Speakers
Sara Bernstein (UC Santa Cruz)
David Builes (Princeton University)
Verónica Gómez Sánchez (UC Berkeley)
Jessica Keiser (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Anna Marmodoro (Saint Louis University)
Matthew Soteriou (University of Pittsburgh)
Schedule
Sara Bernstein (UC Santa Cruz) 9:00-10:00AM
Reasons and Pronouns
David Builes (Princeton) 10:10-11:10AM
Four Views of the First-Person
Verónica Gómez Sánchez (UC Berkeley) 11:20AM-12:20PM
Logical Atomism and the Inference Problem
Jessica Keiser (UNC) 2:00-3:00PM
Social Structural Pragmatics (co-authored with Kate Ritchie)
Anna Marmodoro (SLU) 3:10-4:10PM
x Is Essentially F
Matthew Soteriou (Pittsburgh) 4:20-5:20PM
Change in Temporal Perspective
“Reasons and Pronouns” by Sara Bernstein
Abstract: This talk suggests that the concepts of gendering and misgendering encompass a broader range of phenomenon than traditionally thought. Whereas the distinction between gendering and misgendering is often thought to revolve around correctness and incorrectness, I argue that gendering and misgendering are located in a broader schema of normative properties. A fully fleshed out theory of gendering and misgendering must include an account of the reasons involved in attributing a gender to an individual. After examining some relevant reasons through examples, I articulate a distinction between Bad Gendering, Misgendering, and Defective Gendering. With a fuller schema in hand, I draw some lessons for social metaphysics.
“Four Views of the First-Person” by David Builes
Abstract: My primary goal is to argue that existing debates in the metaphysics of consciousness naturally extend to debates in the metaphysics of the first-person. Just as there is an apparent explanatory gap between truths about physics and truths about consciousness, there is an apparent explanatory gap between third-personal truths and first-personal truths. In response to this apparent explanatory gap, I develop four different views of the first-person (which are analogous to four different views in the metaphysics of consciousness). My secondary goal is to defend one of these four views. According to the view I will defend, there is only “one self”: all experiences in the world are mine (and yours).
“Logical Atomism and the Inference Problem” by Verónica Gómez Sánchez
Abstract: A well-known problem for anti-Humeanism is the problem of explaining how laws necessitate corresponding regularities––the ‘inference problem’. This talk will examine this problem through the lens of logical atomism. Standard anti-Humean responses to the inference problem, which appeal to ungrounded necessities or essentialist truths, are unattractive because they posit unexplained logically complex facts. There is, however, a natural solution along those lines that avoids fundamental logical complexity, which appeals to a constitutive connection between entailment and explanation. However, the solution is intuitively dissatisfying. Understanding why will help bring into focus an important aspect of the inference problem as formulated by Lewis: it rests on the assumption that laws do not just necessitate but absolutely entail corresponding regularities. I end by outlining an anti-Humean metaphysical view that can deliver the desired absolute entailment.
“Social Structural Pragmatics” by Jessica Keiser and Kate Ritchie
Abstract: Much work in pragmatic theory makes use of social structural explanation. Yet, there is a disconnect between these pragmatic theories and the formal frameworks that are commonly used by philosophers of language to build models that represent pragmatic phenomena. These frameworks are typically individualist, representing just individual psychological facts (such as propositional attitudes, preference orderings, attentional states, intentions, etc.). Our aim is to motivate a turn away from this kind of individualism in formal pragmatics in order to make room for social structural explanation. We argue that in order to reveal macro level linguistic patterns among similarly situated linguistic agents–as well as micro level facts about how an individual’s linguistic behavior may depend upon and update their social position–pragmatic frameworks cannot rely solely on psychological facts; they must be supplemented by social structures. A social structural pragmatic framework bridges an existing gap across branches of pragmatic theory and provides resources to integrate formal pragmatics with social ontology and other branches of social theory.
“x Is Essentially F” by Anna Marmodoro
Abstract: Essentialists talk of things as having essences, or of certain properties being essentially predicated of things. Does this amount to a commitment to there being a relation that connects things and their essences? And if yes, which relation? I contend that most essentialists, when they talk of things as having essences, do make an implicit commitment to the existence of a relation of qualification that connects a thing to its essence, as the truth-maker of the corresponding essentialist claims they make. In response to those who find this commitment part and parcel of essentialism and assume that essentialist claims presuppose that things are related to their essences, I argue here that this cannot be the case, because it makes essentialism fall prey to regresses which reduce it ad absurdum. This leaves two options open: either to reject essentialism or to reject that it requires a relation of qualification. I pursue the second.
“Change in Temporal Perspective” by Matthew Soteriou
Abstract: McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time appealed to a distinction between the ‘A-series’ and the ‘B-series’. That distinction subsequently spawned in the philosophical literature a distinction between theories (A-theories and B-theories) framed in terms of a disagreement as to whether reality is tensed. It is usually assumed that in order to commit to the claim that the A-series is fundamental one will need to commit to an A-theory of time, and so side with those who hold that reality is tensed. In this talk I’ll be suggesting that the question of whether the A-series is fundamental can instead be approached by considering what stance to take on the question whether temporal movement is possible; and that in turn can be approached by considering how things persist and whether the category of occurrence is irreducible.
Organized By: Professor Fiocco, Professor Koslow, and Professor Ritchie