From Stephen.Matthews at acu.edu.au Tue Apr 4 08:45:01 2017 From: Stephen.Matthews at acu.edu.au (Stephen Matthews) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 22:45:01 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] Daphne Brandenburg ACU talk Message-ID: ACU Philosophy Seminar Series Title: Impaired agency and appropriate anger Daphne Brandenburg (Radboud University) Abstract: It is topical in moral psychology to equate the abilities that are required for deserved blame with the abilities that render one an appropriate addressee of the reactive attitudes. The most influential account of these abilities is reason responsiveness (McGeer & Pettit, 2015; McKenna, 2012; Shoemaker, 2015; Wallace, 1996; Watson 1993). Among other things these abilities are argued to render one an appropriate and deserving addressee because one?s responsiveness to moral reasons is cultivated by expressions of the reactive attitudes (McGeer, 2014; McGeer & Pettit, 2015; M. Vargas, 2013a). I argue that feeling and expressing reactive attitudes towards someone whose reason responsiveness is underdeveloped or compromised is common to our practices and can cultivate the addressees? responsiveness to moral reasons. Because these people should not be considered deserving of blame, the abilities required for being an appropriate addressee of the reactive attitudes are to be distinguished from those abilities that are required for the deservingness of blame. WHEN: This Friday, April 7, 2.30 PM ? 4.00 PM (AEST) WHERE: Daphne will be speaking from North Sydney, Tenison Woods House, 8 Napier Street North Sydney, Floor 12, room 24. If you wish to attend in North Sydney and you?re unsure of where to go, please contact the convenor, Steve. (Stephen.matthews at acu.edu.au) Talk will be videoconferenced to: Brisbane: 200.2.03 (BRI_xAC.22 Vd) Strathfield: 600.1.02 VC (STR_xE2.45 Vd) Ballarat: 100.1.03 (BAL_xCB1.103 Vd) Canberra: 302.G.03 (CAN_xS.G.1.10 Vd) Melbourne: 460.4.280 (Mel 4.28Vd) Enquiries: Steve Matthews (stephen.matthews at acu.edu.au) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From calendar-notification at google.com Tue Apr 4 13:00:03 2017 From: calendar-notification at google.com (Google Calendar) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2017 03:00:03 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] Notification: Victoria McGeer @ Wed 5 Apr 2017 13:00 - 14:30 (Seminars) Message-ID: <001a1142265eed9f37054c4e785e@google.com> This is a notification for: Title: Victoria McGeer Scaffolding agency: a proleptic view of the 'reactive' attitudes In this talk, I examine the methodological claim made famous by P.F. Strawson: that we understand what features are required for responsible agency by exploring our attitudes and practices of holding responsible. What is the presumed metaphysical connection between holding responsible and being fit to be held responsible that makes this claim credible? I propose a non-standard answer to this question, arguing for a view of responsible agency that is neither anti-realist (i.e. purely 'conventionalist') nor straightforwardly realist. It is instead ?constructivist?. On the ?Scaffolding View? I defend, reactive attitudes play an essential role in developing, supporting, and thereby maintaining the capacities that make for responsible agency. While this view has relatively novel implications for a metaphysical understanding of ?capacities?, its chief virtue, in contrast with more standard views, is providing a plausibly defensible account of how so-called responsible agents genuinely deserve to be treated as such. When: Wed 5 Apr 2017 13:00 ? 14:30 Eastern Time - Melbourne, Sydney Calendar: Seminars Who: * Sam Shpall- creator Event details: https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=Y2lta285Zml2M3NtMTlydGhwNGg5MmV0N2sgMm1lN2M3ZnIzb21wbDRyaHZrcG1sYTUzNjhAZw Invitation from Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/ You are receiving this email at the account sydphil at arts.usyd.edu.au because you are subscribed for notifications on calendar Seminars. To stop receiving these emails, please log in to https://www.google.com/calendar/ and change your notification settings for this calendar. Forwarding this invitation could allow any recipient to modify your RSVP response. Learn more at https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37135#forwarding -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kristie_miller at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 17:36:17 2017 From: kristie_miller at yahoo.com (Kristie Miller) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 17:36:17 +1000 Subject: [SydPhil] Current Projects: Testing Usage and Intuitions: Michael Devitt and Nicolas Porot Message-ID: <8B0E3444-AF1E-4C4E-94D2-210457AE35C9@yahoo.com> This coming Thursday?s current projects seminar, 3,00 in the Muniment Room, will be Michael Devitt presenting: THE REFERENCE OF PROPER NAMES: TESTING USAGE AND INTUITIONS Michael Devitt and Nicolas Porot Experiments on theories of reference have mostly tested referential intuitions. We think that experiments should rather be testing linguistic usage. This paper has four aims. Substantive Aim (I): to test classical description theories of proper names against usage by ?elicited production?. Our results count decisively against those theories. Methodological Aim (I): In response to Mart? (2009), Machery et al. (2009) conducted a truth-value judgment test that they claimed tested usage. Mart? (2014) disagreed. We aim to investigate this issue. We argue that Machery et al. are right and offer some experimental support for that conclusion. Substantive aim (II): Machery et al. provided evidence that the usage of a name varied, being sometimes descriptive, sometimes not. That would be a damaging discovery for the theory of reference. So our aim was to test usage to see if we replicated this variation. In seven out of eight experiments we did not. Methodological Aim (II): to test the reliability of the folk?s referential intuitions by comparing them with the results of our tests of usage. Past tests led us to predict that we would find those intuitions unreliable. Surprisingly, that is not what we found. Our results suggest that tests of referential intuition are susceptible to unpredictable wording effects, casting doubt on them as effective ways to test theories of reference. All welcome Associate Professor Kristie Miller Senior ARC Research Fellow Joint Director, the Centre for Time School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and The Centre for Time The University of Sydney Sydney Australia Room 407, A 14 kmiller at usyd.edu.au kristie_miller at yahoo.com Ph: +612 9036 9663 http://www.kristiemiller.net/KristieMiller2/Home_Page.html From calendar-notification at google.com Wed Apr 5 14:59:47 2017 From: calendar-notification at google.com (Google Calendar) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2017 04:59:47 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] Notification: Michael Devitt @ Thu 6 Apr 2017 15:00 - 16:30 (Current Projects) Message-ID: <001a11483deaf4a1db054c64420d@google.com> This is a notification for: Title: Michael Devitt ABSTRACT THE REFERENCE OF PROPER NAMES: TESTING USAGE AND INTUITIONS Michael Devitt and Nicolas Porot Experiments on theories of reference have mostly tested referential intuitions. We think that experiments should rather be testing linguistic usage. This paper has four aims. Substantive Aim (I): to test classical description theories of proper names against usage by ?elicited production?. Our results count decisively against those theories. Methodological Aim (I): In response to Mart? (2009), Machery et al. (2009) conducted a truth-value judgment test that they claimed tested usage. Mart? (2014) disagreed. We aim to investigate this issue. We argue that Machery et al. are right and offer some experimental support for that conclusion. Substantive aim (II): Machery et al. provided evidence that the usage of a name varied, being sometimes descriptive, sometimes not. That would be a damaging discovery for the theory of reference. So our aim was to test usage to see if we replicated this variation. In seven out of eight experiments we did not. Methodological Aim (II): to test the reliability of the folk?s referential intuitions by comparing them with the results of our tests of usage. Past tests led us to predict that we would find those intuitions unreliable. Surprisingly, that is not what we found. Our results suggest that tests of referential intuition are susceptible to unpredictable wording effects, casting doubt on them as effective ways to test theories of reference. When: Thu 6 Apr 2017 15:00 ? 16:30 Eastern Time - Melbourne, Sydney Where: The Muniment Room, Main Qad Calendar: Current Projects Who: * Kristie Miller- creator Event details: https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=Xzg0cGowZ3BuODRzajRiOW82aDBqYWI5azY5MWpnYjlwODRwNDRiOWc4NG9rNGhoZzcwcGs4YzFuOGMgZmV2MWxkcjRsa2h2MDM2b2U0aW4yanR0ZGdAZw Invitation from Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/ You are receiving this email at the account sydphil at arts.usyd.edu.au because you are subscribed for notifications on calendar Current Projects. To stop receiving these emails, please log in to https://www.google.com/calendar/ and change your notification settings for this calendar. Forwarding this invitation could allow any recipient to modify your RSVP response. Learn more at https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37135#forwarding -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From calendar-notification at google.com Thu Apr 6 13:59:46 2017 From: calendar-notification at google.com (Google Calendar) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2017 03:59:46 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] Notification: Tuomas Tahko @ Wed 12 Apr 2017 14:00 - 15:30 (Seminars) Message-ID: This is a notification for: Title: Tuomas Tahko Where Do You Get Your Protein? (Or: Biochemical Realization) Biochemical kinds such as proteins pose interesting problems for philosophers of science. They can be studied both from the point of view of biology and chemistry, but these different perspectives may result in different classificatory practices. I will examine the tension that such classificatory differences produce. We will see that the reducibility of the biological functions of biochemical kinds to the chemical structures that realize these functions is a key question here. This leads us to a more general discussion of multiple realizability and realization at the biology-chemistry interface. The conclusion is that genuine multiple realizability may be rare at this interface. When: Wed 12 Apr 2017 14:00 ? 