Author Archives: Nicholas Cai

“Using Logic To Argue About Logic” by Ben Burgis (27 Mar)

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In a famous letter to Graham Priest and JC Beall, David Lewis declined to be part of an anthology they were editing on the debate about the Law of Non-Contradiction. Twelve years before, Priest’s book ‘In Contradiction’ had put dialetheism—the position that some contradictions are actually true—on the map. By the time the anthology was being put together, a growing number of classical logicians saw Priest’s arguments as a challenge that had to be addressed. Lewis, however, was having none of it. “To conduct a debate, one needs common ground; principles in dispute cannot over course be used as common ground; and in this case, the principles not in dispute are so very much less certain than non-contradiction itself that it matters little whether or not a successful defense of non-contradiction could be based on them.”

If Lewis is right, then the debate about the LNC looks like an instance of epistemic peer disagreement—a disagreement that doesn’t trace back to any asymmetry in the disputants’ access to relevant evidence, or to any asymmetry in their ability to properly evaluate that evidence. Unfortunately, when we try to plug his position into any of the standard views about peer disagreement, the results are extremely counter-intuitive. Happily, I conclude that Lewis is wrong. Despite the apparent difficulties, it is entirely possible to provide rational arguments for basic logical principles.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 27 Mar 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Ben Burgis, Underwood International College
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

croppedBen Burgis is a post-doc at Underwood International College in South Korea. His research interests involve philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, the Liar Paradox, and the question of why “nay” means “no” in English and “yes” in Korean

“Defending Supererogation” by Feng Lin (18 Mar)

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Supererogation is a concept for a class of acts that goes beyond the call of obligation. There is a view called Anti-supererogation claiming that there is no such act that is both morally good while not obligatory. I will defend supererogation by trying to refute arguments for anti-supererogation, and by showing that some morally good acts “cannot” be obligatory and hence they are supererogatory acts.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 18 Mar 2014
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Feng Lin
Moderator: Li Qingyi

About the Speaker:

Feng LinLin Feng’s particular area of research is metaethics, as well as philosophy of language. She is also interested in philosophy of mind, and other topics in Anglo-American philosophy. She has been mainly writing on metaethics, including shame in morality, Darwall’s second-person standpoint and obligation, and Supererogation. Now she is working on faultless disagreement.

“Defending reason-motivation internalism” by Melvin Ng (18 Mar)

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One version of reason-motivation internalism states that if a consideration is a reason for me to Φ, then I must be motivated to Φ, if I were rational.  Julia Markovits challenges reason-motivation internalism with various counter-examples. One class of counter-examples involves things that you purportedly have reason to do, but that you would never be motivated to do, if and because you were rational. My first aim is to refute this class of counter-examples.

My second aim is to explain my motivation for doing so. Markovits makes a distinction between internalism and the thesis that there is a necessary relation between an agentʼs having a reason and some psychological, usually motivational, fact about the agent (what I shall call the Humean Theory of Reason, or HTR). Markovits rejects internalism but endorses HTR. Coming from the position of a moral error-theorist, I shall explain why I would not accept Markovitsʼ uncommon position, and in doing so, explain my motivation for defending internalism.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 18 Mar 2014
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Melvin Ng
Moderator: Feng Lin

About the Speaker:

melvin_ngNg Han Wei Melvin is a part-time M.A. student, whose main interest is in metaethics. He is a moral error theorist. In other words, he believes there are no objective moral facts, and people are by-and-large mistaken about morality. Chat with him to find out how he thinks he can still discuss moral issues if he does not believe there are objectively true answers to moral questions. Alternatively chat with him on any topics in philosophy. He also teaches philosophy to young teenagers in a local secondary school, and is interested in both the philosophy of pedagogy and pedagogy of philosophy.

“Self-Reflection and the Verdictive Organization of Desire” by Derek Baker (20 Mar)

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Deliberation often begins with the question “What do I want to do?” rather than a question about what one ought to do. This paper takes that question at face value, as a question about which of one’s desires is strongest, which sometimes guides action.  The paper aims to explain which properties of a desire make that desire strong, in the sense of strength relevant to this deliberative question.

