Dudley Knowles Memorial Lecture in Political Philosophy: Victor Tadros, Glasgow 25 January
THE STEVENSON TRUST FOR CITIZENSHIP
Dudley Knowles Memorial Lecture in Political Philosophy
Professor Victor Tadros
Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory
University of Warwick
‘A Moral Law for War’
Wednesday, January 25th 2017 at 6 p.m.
Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre
(Corner of Gibson Street and University Avenue)
A substantial body of recent work in just war theory claims that the moral considerations that determine whether acts of individual combatants during a war are permissible or wrong are not reflected in the laws of armed conflict. Whereas morality prohibits the killing of combatants on the just side of a war, the law does not. And whereas morality sometimes permits the killing of non-combatants on the unjust side, again the law does not. Many also defend these divergences between law and morality. I will offer a cautious case for revising the law to achieve greater convergence between morality and the laws of war.
Professor Dudley Ross Knowles (1947 – 2014) was a renowned political philosopher who taught at Glasgow University from 1973 to 2011. He was a staunch supporter of the Stevenson Trust and insisted that the Trust’s commitment to public education must include the contribution of political philosophy to examining issues of contemporary relevance in a manner accessible to all citizens. In 2015 the Stevenson committee endorsed his view by instigating an annual public lecture on political philosophy in his memory.
The lecture will be followed by discussion and a drinks reception at 7.30 p.m. All staff, students, and members of the public are welcome. No advance booking is necessary. For further information contact: stevensontrust@glasgow.ac.uk
Scottish Aesthetics Forum: Aaron Meskin (31 January, Univ. of Edinburgh)
The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its next lecture:
Dr Aaron Meskin (Leeds)
“Aesthetic Testimony: An Experimental Investigation”
(written with Dr Shen-yi Liao (Puget Sound) & Dr James Andow (Reading))
Tuesday, 31 January, 2017, 4:15 – 6:00pm
Room G04, 50 George Square,
University of Edinburgh
The lecture is free and open to all!
Abstract: Ordinary testimony transmits knowledge. But aestheticians have been sceptical of whether aesthetic testimony transmits aesthetic knowledge. Although the debate in the philosophical literature focuses largely on normative and conceptual questions, empirical claims about folk resistance to aesthetic testimony play a significant role in that debate. Our studies explore folk attitudes towards aesthetic testimony. We argue that experimental results do not support pessimism about the epistemic value of aesthetic testimony.
About the speaker: Aaron Meskin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds. His current research interests include experimental aesthetics, the philosophy of food, and the aesthetic issues raised by comics, graphic novels and improvisational dance. In addition to the foregoing topics, Aaron Meskin’s publications span aesthetic testimony, bad art, the definition of art, the imagination, and video games. He is former Treasurer and Officer of the British Society of Aesthetics and a former Trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics. From 2009-2013 he was co-investigator on the AHRC project “Method in philosophical aesthetics: the challenge from the sciences”. More information on Aaron Meskin, including a complete list of his publications, can be found on his website: https://aaron-meskin.org.
Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by Wednesday, 25 January.
*** There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ***
• To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.
• For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk
• Or find us and like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
SAF is generously supported by the
British Society of Aesthetics & the Scots Philosophical Association.
Workshop: Philosophers and the philosophical life, St Andrews, 10 Feb: Final call for submissions
Philosophers and the philosophical life, St Andrews, 10 February
St Andrews work in progress (Monday 5 December)
Peter Fritz talks in St Andrews (4 – 9 December)
I will give an overview of some of my recent work on higher-order contingentism, roughly the view that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are. I first consider closely related versions of this view proposed by Kit Fine and Robert Stalnaker, and show that they provide satisfactory answers to a challenge for higher-order contingentism posed by Timothy Williamson. The formal development of the view due to Kit Fine turns out to be in need of revision, as it appeals to resources not available according to the view itself. I then consider another challenge for higher-order contingentism, namely to account for our seemingly intelligible talk of possible things which according to their metaphysics do not exist; versions of this challenge have been put forward by several authors in different contexts. It can be shown that even in extremely rich languages, the higher-order contingentist views considered here have difficulties meeting this challenge, as there are no plausible ways of paraphrasing the relevant claims concerning merely possible entities.
Wed Dec 7, 10 am till 12 noon: Peter Fritz (Oslo): ‘Logics for Propositional Contingentism’
Robert Stalnaker has recently advocated propositional contingentism, the claim that it is contingent what propositions there are. He has proposed a philosophical theory of contingency in what propositions there are and sketched a possible worlds model theory for it. Such models can be used to interpret two propositional modal languages: one containing an existential propositional quantifier, and one containing an existential propositional operator. I present results which show that the resulting logic containing an existential quantifier is not recursively axiomatizable, and that a natural candidate axiomatization for the resulting logic containing an existential operator is incomplete.
Thu Dec 8, 11 am till 1 pm: Peter Fritz (Oslo): ‘Predication and Existence’
Contingentists, those who think that it is contingent what individuals there are, face the following question: is it possible for relations to relate individuals there could be, but there aren’t? Higher-order contingentists, roughly those who think that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are, face the analogous question for propositions, properties and relations. I argue first that higher-order contingentists should answer both questions positively: relations relate not only what there is, but also what there could be. I then show that higher-order contingentists have ways of talking about relations, properties and propositions which there could not possibly be, namely by constructing them out of relations, properties and propositions there could be. Such possibilities open up a further question: is it possible for relations to relate lower-level relations, properties or propositions there could not possibly be? I argue that higher-order contingentists should also answer this questions positively: relations relate not only what there is and what there could be, but also what there couldn’t be.
All talks in Edgecliffe, The Scores, St Andrews: Room G03
SPA Annual General Meeting (updated information)
The Scots Philosophical Association Annual General Meeting: Schedule and Information
University of Dundee
Information:
There is no registration required, but if you would like to attend the dinner (details below) – so that we know the numbers – we ask that you indicate this in advance by emailing Ms Amelie Berger Soraruff: a.a.l.bergersoraruff@dundee.
(Please also indicate if you will require a vegetarian option, and any other specific dietary requirements.)
Dinner will be held from 7:30 on Thursday the 1st Dec at Rishi’s Indian Aroma (http://www.rishisdundee.co.uk
The conference will be held at the Dalhousie building – Room 2F14 on Thursday 1st, and Room 2F13 on Friday 2nd. (‘2’ indicates the side of the building, and ‘F’ indicates First Floor.)
You can find a campus map here:
You can also find directions to get to Dalhousie Building from Dundee railway station here:
Some suggested nearby accommodation
(in rough descending order of price):
Apex Hotel: https://www.apexhotels.co.uk/
Malmaison: https://www.malmaison.com/
Holiday Inn Express: https://www.ihg.com/
Queens Hotel: http://www.queenshotel-dundee.
Travelodge Dundee Central: https://www.travelodge.co.uk/
Dundee Backpacker: http://www.hoppo.com/dundee
For any questions, please contact Ashley Woodward: a.z.woodward@dundee.ac.uk or Amélie Berger Soraruff: a.a.l.bergersoraruff@dundee.
Schedule:
Thursday Dec. 1:
Dalhousie 2F14
10:30 Refreshments
11:00 – 1:00 Philosophy Careers Seminar (for Postgraduates)
1:45 – 2:45 Paper 1 TBA
3:00 – 4:00 Annual General meeting (SPA members only)
4:00 Refreshments
4:30 – 6:00 Keynote Address: Prof Jack Reynolds (Deakin): ‘Embodied Cognition, Naturalism and Emergence’
6:00 – 7:30 Drinks
7:30 Conference Dinner
Friday Dec. 2:
Dalhousie 2F13
9:30 Refreshments
10:00 – 11:00: Dr Kevin Scharp (St Andrews) Title TBA
11:00 – 12: Paper 3 Prof Nicholas Davey (Dundee): ‘Notes Towards a Relational Hermeneutics’
Scots Phil Annual General Meeting: Dundee, December 1 – 2
SPA Annual Meeting
University of Dundee
Dates: Thurs. Dec 1 – Friday Dec 2
Thursday Dec. 1:
Dalhousie 2F14
10:30 Refreshments
11:00 – 1:00 Philosophy Careers Seminar (for Postgraduates)
1:45 – 2:45 Paper 1 TBA
3:00 – 4:00 Annual General meeting (SPA members only)
4:00 Refreshments
4:30 – 6:00 Keynote Address: Prof Jack Reynolds (Deakin): ‘Embodied Cognition, Naturalism and Emergence’
6:00 – 7:30 Drinks
7:30 Conference Dinner
Friday Dec. 2:
Dalhousie 2F13
9:30 Refreshments
10:00 – 11:00: Dr Kevin Scharp (St Andrews) Title TBA
11:00 – 12: Paper 3 Prof Nicholas Davey (Dundee): ‘Notes Towards a Relational Hermeneutics’
Psychiatry and Philosophy meeting in Stirling on Friday, 25th November, 2016
SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHIATRY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP
ANNUAL ACADEMIC MEETING
PROGRAMME
DATE: Friday, 25th November , 2016
VENUE: The Oak Room, Golden Lion Hotel, Stirling
9-15 am: Registration/Tea and coffee
10am: Morning Session: Chair: Dr.Iain Smith, Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist, Glasgow
10-05am: Reductionism: truly, madly, deeply.
