BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Arche - ECPv6.17.4.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Arche REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20120325T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20121028T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20130331T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20131027T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20140330T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20141026T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20150329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20151025T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20160327T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20161030T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20170326T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20171029T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20180325T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20181028T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20190331T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20191027T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20200329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20201025T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20210328T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20211031T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20220327T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20221030T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20230326T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20231029T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20240331T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20241027T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240520 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240523 DTSTAMP:20250114T142437Z CREATED:20231103T111724Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250114T142437Z UID:10018751-1716195600-1716368399@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:The Epistemology of Inquiry DESCRIPTION:The event is hybrid and open to philosophy faculty and students outside St Andrews. Remote participants can access the teams link by requesting it from Patrick Winther-Larsen (pjwl@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Jessica Brown (jab30@st-andrews.ac.uk). \nSpeakers: \nEndre Begby (Simon Fraser University)\nSanford Goldberg (Northwestern/St Andrews)\nJoshua Habgood-Coote (Leeds)\nChris Kelp (Glasgow)\nJulia Staffel (Colorado)\nElise Woodard (KCL\, London) \nProgramme: \nMay 20th: \n11:30AM — 1PM: Sanford Goldberg; \n1PM — 2PM: Lunch; \n2PM — 3:30PM: Joshua Habgood-Coote; \n3:30PM — 4PM: afternoon coffee/tea plus biscuits; \n4PM — 5:30PM: Elise Woodard; \nDinner: 6:30 at Forgans \nMay 21st: \n9:30AM — 11AM: Chris Kelp; \n11AM — 11:30AM: morning tea/coffee; \n11:30AM — 1PM: Julia Staffel; \n1PM — 2PM: lunch; \n2PM — 3:30PM: Endre Begby. \nAbstracts\nEndre Begby. Doxastic and zetetic norms: mutually dependent and equally fundamental \nThe recent resurgence of interest in the epistemology of inquiry has produced a discussion that is generally structured around the following types of questions: (i) granted that in addition to norms governing how we should form our beliefs in light of our evidence (“doxastic norms”) there also exist norms governing what we should do to provide ourselves with evidence in the first place (“zetetic norms”). But are these latter norms properly construed as epistemic norms\, as opposed to belonging to some broader category of prudential norms? (ii) If doxastic norms and zetetic norms are both epistemic norms\, which is more fundamental? Can we derive one set of norms from the other? Or (iii) should we be open to the possibility that they might be mutually irreducible and independent\, so that they might well generate incompatible obligations in context? \nIn this talk\, I offer some reasons to think that this dialectic is misguided. It is true that we sometimes criticize epistemic agents for the inferences they draw from the evidence currently at their disposal. Likewise\, it is true that we sometimes criticize them for their failure to gather more evidence\, where such evidence is there to be had. What doesn’t follow is that we are always (or even typically) invoking distinct norms in articulating these criticisms. \nTo support this claim\, I will present examples suggesting that in a large (and representative) range of cases — spanning science\, policy decisions\, and everyday life –\, what we should believe on our current evidence is importantly indeterminate: in order to settle which hypothesis our current evidence supports we require more evidence\, evidence which we could only gain by engaging in further inquiry. But on the other hand\, we could never know what sort of inquiry we thereby ought to engage in unless we also had a reasonably clear sense of what epistemic possibilities our current evidence leaves open and what it forecloses. I conclude that from the point of view of epistemic normativity\, the doxastic and zetetic perspectives are complementary\, mutually dependent\, and equally fundamental. \nSanford Goldberg. The norms of inquiry and the demands of conversation \nIn this paper I want to revisit Stalnaker’s (1978; 2002) Common Ground (CG) model as a way of thinking about inquiry.  While the CG is standardly used to model information updates in the course of (conversations about) inquiry\, my aim is to show how we can use the CG to model how the norms of inquiry bear on epistemic assessment.  I pursue this aim by developing several ideas regarding the CG.  Among these ideas I highlight the following: (1) there are types of conversation (Green 2017) which are such that participants are properly expected to presuppose certain things throughout the conversation (I call these the conversation’s “normative presuppositions”); (2) some inquiries are such that there is a corresponding conversation-type associated with them (throughout the period of inquiring); (3) for some social (or institutional) roles\, subjects who occupy these roles are properly expected to participate in certain conversations (including some associated with inquiries); (4) assertions made in the context of inquiry answer to an epistemic standard; and (5) assertions that contradict\, or are in tension with\, the conversation’s normative presuppositions are presumptively criticizable.  In this way\, I hope to show that there are types of inquiry for which the CG model enables us to capture our answerability to the norms of inquiry themselves and to the widely-accepted results thereby attained. \nJoshua Habgood-Coote. Bad Questions. \nThis paper is about questions which are bad as questions\, in the sense that pursuing them will impede progress in inquiry. It seeks to do three things. First\, to gather examples of question critique: criticisms of views based not on their claims or arguments\, but the questions they ask. Second to give an account of the function of questions which sheds light on the varieties of bad question. And thirdly\, to provide us with a sound normative basis on which to undertake question critique.  \nChris Kelp. Inquiry and Epistemic Psychology \nThis paper proposes an account of epistemic psychological attitudes (such as belief\, credences\, suspension\, etc.) according to which they are types of moves in inquiry that have their own constitutive aims. I zoom in on belief and show how the account I developed in Inquiry\, Knowledge\, and Understanding can deal with a range of objections that have been raised in recent literature. The remainder of the paper takes a closer look at an alternative view of the relation between inquiry and epistemic psychology\, developed in recent work by Jane Friedman and provides reason to think that my account compares favourably with Friedman’s. \nJulia Staffel. Are there transitional beliefs? – I think so? \nA question that has gathered much interest in epistemology recently is whether it can ever be rational to keep inquiring into a question once one has adopted a belief that answers it. Friedman (2019) has prominently argued for a negative answer to this question. \nI am interested in a related\, but slightly different question here\, which has not gathered any attention\, but will help us better understand the nature of belief and its relation to inquiry and deliberation: Is it ever rationally permissible to believe something prior to concluding one’s deliberation? My question differs from the more commonly discussed one\, insofar as it asks about the rationality of believing that p before settling on p as the answer to some question Q\, while the commonly discussed one asks about the rationality of continuing to inquire into Q after coming to believe that p is the answer to Q. \nI will argue that it is possible for rational agents to hold beliefs of a certain kind\, which I call transitional beliefs\, prior to settling on an answer to a question. Further\, I will show that many common claims about what beliefs are don’t identify important features of belief itself\, but of attitudes that are held as conclusions of deliberations more generally. \nElise Woodard. How to Change Your Mind \nIf realists are more likely to become anti-realists than vice versa\, is that evidence that anti-realism is true? I argue that the answer is yes. When more people move from view A to B than B to A\, this is defeasible evidence that B is more likely correct than A. This idea\, which I refer to as “Migration as Evidence\,” suggests that widespread changes in belief could be meaningful indicators of truth. This approach has two main benefits. First\, it provides an additional tool for forming opinions on complex and controversial issues in areas like philosophy\, politics\, and religion\, where even experts disagree. Second\, it encourages a culture where changing one’s mind is more openly shared and less socially penalized\, fostering an environment where the pursuit of truth is prioritized over consistency. If correct\, “Migration as Evidence” highlights a valuable yet overlooked source of information when inquiring about complex and contentious issues. \n  \n  URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/the-epistemology-of-inquiry/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/questions-5665629_1280.