Both motivational force and phenomenological intensity seem relevant to a desire’s strength; however, accounting for the strength of a desire in terms of these opens up significant indeterminacy about what we want.  The paper argues that this indeterminacy is often resolved simply by posing the question “What do I want to do?” to oneself: there is reason to believe that one’s answer will play a verdictive role, partially determining what the agent most wants.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 20 Mar 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Derek Baker, Lingnan University
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

Photo on 3-3-14 at 11.34 AM #2Derek Baker is an Assistant Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.  He completed his PhD at Princeton University in 2009.  He works on the nature of autonomy, practical rationality, desire, the relation between self-knowledge and freedom, and problems in expressivism.  His papers have been published in Philosophical Studies and Australasian Journal of Philosophy.  He has also served as Associate Editor for AJP since 2012.  He is currently working on a book.  Its most recent working title (which he probably won’t change again) is An Almost Unified Theory of the Self.  He used to have hobbies, but no longer has time for them.

“Mathematical and Musical Notation as Models” by Mark Colyvan (14 Mar)

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Since the demise of formalism in the philosophy of mathematics, notation has ceased to be a topic of philosophical interest. But within mathematics there are lively debates about notation, it’s just that philosophers typically don’t weigh in. I hope to take a small step towards correcting this neglect on the part of philosophers of mathematics. I will look at the roles musical notation plays in composition, performance, and arranging musical pieces and I will argue that there is a great deal of similarity in the functions of mathematical and musical notations. I will argue that both notational systems serve as models of the target system in question (mathematical structures or musical pieces, respectively).

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Friday, 14 Mar 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Mark Colyvan, University of Sydney
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

ColyvanMark Colyvan was awarded a BSc(Hons) in mathematics at the University of New England in 1994 before taking a PhD in philosophy from the Australian National University in 1998. He is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia. His main research interests are in the philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, philosophy of logic, decision theory, and environmental philosophy. He is the author of The Indispensability of Mathematics (Oxford University Press, 2001), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and, with Lev Ginzburg, Ecological Orbits: How Planets Move and Populations Grow (Oxford University Press, 2004). Two of his papers, “Applying Inconsistent Mathematics” and “Mating, Dating, and Mathematics: It’s All in the Game” were selected by Princeton University Press as being among the best writing on mathematics for 2010 and 2012 respectively (in M. Pitici (ed.), The Best Writing on Mathematics, Princeton University Press, 2011/2013). Further information is available from his website: http://www.colyvan.com.

 

“Justification and Reconstructive Memory” by Mary Salvaggio (13 Mar)

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Our memories are not simple recordings of past experiences; they can be affected by our current context as well as background beliefs and other memories. Almost all of the things we remember are not explicitly stored, but are instead constructed or reconstructed when we attempt to recall them. This poses a problem for one of the dominant views of the justification of memory beliefs, preservationism. Preservationism is the view that memory cannot generate justification, but only preserve any original justification a belief had when it was first formed.
Since reconstructive memory is an inferential process, the beliefs it produces are justified in the same way that other inferential beliefs are justified. I will argue that we can retain a preservationist account of reproductive memory as long as we supplement it with an inferential account of reconstructive memory. I will provide just such an integrated account based on a process reliabilist framework. Finally, I will consider alternative views and respond to several objections.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 13 Mar 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Mary Salvaggio, Rutgers University
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

maryMary is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at Rutgers University. Her dissertation work is focused on updating epistemological views of memory in light of the contemporary psychological understanding of human memory as an active, reconstructive process.

Applied Philosophy Workshop (Feb 19)

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Wednesday, 19 February 2014
AS3 05-23 (Philosophy Resource Room), Dept of Philosophy
National University of Singapore

ALL ARE WELCOME

 

14:00 – Welcome / Tea and Coffee

14:15-14:45 – Dr. Satoshi KODAMA (Kyoto University): “Tsunami-tendenko and Morality in Disasters”

14:45-15:15 – Prof. Nobutsugu KANZAKI (Shiga University): “Research(er) Ethics for Conservation”

15:15-15:45 – Prof. Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University): “Evidence in Clinical Trial?”

15:45-16:00 – Break / Tea and Coffee

16:00-16:30 – Prof. Masahiko MIZUTANI (Kyoto University): “Information-sharing technology: EBM and its problems”

16:30-17:00 – A/P Axel GELFERT (National University of Singapore): “Gossip, the Public/Private Distinction, and the Principle of Disattendability”

17:00-17:30 – Minao KUKITA (Kobe University): “A Teleosemantic Approach to the Symbol Grounding Problem”

 

ABSTRACTS:

1) Tsunami-tendenko and Morality in Disasters    Prof. Satoshi KODAMA (Kyoto University)

Disaster planning challenges our morality. Everyday rules of action may need to be suspended during large-scale disasters in favor of maxims that that may make prudential or practical sense and may even be morally preferable but emotionally hard to accept, such as tsunami-tendenko. This maxim dictates that the individual not stay and help others but run and preserve his or her life instead. Tsunami-tendenko became well known after the great East Japan earthquake on 11 March 2011, when almost all the elementary and junior high school students in one city survived the tsunami because they acted on this maxim that had been taught for several years. While tsunami-tendenko has been praised, two criticisms of it merit careful consideration: one, that the maxim is selfish and immoral; and two, that it goes against the natural tendency to try to save others in dire need. In this paper, I will explain the concept of tsunami-tendenko and then respond to these criticisms. Such ethical analysis is essential for dispelling confusion and doubts about evacuation policies in a disaster.

