paul R. Goldin (University of Pennsylvania)
More details (such as titles, abstracts, and respondents) to follow. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy, The City University of New York, Baruch College
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Co-Director, Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy
https://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/