15:30 Eastern Time - Melbourne, Sydney Calendar: Seminars Who: * Sam Shpall- creator Event details: https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=MG0zY2w0amdzZWczaDkzN3VvdHN1N3VmbG8gMm1lN2M3ZnIzb21wbDRyaHZrcG1sYTUzNjhAZw Invitation from Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/ You are receiving this email at the account sydphil at arts.usyd.edu.au because you are subscribed for notifications on calendar Seminars. To stop receiving these emails, please log in to https://www.google.com/calendar/ and change your notification settings for this calendar. Forwarding this invitation could allow any recipient to modify your RSVP response. Learn more at https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37135#forwarding -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From calendar-notification at google.com Fri Apr 7 15:00:10 2017 From: calendar-notification at google.com (Google Calendar) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2017 05:00:10 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] Notification: Drew Khlentzos @ Thu 13 Apr 2017 15:00 - 16:30 (Current Projects) Message-ID: This is a notification for: Title: Drew Khlentzos 'Free Choice' and other puzzling inferences" The 'Paradox of Free Choice' pits intuitive reasoning against (standard) logical reasoning: the salient interpretation of a modal disjunction such as 'You can have ice-cream or yoghurt' is that you can have ice-cream and you can have yoghurt. But standard logic blocks any such inference. Moreover, inserting a special Free Choice Permission rule, FCP, in a standard logical setting leads to inconsistency: from the premise that you may have yoghurt, P(Y), by (modal) Addition we infer: P(Y v I); whence by FCP infer P(Y) & P(I) from which P(I) follows. But then anything is permissible if something is. This is the 'Paradox' of Free Choice. What appears a mere curio turns out to have surprisingly deep roots ? resolving the Paradox requires rethinking the role of disjunction in natural languages as well as its connection with other connectives. When: Thu 13 Apr 2017 15:00 ? 16:30 Eastern Time - Melbourne, Sydney Calendar: Current Projects Who: * Kristie Miller- creator Event details: https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=XzZkMTNhY2k2OG9wNDZiYTM2MTFqOGI5azY0cTM2YjlvNmgxM2NiOWo4aDJqMmdpMjg0cTMyZHBwNnMgZmV2MWxkcjRsa2h2MDM2b2U0aW4yanR0ZGdAZw Invitation from Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/ You are receiving this email at the account sydphil at arts.usyd.edu.au because you are subscribed for notifications on calendar Current Projects. To stop receiving these emails, please log in to https://www.google.com/calendar/ and change your notification settings for this calendar. Forwarding this invitation could allow any recipient to modify your RSVP response. Learn more at https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37135#forwarding -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adam.hochman at mq.edu.au Fri Apr 7 18:34:52 2017 From: adam.hochman at mq.edu.au (Adam Hochman) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 08:34:52 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] =?iso-8859-1?q?MQ_Philosophy_Seminar_on_Tuesday_the_11t?= =?iso-8859-1?q?h_of_April=3A_Regina_Fabry_=28Gie=DFen=29?= Message-ID: TURING REVISITED: ENCULTURATION, COMPUTATION, AND SYMBOL-BASED MATHEMATICAL PRACTICES Regina Fabry (Gie?en) Date: Tuesday, 11th of April Time: 13:00 - 14:00 Venue: W6A 708, Macquarie University Many of our cognitive capacities are shaped by enculturation. Enculturation is the temporally extended transformative acquisition of cognitive practices such as reading, writing, and symbol-based mathematics. Enculturation is associated with significant changes to the organization and connectivity of the brain and to the functional profiles of embodied actions and motor programs. Furthermore, it has a profound socio-cultural dimension, because it relies on cumulative cultural evolution and on the socially scaffolded acquisition of cognitive norms governing the interaction with mathematical symbols and other epistemic resources. In this talk, I will trace the phylogenetic and ontogenetic trajectory of enculturation in the case of symbol-based mathematical practices. Phylogenetically, symbol-based mathematical practices are the result of concerted organism-niche interactions that has led from approximate numbers estimations to the emergence of discrete, symbol-based mathematical operations. Ontogenetically, symbol-based mathematical practices are associated with plastic changes to neural circuitry and motor programs. It relies on previously acquired capacities such as subitizing and counting. With these considerations in place, I will argue that computations, understood in the sense of Turing (1936), are a specific kind of symbol-based mathematical practice that can be realized by human organisms, computing machines, or by hybrid organism-machine systems. As a test case, I will consider statistical data analysis in experimental psychology. I will argue that statistical data analysis is most commonly realized by hybrid computational systems, which are constituted by enculturated human organisms and digital computers running data analysis software. This can shed new light on symbol-based mathematical practices, their phylogenetic and ontogenetic background conditions, and their fluent application in statistical reasoning. Contact: Adam Hochman (adam.hochman at mq.edu.au) or Mike Olson (michael.olson at mq.edu.au) A google calendar with details of other events in this series is available for viewing and subscription by following this link: goo.gl/3Iu7hk --- Adam Hochman Lecturer in Philosophy & Macquarie University Research Fellow Department of Philosophy | W6A, Room 733 Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia Staff Profile | http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/department_of_philosophy/staff/adam_hochman/ Academia.edu Page | https://mq.academia.edu/AdamHochman Philpapers Page | http://philpapers.org/profile/48626 Personal Website | adamhochman.com T: +61 2 9850 8859 | arts.mq.edu.au [Macquarie University] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: