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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#212121">Hi everyone,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:#212121">This week’s speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Michael Devitt (CUNY).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:#212121">The title of<span class="apple-converted-space"> Michael</span>’s talk is “Ostrich Nominalism”. Here’s the abstract for<span class="apple-converted-space"> the </span>talk:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:#212121">“Ostrich Nominalism” is Armstrong’s (1978) pejorative name for the Quinean response to the venerable One over Many problem. Instead of offering a solution to this problem, as do Realists and traditional Nominalists, the Ostrich dismisses
the problem as pseudo. The paper discusses the early responses to Armstrong, particularly Devitt (1980) and Lewis (1983). These responded to Armstrong’s request for ontological commitment. The paper then turns to Armstrong’s request for “truthmakers”, a request
that has dominated later discussions. Truthmaking is standardly understood semantically as a version of the correspondence theory, but it can be understood metaphysically. Understood semantically, the Ostrich dismisses Armstrong’s request as a misguided attempt
to derive a metaphysics from a semantics. Understood metaphysically, as a demand for “groundings”, the Ostrich is again dismissive: this is another bit of unnatural metaphysics. The paper defends this dismissiveness in discussing Rodriguez-Pereyra (2000, 2005).
Finally, the paper considers Imaguire’s Priority Nominalism (2018).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:#212121">The talk will take place on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="jtukpc">Wednesday the 20<sup>th</sup></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="jtukpc">of September at 3:30 p.m.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in
</span><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#212121;background:white">The Quad Board Room (S445)</span></b><span style="color:#212121"> in the Quadrangle.
<b>Note the unusual venue. Also note that there will be no Zoom session.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color:#212121"> </span></span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:#212121">The talk will be followed by drinks and informal discussion at a nearby venue. All welcome!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:#212121">Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au" title="mailto:ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au"><span style="color:#0078D7">ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Ryan Cox<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Associate Lecturer in Philosophy</span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">Discipline of Philosophy</span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">School of Humanities</span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black">University of Sydney</span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="color:black"><a href="mailto:ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au" title="mailto:ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au"><span style="color:#0078D7">ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au</span></a></span><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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