2) Research(er) Ethics for Conservation    Prof. Nobutsugu KANZAKI (Shiga University)

Conservation is a value-laden research/practice.  This means researchers in the area are stakeholders who have their own interests and are not impartial.  And their research/practice can go against the interests of some groups of local stakeholders. In this talk, I will examine ethical issues in conservation research/practice.

3) Evidence in Clinical Trial? Prof. Yasuo Deguchi (Kyoto University)

EBM is becoming the world standard for clinical practices. It incorporates a hierarchal criteria of strength or quality of evidence, or levels of evidence.  This talk examines the idea of evidence that underlies the levels of evidence, points out that it is too narrow to be adopted in the clinical context, and proposes a more pluralistic approach to evidence that are obtained from various sorts of clinical trials

4) Information sharing technology: EBM and its problems? Prof. Masahiko MIZUTANI (Kyoto University)

EBM is a movement which has recently begun to receive attention in the field of medicine. Despite the possibilities and advantages EBM has, it has been pointed out that EBM has several problems. Supporters of EBM claimed that these problems sound plausible only when we completely misunderstand EBM. However, they will have to face with and resolve another remaining problems before they can carry out the idea of improving the degree of scientific evidence in medicine by Information sharing technology.

5) Gossip, the Public/Private Distinction, and the Principle of Disattendability    Dr. Axel Gelfert (NUS)

What liittle philosophical discussion there has been about so-called ‘pathologies of testimony’ has traditionally focussed on the moral issues associated with them. This applies especially to the case of gossip, which typically concerns the – often (though not always) private – conduct of individuals and their morally significant doings. Yet, apart from such moral considerations concerning duties on the part of the hearer, there are also relevant epistemic differences between the various kinds of testimonial pathologies. The issue of privacy enters at different levels, for example at the level of the intended audience (which, in the case of gossip, may be defined negatively: as necessarily excluding the party who is being gossiped about); at the level of content (for example when certain – morally neutral – behaviours of public figures are deemed to be private affairs, as opposed to matters of public interest); and at the level of justification (for example when information lacks official – public – credentials). Once moral considerations are temporarily bracketed, it is much less clear why, say, gossip should primarily be thought of as a violation of (someone’s right to) privacy, when in fact it can be argued that engaging in gossip may be fruitfully considered a form of inquiry (Ayim 1994). For an epistemic discussion of testimonial pathologies such as gossip to be possible without sliding into ‘moralising’ discourse, an epistemically motivated and principled public/private distinction is necessary. One candidate for such a (morally neutral) demarcation criterion is the ‘principle of disattendability’ (Geuss 2003), according to which public (as opposed to private) contexts allow individuals to disattend to each other’s actions and behaviours. Disattendability, thus, is a cognitive, not an ethical notion. The present paper develops this theoretical suggestion in an attempt to arrive at an epistemically motivated assessment of the place of gossip among the taxonomy of testimonial pathologies.

6) A Teleosemantic Approach to the Symbol Grounding Problem   Dr. Minao KUKITA (Kobe University)

In 1990, Harnad, in response to Searle’s Chinese room argument, tackled the problem of how an artificial system associate the symbols they manipulate to the things in the real world and proposed a guideline for it. He called it “the symbol grounding problem” and since then, many AI researchers and roboticists have been attempting various approaches to it. In evaluating these approaches, researchers must assume some kind of theory of meaning in advance, but it is often unclear what kind of theory of meaning they are adopting. In this talk, we explore the possibility of applying teleosemantics as proposed by Millikan to the evaluation of the language game model by Vogt and others. By associating teleosemantics and the language game model, we show how good the model is from the teleosemantic point of view, and at the same time argue for teleosemantics as a theory of meaning due to its applicability to the language game model.

“Moderately Naturalistic Metaphysics” by Tuomas Tahko (20 Feb)

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The paper discusses different approaches to metaphysics and defends a specific, non-deflationary approach that nevertheless qualifies as scientifically-grounded and, consequently, as acceptable from the naturalistic viewpoint. By critically assessing some recent work on science and metaphysics, we argue that such a sophisticated form of naturalism, which preserves the autonomy of metaphysics as an a priori enterprise yet pays due attention to the indications coming from our best science, is not only workable but recommended.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 20 Feb 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Tuomas Takho, Research Fellow, Academy of Finland / Adjunct Professor, University of Helsinki
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

Tahko_smallTuomas E. Tahko is a Finnish Academy Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in metaphysics and its methodology, is the editor of Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics (CUP, 2012), and is currently writing the Cambridge Introduction to Metametaphysics. His recent articles include “Soames’s Deflationism About Modality” (Erkenntnis 78, no. 6, 2013), “Truth-Grounding and Transitivity” (Thought 2, no. 4, 2013), and “Boring Infinite Descent” (Metaphilosophy, forthcoming). More details at www.ttahko.net.

 

“What is the scope of aesthetic experience?” by Nico Silins (13 Feb)

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In the first half of the talk, I examine

Blindspot: you only experience a part of a work of art if you attend to it.

I critically examine support for Blindspot one might draw from discussions in the philosophy of mind of “inattentional blindness”. I also discuss whether some artistic practice presupposes that Blindspot is false.

In the second half of the talk, I examine

Surface: if you can’t tell two works of art or experiences of art apart, then they have the same value for you.

Surface applies to experiences as well as works of art and other entities. I review how one might support Surface, and then reject Surface in light of discussions in the philosophy of mind of “change blindness”.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 13 Feb 2014
Time: 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Nico Silins, Cornell University / Yale-NUS College
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

nicholas-silinsNicholas Silins is Associate Professor at Yale-NUS College and at Cornell University. He has also been a Research Fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, and a Bersoff Fellow at New York University. His research has been primarily in epistemology and the philosophy of mind, with a focus on understanding perception and how we learn from perception.

Aesthetics Workshop (28 Jan)

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Robert Stecker, “Film Narration, Imagined Seeing, and Seeing-In” (1pm – 2pm)

This talk initially addresses the debate about whether we imagine seeing characters and their actions in films. There are several different imagined seeing theses that have been advanced. What I shall call the general thesis is simply that we imagine, in some manner or other, seeing characters in films. I bypass the standard objections that have already advanced against this thesis, to argue that the concept of seeing-in can be used to develop an alternative account of our experience of fictional films that has all of the advantages of the general imagined seeing thesis, but none of the purported problems.
I then turn to another, more controversial imagined seeing thesis which asserts that in engaging with mainstream narrative films, we do not imagine seeing characters directly, but through a motion-picture-like medium. Call this the mediated version. This version is important because it is a crucial step in arguing that mainstream films typically have narrators. I offer three objections to this thesis and show that an argument for the thesis offered by George Wilson can be undercut if we adopt the seeing-in account.
Finally, I ask about the actual contribution of the imagination in the reception of narrative films. It is plausible that our emotional involvement with a film-fiction requires at least propositional imagining The seeing-in view is compatible with the idea that there are many aspect of a fiction that we propositionally imagine. I distinguish three kinds or degrees of imaginative involvement in a fiction world, and, based on this distinction, try to resolve a debate about the nature of emotional responses to fiction.

Ben Blumson, “Simile and Metaphor” (2pm – 3pm)

Not every metaphor can be literally paraphrased by a corresponding simile – the metaphorical meaning of ‘Juliet is the sun’, for example, is not the literal meaning of ‘Juliet is like the sun’. But every metaphor can be literally paraphrased, since if ‘metaphorically’ is prefixed to a metaphor, the result says literally what the metaphor says figuratively – the metaphorical meaning of ‘Juliet is the sun’, for example, is the literal meaning of ‘metaphorically, Juliet is the sun’.

John Holbo, “Pictoriality as Pandemonium” (3pm – 4pm)

In “Pictorial Diversity”, John Kulvicki argues that the lack of a certain sort of interpretive diversity, in practice, needs explanation, and some theories are better situated, others worse, to provide it. This paper argues that the shoe is on the other foot. The diversity Kulvicki finds peculiarly absent is exceedingly common. We habitually apply competing schemes, of the sort he says we do not, without noticing we are doing so, or how. A puzzle: why can’t we say what shape Charlie Brown’s head is? How long is the long-necked Madonna’s neck? And a hypothesis: recognitional pandemonium? Even if the hypothesis is too speculative, the diversity it seeks to explain is real.

Date: Tuesday, 28 Jan 2014
Time: 1pm – 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)