Category Archives: Graduate Seminar Series

Graduate Research Seminar Talks by Jeremias Koh, Nicole Kuong and Farooq Jamil Alvi

Posted on by

Date:10 April 2018
Time: 2-5pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3-05-23)

2pm to 3pm: Jeremias Koh, NUS, “Scalarity Across Normative Domains”

Abstract:
In his paper “Scalar Consequentialism the Right way” (2017), Neil Sinhababu argues that ordinary thought supports the notion that the rightness of moral action is a scalar property, and develops a consequentialist theory that accounts for this. After briefly explaining the relevant aspects of Sinhababu’s arguments, I’ll consider how they can be combined with those made by Brian McElwee (2017) in “Supererogation Across Normative Domains”, as well as some implications of this combination for epistemic normativity.

About the speaker:
Jeremias is a Master’s student at the NUS Department of Philosophy. His current research interests are in moral philosophy. His broader interests include Chinese and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

3pm to 4pm: Nicole Kuong, NUS, “Zarathustra’s reactive attitudes towards Eternal Recurrence”

Abstract:
“The most abysmal thought” and “the heaviest weight” are the words Nietzsche used to describe the doctrine of eternal recurrence. Although the doctrine is believed to give people an attitudinal orientation, it is presented as a cosmological thought in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Within this narrative, the readers follow Zarathustra’s journey in coming to terms with this radical world view. It is the purpose of this paper to examine this highly emotional journey towards eternal recurrence, from its revelation to its final acceptance. Zarathustra’s emotions, although mentioned by scholars, are often overlooked for their significance in understanding the developmental process of his embracement of eternal recurrence and eventually becoming “the teacher” of this doctrine. I further draw a connection between Zarathustra’s emotional reactions in the narrative and Peter Strawson’s seminal theory of reactive attitudes. In doing so, it is my hope to tease out Nietzsche’s use of particular literary devices in order to construct an interpersonal framework that allows Zarathustra to fully commit to eternal recurrence, and eventually to love life.

About the speaker:
Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy and Literature from University of Warwick, UK. Her main research interests are in Nietzsche, philosophy of literature and Chinese philosophy. Other interests include ethics and continental philosophy.

4pm to 5pm: Farooq Jamil Alvi, NUS, “The phenomenal world of imagination”

Abstract:
The aim of my talk is to make a persuasive case for a crucial role of phenomenology within imagination. Specifically, I will argue that there can be no changes to what is imagined without a change in the phenomenology of that imagining. The representationalist framework of mind will serve as the basis for this thesis. Accordingly, I will argue my case by focusing on showing why we should consider it plausible to hold that the representational content of an imagining is derived from the phenomenal character of the imagining. This is a specific application of the Phenomenal Intentionality thesis to the act of imagination. I will further support this claim by investigating the Cognitive Phenomenology thesis as it applies to sensory phenomenology within imagination.

My purpose is to provide support to accounts of imagination that argue for the necessary nature of sensory phenomenology within imagination, such as the one advanced by Kind (2001). These are accounts of imagination with much controversy. I argue that this arises because such accounts are beset by a fundamental worry: if sensory phenomenology is inextricable from imagination, what exactly is its supposed role within an imagining? By focusing on phenomenology in general (not just of the sensory type), I contend that we will be able to diffuse this controversy and bring such theories of imagination on more stable footing.

The talk is based on a paper in progress and will provide ample opportunity for discussion. Given the subject, the talk intends to make use of a number of enticing metaphors and visual examples to illustrate the key points.

About the speaker:
Farooq has a cross-disciplinary background, with a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering and nearly a decade in the corporate world focusing on market innovation and strategic communications. His interest in Philosophy stems from his desire to challenge the assumptions underlying much of his practical knowledge and experience. He aims to question the very questions that are considered answered in traditional empirical frameworks. His specific area of interest is Philosophy of Mind, with a current focus on phenomenal consciousness.

