Tag Archives: Epistemology

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

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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.

 

“On World-disclosure and the Difference Between Experiment and Exploration” by Sönke Ahrens (Apr 16)

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In this presentation I would like to discuss why it is important to distinguish between the terms experiment and exploration as two forms of world disclosure. These terms are rarely systematically distinguished. Sometimes they are used as synonyms, sometimes in a hierarchical order when an experiment is described as a form or method of exploration. Sometimes experiment is understood as a rigorous method in the natural sciences and sometimes as a playful and untamed approach in the arts, as an exploration of possibilities. This confusion can be explained as an effect of an underlying paradox which comes into play when we think about the unknown and which is known best in the wording of Plato. Meno’s Paradox is that inquiry is either impossible or unnecessary as we either know what we are looking for, which would make inquiry unnecessary or that we do not know what we are looking for, which would make inquiry impossible. I suggest to understand this paradox as an empirical challenge for research and learning strategies and will argue that a better understanding about how scientists and learners explore and experiment empirically can help us to address epistemological challenges better theoretically. And that is by distinguishing clearly between experiment and exploration as two forms of world-disclosure. World-disclosure is a term borrowed from Heidegger and is used here as an attempt to conceptualize practical ways of dealing with this paradox in difference-theoretical terms. The other aim of this presentation is to explain what exactly that means.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Thursday, 16 Apr 2015
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: Sonke Ahrens
Moderator: Dr. Qu Hsueh Ming

About the Speaker:

S ahrensSönke Ahrens works in the field of Philosophy of Education with a focus on epistemology. In the last two years he worked as a substitute Professor for Philosophy of Education at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Munich, Germany. His research draws from philosophy, sociology and cognitive psychology and is an attempt to understand the impact of social change for education from different angles. His main interest, however, lies in the development of a General Theory of World-Disclosure. The English translation of his doctoral thesis on this topic “Experiment and Exploration. Forms of World-Disclosure” was published with Springer last year.

“Are humans rational or irrational?” by Sara Thokozani Kamwendo (31 Mar)

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Thoko

Ms. Sara Thokozani Kamwendo will be exploring the question “Are humans rational or irrational?”, surveying the history of recent developments in the study of human cognition leading to the field of Behavioural Economics. Her talk will take place on 31 Mar, 6pm, at the Level 1 Common Lounge, Tembusu College, Utown.

If you wish to attend this event, please register at tembusu.nus.edu.sg

“Assertion and Its Many Norms” by John Williams (Apr 2)

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Timothy Williamson offers the ordinary practice, the lottery and the Moorean argument for the ‘knowledge account’ that assertion is the only speech-act that is governed by the single rule that one must know its content. I show that these fail to support it and that the emptiness of the knowledge account renders mysterious why breaking the knowledge rule should be a source of criticism. I argue that focusing exclusively on the sincerity of the speech-act of letting one know engenders a category mistake about the nature of constraints on assertion. After giving an analysis of assertion I propose that the norm of a type of assertion is the epistemic state one needs for one’s speech-act to succeed in being an assertion of that type and that the epistemic state in question is determined by the point of the type of assertion. One is practically irrational in violating the norm.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Thursday, 2 Apr 2015
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: John Williams, Singapore Management University
Moderator: Dr. Qu Hsueh Ming

About the Speaker:

John WilliamsJohn N. Williams (PhD Hull) works primarily in epistemology and paradoxes, especially epistemic paradoxes. He also works in philosophy of language and applied ethics. He has published in Acta Analytica, American Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Philosophical Research, Philosophy Compass, Philosophy East and West, Mind, Philosophia, Philosophical Studies, Religious Studies, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, Synthese and Theoria. He is co-editor of Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality and the First Person, Oxford University Press together with Mitchell Green. He researches and teaches in the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University.

“The Accrual of Reasons: Some First Thoughts” by Shyam Nair (Mar 12)

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A popular idea in moral philosophy is that facts about what we ought to do are explained by facts about what we have reason to do. The idea is that in standard choice situations there are are often considerations in favor of some act x as well as considerations in favor of an incompatible act y. The act that ought to be done is the act that “wins in the competition among reasons”. In recent years, much progress has been made in moral philosophy, epistemology, and philosophical logic toward understanding the different ways reasons can “win out” and understanding how to precisely and non-metaphorically describe the mechanics of this “winning out” process.

But there are certain simple cases that are still not well understood. For example, sometimes we can have two reasons to do x and one reason to do y. And it can happen that each of the reasons to do x is individually worse than the reason to do y but somehow together the strengths of the individual reasons to do x “add up” to make x the thing that ought to be done. The main aim of this talk is to explain why it is challenging to understand these cases and to present some conjectures about how to meet this challenge. Throughout the talk, we will adopt a general perspective that considers not only the kinds of cases with this structure that arise in moral philosophy but also the kinds of cases with this structure that arise in epistemology.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Thursday, 12 Mar 2015
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: Shyam Nair, Lingnan University
Moderator: Dr. Qu Hsueh Ming

About the Speaker:

Picture1Shyam Nair is an assistant professor of philosophy at Lingnan University. His research concerns issues in moral philosophy, epistemology, and philosophical logic. Before coming to Lingnan, he completed his PhD at the University of Southern California.

Workshop on Formal Epistemology (Nov 17-18)

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Timetable:

Monday (17 Nov, 14)

1000-1030: Morning tea

1030-1200: Brian Kim (Bowdoin College), A Decision-Theoretic Epistemology: Pragmatic Encroachment and Gettier Cases

1200-1330: Lunch

1330-1500: Pavel Janda (University of Bristol), Accuracy—Difficulty of a Single-Number Credence Representation in Belnap’s Four-Valued Logic

1500-1530: Afternoon tea

1530-1700: Hanti Lin (Australian National University/ UC Davis), Conditionals and Actions: A Pragmatic Argument for Adams’ Logic of Conditionals

Tuesday (18 Nov, 14)

1000-1030: Morning tea

1030-1200: Lina Jansson (Nanyang Technological University), Everettian Quantum Mechanics and Probability: From Decisions to Chances?

1200-1330: Lunch

1330-1500: Weng Hong Tang (National University of Singapore), Reliabilism and Imprecise Credences

1500-1530: Afternoon tea

“Are Modal Conditions Necessary for Knowledge?” by Mark Anthony Dacela (17 Apr)

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I argue in this paper that modal conditions, particularly sensitivity and safety, are not necessary for knowledge. I do this by first investigating problem cases for both modal conditions, noting that they point to an internal glitch that even a revised similarity ranking or ordering of worlds, which others proposed, cannot fix. I then demonstrate, by way of a set theoretical profiling of the problem cases, and a set theoretical analysis of the modal semantics at work in both sensitivity and safety, that these modal conditions fail whenever necessary links that are constitutive of epistemic circumstances actually obtain but are not modally preserved; and since there are instances when knowledge only requires this, I conclude that modal conditions are not necessary for knowledge.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 17 Apr 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Mark Anthony Dacela, De La Salle University – Manila
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

319712_392841890739992_440416927_nMark Anthony Dacela is Associate Lecturer of Philosophy at De La Salle University – Manila. He obtained his PhD at the same university and his research is primarily in the area of epistemology.

“Solving the Moorean Puzzle” by Michael Blome-Tillmann (3 Apr)

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This talk addresses and aims to resolve an epistemological puzzle that has attracted much attention in the recent literature—namely, the puzzle arising from Moorean anti-sceptical reasoning and the phenomenon of transmission failure. I argue that an appealing account of Moorean reasoning can be given by distinguishing carefully between two subtly different ways of thinking about justification and evidence. Once the respective distinctions are in place we have a simple and straightforward way to model both the Wrightean position of transmission failure and the Moorean position of dogmatism. The approach developed in this article is, accordingly, ecumenical in that it allows us to embrace two positions that are widely considered to be incompatible. The paper further argues that the Moorean Puzzle can be resolved by noting the relevant distinctions and our insensitivity towards them: once we carefully tease apart the different senses of ‘justified’ and ‘evidence’ involved, the bewilderment caused by Moore’s anti-sceptical strategy subsides.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 3 Apr 2014
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Michael Blome-Tillmann, McGill University and University of Cambridge
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

tilman-cropMichael Blome-Tillmann is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and Marie Curie Experienced Researcher at the University of Cambridge. He obtained his PhD at the University of Oxford and his research is primarily in the areas of epistemology and philosophy of language.

“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

“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.