Dr.Peter J. Gordon, Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist, NHS Forth Valley.
Peter will present for half an hour some concerns he has over Health Improvement Science with reference to the work of the philosopher Mary Midgley among others.He will conclude by showing his short film on the Red Road Flats as a form of warning against grand projects undertaken without careful thought. The remainder of the session will be open for round table discussion. In preparation for this it is suggested you might read: – The Ethics of Using Quality Improvement Methods in Health Care (2007) by Lynn et al which can be downloaded from: – http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=734470
11-15am: Tea/Coffee
11-30am: Journal Club: Facilitated Round Table discussion of: –
Lessons from akrasia in substance misuse: a clinicophilosophical discussion (2016)
By Lubomira Radoilska, and Keron D. Fletcher
Download from:- http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/22/4/234
12-30pm: Two course Lunch in hotel restaurant followed by business meeting (1-30pm)
Afternoon Session: Chair: Dr Tom Russ, Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist, NHS Lothian.
2-00pm Mental Illness and Therapy in David Foster Wallace’s Fiction
Jamie Redgate, PhD Candidate, University of Glasgow
Jamie is a student in Medical Humanities at University of Glasgow. He will present to us from a completed section of his ongoing PhD work. The working title of his PhD is:- Cognition, Consciousness, and Dualism in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace.
For those unfamiliar with Foster Wallace he was a modern US novelist who was trained in philosophy and mathematics. He hung himself,age 46 years, in September 2008.
3-15pm Tea and coffee and depart
To confirm your place please e-mail me at Iain.Smith@ggc.scot.nhs.uk to register and be prepared to pay £40-00 on the day.(Receipts will be available on the day along with CPD certificates for 4 hours of CPD Activity).
Also e-mail me if you have difficulty accessing the papers. It is not essential to have read them to come along as they will be summarised on the day.
Please let me know if you are coming as soon as possible and by the end of Thursday 15th November, 2016 at the very latest.
For the location of the hotel along with how to travel (it is close to the Stirling Train and Bus Stations), parking and access go to: –
Fri 11 Nov 2016 – Philosophy Beyond the Academy (St Andrews)
Time: 1-6pm
Location: Seminar Room 1 of the Medical and Biological Sciences Building, University of St Andrews
Tickets: Free and open to the public. Please e-mail tej1@st-andrews.ac.uk
Tom Jones (English, St Andrews) and James Harris (Philosophy, St Andrews) are running a series of workshops on the philosophical life, supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Looking at the question ‘How does one live philosophically within and beyond the modern university?‘ this workshop brings together participants whose philosophical work takes place in a variety of contexts: consultancy, counselling, prisons, civil society organisations, online and print media, and daily life itself. Presentations, discussion and a round table event to close the afternoon will ask how a (formal or informal) philosophical background shapes life, work and our most fundamental social relations.
1.00-1.15 – Welcome
1.15-1.45 – Ben Macpherson MSP
1.45-2.30 – Ben Young (ex Jubilee Scotland)
2.30-2.45 – Break
2.45-3.30 – Catherine McCall (European Philosophical Inquiry Centre)
3.30-3.45 – Joe Slater (PhD candidate, St Andrews)
3.45-4.00 – Break
4.00-4.45 – Richard Marshall (3am Magazine)
4.45-5.15 – Donald MacEwan (St Andrews University Chaplain) and James D. Aitken (Minister of St. Michael’s, Edinburgh)
5.15-6.00 – Round table
For more information see https://
Kantian Virtue (St Andrews; 26 October)
10:00 Melissa Merritt (New South Wales): Stoic Eupatheiai in Kant’s Ideal of Virtue
11:45 Alix Cohen (Edinburgh): Kant on the Virtues of Desiring
14:30 Michael Walschots (St Andrews): Kant and the Duty to Act from Duty
16:15 Lucas Thorpe (Bogazici): Virtue as an Ethical Ideal for Kant?
Organiser: Jens Timmermann (jt28@st-andrews.
Kant in Progress; St Andrews; 7th July
Kant in Progress Workshop
7th July 2016
University of St Andrews (St Mary’s College Hall)
9.00 – 9.55am
Katharina Naumann (Justus Liebig University Giessen) Self-Perfection, Self-Knowledge, and the Supererogatory
10:00 – 10.55am
Anita Leirfall (University of Bergen/Norwegian University of Life Sciences) Kant on the Perception of Force
11.00 – 11.15am: Tea and Coffee (provided)
11.15am – 12.10pm
Claudi Brink (University of California, San Diego)
The Role of The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Account of Practical Cognition
12.15 – 1.45pm: Lunch (provided)
1.45 – 2.40pm
Martin Sticker (University of Go?ttingen), Joe Saunders (University of Leeds) Time for School: Moral Education and Transcendental Idealism
2.45 – 3.40pm
Max Edwards (University College London)
The Distinction between Empirical and Transcendental Content
3.45 – 4.40pm
Lucas Sierra (University of St Andrews) Kantianism and Animal Dignity
______________________________
The Kant in Progress workshop is made possible by the support of the St Andrews Philosophy department
Manipulation and Moral Responsibility in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion (Edinburgh, July 15/16)
Manipulation and Moral Responsibility in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion
The University of Edinburgh
July 15 and 16, 2016
Schedule:
Friday, July 15
9:15 – 10:30. Maria Alvarez (King’s College London), “Becoming who we are”
10:35 – 11:50. Alfred Mele (Florida State University), “Radical Reversals and Original Designs”
Lunch
1:00 – 2:15. Patrick Todd (University of Edinburgh), “God and the Moral Standing to Blame”
2:20 – 3:35. Gunnar Björnsson (Umeå University), “Generalization arguments”
3:45 – 5:00. John Fischer (University of California, Riverside), “Responsibility, Autonomy, and the Zygote Argument”
Saturday, July 16
9:15 – 10:30. Michael McKenna (University of Arizona), “Resisting Todd’s Defense of Manipulation Arguments”
10:35 – 11:50. Jean-Baptiste Guillon (Collège de France), “Prophecy of Free Action: Does Molinism lead to Compatibilism?”
Lunch
1:00 – 2:15. Sofia Jeppsson (University of Gothenburg), “Presupposing what ought to be proved: why a certain kind of compatibilism is immune to classic incompatibilist arguments”
2:20 – 3:35. Derk Pereboom (Cornell), “How manipulation arguments work”
3:45 – 5:00. Helen Beebee (University of Manchester), TBA
All events in Rooms 3.10/3.11 of the Dugald Stewart Building, University of Edinburgh
Location and accessibility information about the building can be found here.
No registration required, but space is limited, so please email Patrick Todd (ptodd@staffmail.ed.ac.uk) if you would like to attend.
Sponsored by:
The John Templeton Foundation
Eidyn at the University of Edinburgh
The Scots Philosophical Association
St Andrews staff work in progress
4th Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar: 26-27 May, 2016
4th Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar: 26-27 May, 2016
Forum for Philosophy and Religion, Philosophy (School of Humanities), University of Glasgow
The biennial Seminar provides an international platform for discussion of work in progress in analytic philosophy of religion.
Refreshments will be provided on both days, and there will be a buffet lunch and evening wine reception on the 26th. Dinner and accommodation are by own arrangement. Places are limited so advance registration is essential. To register please email Victoria Harrison by Monday 23rd May: Victoria.Harrison@glasgow.ac.
A registration fee of £12 (£6 for postgraduates) will be payable at the door.
This event is sponsored by Philosophy at the University of Glasgow and by the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
Confirmed speakers and paper titles:
Dani Adams (University of Leeds), ‘Divine Conservation and Space-Time Substantivalism’
Robert Anderson (University of Notre Dame, Australia), ‘Proper Basicality… with Feeling’
Max Andrews (University of Edinburgh), ‘Quantum Indeterminism in a Theistic Universe’
Michael Antony (University of Haifa), ‘Public Knowledge about God’
Mikel Burley (University of Leeds), ‘Prioritizing Practice in the Study of Religion: Normative and Descriptive Orientations’
Elizabeth Burns (Heythrop College), ‘Philosophy as Prayer: Muhammad Iqbal on Pantheism and the Purpose of Prayer’
T. Ryan Byerly (University of Sheffield), ‘Ordinary Morality does not Imply Atheism’
Ian Kidd (Durham University), ‘What is a Religious Exemplar? Religion, Emulation, and the Cosmos’
Finlay Malcolm (University of Manchester), ‘Can the Religious Fictionalist Have Faith?’
Tyler McNabb (University of Glasgow), ‘An Epistemic Defeater for Islamic Belief?’
Emily Paul (University of Leeds), ‘Can a Timeless God ‘Become’ Incarnate?’
Michael Roberts (University of Birmingham), ‘Bare Attention: On Buddhist Soteriology and Perceptual Experience’
Walter Schultz (University of Northwestern- St. Paul, Minnesota), ‘Against Possibility Constructivism’
Marciano Spica (State University of Midwest-Guarapuava, Paraná, Brazil), ‘Language, Belief and Plurality: a Contribution to Understanding Religious Diversity’
Patrick Todd (University of Edinburgh), ‘Theism and Naturalism in Debates about Moral Responsibility’
Seminar website: http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/
Edinburgh Language Workshop (May 9)
Monday May 9th from 9am to 5:30pm in DSB 3.10. For more information see the conference website.
9:00: coffee
9:15-10:30: Wolfgang Schwarz; Truth at a context
10:45-12:00: Joey Pollock; Holism conceptual role, and conceptual similarity
12:00-1:30: lunch
1:30-2:30: Bryan Pickel; Propositions and non-trivial compositionality
2:45-3:45: Brian Rabern; Binding the bound
3:45: coffee
4:00-5:30: Janice Dowell; Methodology for semantic theorizing: the case of deontic modals
post-workshop drinks and dinner
organizers:
brian rabern <brian.rabern[at]gmail.com>
joey pollock <joeykpollock[at]googlemail.com>
bryan pickel <bryan.pickel[at]ed.ac.uk>
The H. J. Paton Colloquium in Kantian Ethics (St Andrews, May 4)
The H. J. Paton Colloquium in Kantian Ethics at St Andrews
Wednesday, 4th May 2016
St Salvator’s Quadrangle, North Street
The Hebdomadar’s Room
10:30, Violetta Waibel (Universitat Wien) “On the Relation of Spontaneity and Freedom in Kant’s Critique”
2:30, Katrin Flikschuh (LSE), “Kant’s Innate Right: Foundational, Relational, or Presuppositional?”
Respondents: Wolfgang Ertl (Keio) and Michael Walschots (Halle)
Contact J. Timmerman (jt28@st-andrews.ac.uk) for further details. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Paton Fund and the Scots Philosophical Association
Kant’s Scots at University of Edinburgh 27 May
Kant’s Scots – One-day workshop
Friday 27 May 2016
University of Edinburgh (dugald stewart building, room 4.01)
10.15 – Jens Timmermann (St Andrews)
The Emergence of Autonomy
11.45 – Lucas Sierra Velez (St Andrews)
Kantianism and Animal Dignity
2.15 – Ido Geiger (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Kant on Mechanistic Explanation
3.45 – Yoon Choi (Marquette University)
Kant on Unities of the ‘I’
Organised by Alix Cohen (alix.cohen@ed.ac.uk) – No registration necessary
Prof. H. Clark Barrett (UCLA) at the University of Edinburgh (April 28)
25th PPLS Interdisciplinary Seminar
Thursday 28th April, 1715 – 1900. Venue TBC.
University of Edinburgh.
Keynote: Prof. H. Clark Barrett (UCLA)
Title: Mindreading, morality, and the search for human cognitive specializations
Further event details: http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/
Abstract
The question of whether and how evolutionary processes have shaped the human mind is fraught with controversy. In particular, the question of whether humans have any uniquely derived cognitive specializations remains essentially unanswered, in part because of our inability to adjudicate between the many competing proposals in the literature. In this talk I will wade into this controversy and ask what strategies we might use to begin to try to sift through the plethora of hypotheses about specialized mental mechanisms in humans. As a case study, I will consider two abilities that have been proposed to be uniquely elaborated in humans: our capacity to make inferences about the thoughts and feelings of others, sometimes called “mindreading”, and our capacity of moral judgment, thought to be essential for forms of large-scale sociality that humans exhibit. Using data from cross-cultural studies of cognition, I will suggest that both of these abilities are likely to be uniquely elaborated in humans, that they are likely composed of multiple components, and that these components interact in complex ways that can be mixed and matched in different ways across situations, cultures, and individuals. I will use these observations about mindreading and morality to outline a strategy for refining the search for human cognitive specializations.