All are welcome

Grounding the Independence Principle: The Case of Self-Evidencing Explanations by Bernadette Chin Siew Hui

Posted on by

Grounding the Independence Principle: The Case of Self-Evidencing Explanations

The Independence Principle plays a crucial role in the Equal Weight View: if we have independent grounds for believing the best explanation of a disagreement is that our peer has erred, then we are not required to give their beliefs equal weight. Similar independence requirements appear elsewhere: for instance, in the literature on irrational influences. But what grounds the Independence Principle? Christensen argues for the Independence Principle on the grounds that it would be circular to appeal to the mere fact of disagreement to discount a peer’s beliefs. In this paper, I draw on the case of self-evidencing explanations in the philosophy of science to argue that while such argumentative moves are circular, they do not seem to be problematically circular. But how then can we account for the intuitive appeal and effectiveness of independence requirements? I argue that an illuminating parallel can be drawn with the philosophy of science: the case of the experimenter’s regress seems to highlight that what really grounds independence requirements is an appeal to robustness. The Independence Principle itself does no substantive work.

Date: 14 March 2017
Time: 2pm to 5pm
Venue: Philosophy Meeting Room AS3-05-23

About the speaker:
Bernadette is currently working towards a MA in Philosophy. Although her thesis pertains to the philosophy of science, her research interests include epistemology, the philosophy of cognitive science, and the philosophy of technology.

 

All are welcome

Madhyamaka and Hume: A Comparative Appraisal of Sceptical Approaches by David Premsharan

Posted on by

Given its resistance to positive metaphysical assertions, contemporary interpretations of Madhyamaka are prone to casting the enterprise as sceptical. This tendency has given rise to comparative work in which Hume and foremost Madhyamaka figures such as Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti are placed in the same ‘sceptical family’ owing to the commonalities in their sceptical approaches and outcomes. While it is evident that there are ostensible thematic similarities that obtain between Humean scepticism and certain elements present in Madhyamaka, I contend that it is problematic, or at least ill-advised, to characterize Madhyamaka itself as a sceptical enterprise.

This is due primarily to the following: firstly, that there are reliable means of knowledge (pramāṇa) which are both acknowledged and legitimated in the Madhyamaka corpus, which run counter to Hume’s genealogical-sceptical assertions; and secondly, the fact that a Madhyamaka adherent simply does not have the doxastic luxury of exercising Humean scepticism given his or her soteriological commitments. Consequently, the task of tracing a common sceptical filament that runs through Hume and Nāgārjuna or Candrakīrti, should be jettisoned. It is hoped that the ground-clearing task with regards to Madhyamaka vis-à-vis scepticism, will also generate insights regarding Hume’s sceptical project; in particular, the tension and possible reconciliation of both its negative and constructive phases.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 5 Apr 2016
Time: 3.30 pm – 5 pm
Venue: Philosophy Meeting Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: David Premsharan
Moderator: Jeremy Huang

About the Speaker:

David is currently pursuing his M.A. in Philosophy at NUS, where he works primarily in Buddhist epistemology, and engages in comparative work involving Madhyamaka thought. His research interests include Indian philosophical traditions more generally, methodological concerns in comparative philosophy, and extend to critical and postcolonial inquiry.

Master Hanfei Disapproves (of Confucian Meritocracy) by Jeremy Huang

Posted on by

Confucian Meritocracy is a specific form of political meritocracy proposed by scholars of Chinese political philosophy. Proponents of Confucian Meritocracy aim to establish a system that selects and promotes Confucian Moral Exemplars (Junzi) to positions of political power. In this paper, I formulate three arguments against Confucian Meritocracy using conceptual resources in the Legalist (Fa Jia) text, Hanfeizi, especially from parts of the text that were presented, overtly or otherwise, as polemic against Confucianism. First, Hanfeizi argues that we ought to be suspicious of claims that governance and political leadership require moral virtues; I call this The Moral Cynic Argument. Second, Hanfeizi argues that a political system designed to rely heavily on the virtues and competency of individuals is both unreliable and unsustainable; I call this The Stump-Watcher Argument. Finally, Hanfeizi argues that those skilled in rhetoric and persuasion can easily game any system that attempts to select and promote government officials on the basis of merit or virtue; I call this The Skilled Persuader Argument.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 5 Apr 2016
Time: 2 pm – 3.30 pm
Venue: Philosophy Meeting Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Jeremy Huang
Moderator: Lee Wilson

About the Speaker:

 

Jeremy has left his BA in History behind and is now pursuing his MA in Philosophy. His primary research interest is Pre-Qin Chinese Philosophy, but he is also interested in Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, Modern Chinese Philosophy and History of Philosophy.

“On Putnam’s Account of the Precondition of Reference” by Tay Qing Lun (Apr 7)

Posted on by

In ‘Brains in a Vat’, Hilary Putnam argues that causal relations are a precondition of reference, and granted this point, the falsity of certain kinds of skeptical scenarios follow. I argue that his thesis is problematic, as it leads to an unacceptable conclusion: mathematical claims will end up false. Following that, I hope to show how some ways of salvaging his thesis may work, but only at the cost of his thesis’s anti-skeptical force.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Tay Qing Lun
Moderator: Theresa Helke

About the Speaker:

TayQingLun - PhotoQing Lun is pursuing his MA in NUS, where he is currently engaged in research on modal metaphysics.

 

“A Kantian Case for Prioritizing the Least Well-Off” by Jade Lim (Apr 7)

Posted on by

In this talk, I argue that we sometimes have to prioritize the least well-off. In order to do so, I will apply Kant’s Formula of Universal Law that says, “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” I will show that we cannot will maxims that do not prioritize the least well-off as universal law and thus are not morally permitted to act in accordance with them. It then follows that we sometimes have to act against those maxims and prioritize the least well-off.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Jade Lim
Moderator: Koh Hui Li

About the Speaker:

JadeJade’s main areas of research are in ethics and political philosophy. Her interests also extend to feminism, environmental ethics and race.

“Tragedy of the Commons and Role Ethics” by Koh Hui Li (31 Mar)

Posted on by

In this talk, I apply Roger Ames’ Role Ethics to see if new light can be shed on the Tragedy of the Commons. I survey the mainline approaches to the problem and its limitations. I then argue that Ames’ reconceptualised self as a web of relation with others provides a better conceptual resource in weakening the logic that leads up to the Tragedy. I consider objections of role conflicts, and argue that role ethics can be better conceived as an epistemic resource in helping one recognize their moral obligations to others.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Koh Hui Li
Moderator: Jade Lim

About the Speaker:

Hui Li's photoHui Li’s background is in political science. She was drawn to the normative questions surrounding justice and the good, and is now pursuing them in philosophy. She is interested in ethics, political philosophy and the insights that one can gleam on these subjects through the study and comparison of different philosophical traditions.

“On modus ponens: a response to McGee and respondents” by Theresa Helke (31 Mar)

Posted on by

My presentation is on modus ponens, specifically Vann McGee’s counterexample to this rule of inference. I will ask ‘Does the general validity of modus ponens hold?’ and answer ‘Yes, huzzah!’ I will consider three responses to McGee (those of Walter Sinnott-Armstrong et al, E.J. Lowe and Joseph S. Fulda), demonstrate how each fail and present my own response. It saves the general validity of modus ponens by appealing to Dorothy Edgington’s suppositional view of indicative conditionals. Interestingly, in so doing, my response strengthens the case for this view.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Theresa Helke
Moderator: Tay Qing Lun

About the Speaker:

Department_Photo_Theresa_HelkeTheresa Helke joined the department in August 2014. She is the first Philosophy PhD candidate in the NUS/Yale-NUS joint supervision programme. Before, she majored in Logic and minored in Government at Smith College. Professors Jay Garfield and James Henle supervised her honours thesis (‘Brown v. Brown: The Limits of Logic in Law and Language’). Professor Chris Mortensen (University of Adelaide) and she co-authored an article which the British Journal of Aesthetics published in 2013 (‘How Many Impossible Images Did Escher Produce?’, (2013) 53 (4): 425-441). After working at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London and travelling to India, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, she read Law at the University of Cambridge. Now, she is interested in multiculturalism and, within it, feminism, migration, law and linguistics. Professor Jay Garfield, who currently teaches at both NUS and Yale-NUS, is supervising her dissertation. She is English but grew up in New York City, Geneva and Vienna. Having trained eight years as a circus artist, she enjoys riding her unicycle.

“Procedural Fairness and the veil of Ignorance” by Anantharaman Muralidharan (15 Apr)

Posted on by

Rawls’s veil of ignorance is supposedly justified because it makes the initial choice situation procedurally fair. It supposedly does this by preventing parties from using morally irrelevant information about the persons they represent to obtain an unfair bargaining advantage over others. The success of this argument rests crucially on the idea that at least some rational mutually disinterested parties without a veil of ignorance would in fact successfully use information about the persons they represent to obtain an unfair bargaining advantage over other parties. I will argue in this paper that even in a choice situation identical to Rawls’s Original Position except for the lack of a veil of ignorance, no party has any bargaining advantage over the other. I analyse the notion of a bargaining advantage in terms of the best alternative to negotiated agreement (BATNA) and the propensity towards unacceptable outcomes. A difference in BATNA between two parties is necessary in order for there to be a bargaining advantage of one over the other. Also, plausibly, outcomes that are unacceptable to only some of the parties contra-indicates equality of bargaining power. I show that all parties in a choice situation without a veil of ignorance have equally bad BATNA. I will show that the veil of ignorance is neither necessary nor sufficient to prevent unacceptable conceptions of justice from being agreed to in the Original Position. If the analysis of the Original Position is correct, there is no reason to think that a choice situation without a veil provides some parties a bargaining advantage over others. The analysis of Rawls’s argument also suggests an alternative justification of the veil of ignorance: that it is an appropriate simplification of another choice situation which would necessarily deliver the correct principles of justice.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 15 Apr 2014
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Anantharaman Muralidharan

About the Speaker:

murali anna 2Murali’s thesis is concerned with trying to find a more general justification for the Rawlsian framework. He isinterested in broadly trying to derive and defend a free-standing theory of justice. At the same time he isinterested in democracy and justifications for it. He is also interested in social epistemology and its implications for democracy.

 

“Reasonableness in Rawls’ Political Liberalism” by Nicholas Cai (8 Apr)

Posted on by

The idea of reasonableness is one of the key ideas in Rawls’ Political Liberalism. I begin by highlighting Rawls’ main aim in the latter and some key features of his political conception of justice, followed by a brief exposition of three aspects of reasonableness. Specifically, I will elaborate on the rarely mentioned aspect of reasonable persons as having the desire to act from reasonableness and to be recognized (by other reasonable persons) as reasonable. I attempt to show the coherence of reasonableness with other aspects of Rawls’ Political Liberalism, and the role it plays within it. By doing so, I hope to indicate how we can begin responding to the usual worries about the possibility and relevance of Rawls’ Political Liberalism.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 8 Apr 2014
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Nicholas Cai
Moderator: Philippe Major

About the Speaker:

nicNick’s primary interests are in the areas of Political Philosophy and the history of Political Philosophy. His honors thesis was a Rawlsian defense of Liberal Neutrality, focusing on the notion of Public Reason. His other research interests include Moral philosophy, German Idealism and Ancient Greek Philosophy, especially the connection between Politics, Religion, and Philosophy.