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231130 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231203 DTSTAMP:20231209T164228Z CREATED:20231103T112422Z LAST-MODIFIED:20231209T164228Z UID:10018752-1701334800-1701507599@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Neutrality and Neutralism Workshop DESCRIPTION:Neutrality and Neutralism Workshop \nArché Research Centre\, University of St Andrews \nNovember 30th – December 1st 2023. \nVenue: School II\, United College\, St Salvator’s Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL \nSCHEDULE: \nDay One: \n9.15 – 10.45: Amie Thomasson: Deflationism as a path to Neutralism and Conceptual Engineering. \n11 – 12.30: Theron Pummer: Impartiality in Ethics. \n12.45 – 2.15: Jade Fletcher: Title tbc. \n14.30: Buffet Lunch for speakers and attendees. \n15.30 – 17.00: Patrick Greenough: From Minimalism to Neutralism. \n17.30: Workshop Reception (Edgecliffe) \n20.00-23.00: Workshop Dinner. \n  \nDay Two: \n9.15 – 10.45: Kristie Miller: Title tbc. \n11 – 12.30: Justin D’Ambrosio: Natural Language without Ontological Commitments. \n12.45 – 2.15: Luca Stroppa: Neutral Lives\, and How to Rank Them. \n14.30: Buffet Lunch for speakers and attendees. \n15.30 – 17.00: Josh Dever: On Saying the Same Thing (Without Saying the Same Things). \n17.30: After Workshop Gathering. \nSponsors: The Scots Philosophical Association and the Arché Research Centre URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/neutrality-and-neutralism-workshop/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pic.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20180608 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20180611 DTSTAMP:20190326T095748Z CREATED:20170914T145755Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190326T095748Z UID:10016780-1528448400-1528621199@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:The Epistemology of Perception & the Perceptual Analogy Workshop DESCRIPTION:Plato’s Theatetus identified knowledge with perception. While this identity claim may go too far\, the two notions are intimately related. At the very least\, perceiving that something is the case is a paradigm explanation of how one is positioned to know it is the case. We invoke this sort of paradigm not only in sense perception proper but in connection with domains traditionally taken to be far removed from the sensible\, such as mathematics and linguistic comprehension. For almost any domain\, we find it natural to use the language of “seeing” and “grasping” to describe epistemological achievements for that domain.\nThis conference addresses two sorts of questions about perception. The first sort of question concerns perceptual epistemology itself. We can see things\, events\, and properties\, but also facts. How do these relate to one another\, and what are their epistemological effects? What is the scope of perceptual knowledge? Can one literally see that someone is angry\, that an act is cruel? Can one literally hear what someone means? What of epistemological interest hangs on questions of scope? How does seeing-that map on to distinctions between immediate and mediate knowledge\, for instance?\nThe second sort of question the conference will address concerns perception as a model for the epistemology of other domains. Many theorists\, from Locke and Kant to Armstrong and Lycan\, have thought of introspection on the model of perception. More recently\, there has been important work on whether intuition may be understood by analogy with sense perception. Is the analogy merely a useful heuristic\, or is there really something in common between perceptual knowledge and these other forms of knowledge? Is there a principle subsuming the epistemology of perception and that of these other domains\, e.g.\, that one is justified in believing that p when p is presented to one as true? Or are there sufficient differences between sense perception and introspection and intuition to spoil such a unifying approach? \nConfirmed speakers: Bill Brewer (King’s College London); Kathrin Glüer-Pagin (Stockholm); Heather Logue (Leeds); Jack Lyons(Arkansas); Matthew McGrath (St Andrews/Missouri); Declan Smithies (Ohio State). \nFriday 8th June \n10.00 -11.30 Matthew McGrath \n11.45 – 13.15. Kathrin Gluer-Pagin Illusory Looks \n13.15 – 14.15 Lunch \n14.15 – 15.45 Bill Brewer Perception of Continued Existence Unperceived \n16.00 – 17.30 Declan Smithies Against Strong Phenomenal Conservatism \n18.30 Workshop dinner for speakers \n  \nSaturday 9th June \n10.00 – 11.30 Heather Logue The Epistemology of Aesthetic Properties \n1145 – 13.15 Jack Lyons System 1 Thinking as Intellectual Blindsight \n13.15 – 14.15 Lunch and finish \nWe are grateful to the Scots Philosophical Association and to the University of St Andrews for financial support. \nAbstracts: \nBill Brewer: Perception of Continued Existence Unperceived \nWe believe that the ordinary material objects that we perceive are independent of us and our perceptions of them: in particular\, that they continue to exist unperceived by us or by anyone else. Yet our understanding of their nature is ultimately derived from our perception of them. How exactly does this derivation proceed? This is of course Hume’s question in his discussion of scepticism with regard to the senses: how do we arrive at our belief in the continued and distinct existence of body (1978\, I.4.ii)? Hume’s answer assigns a major role to the imagination. For he argues that perception alone is plainly incapable of producing such a belief and that reasoning from perception gets us nowhere in this regard. There is no doubting the ingenuity of his positive account; but intuitively it goes wrong at the first turn in rejecting perception itself as the source of our belief in the mind-independence of its material objects. Is it possible to vindicate this intuition in the face of Hume’s argument? I argue that we can\, taking inspiration from Evans (1985). I contrast two implementations of Evans’ insight\, and claim that the most promising is the one that has hardly been explored. \nKathrin Gluer-Pagin:  Illusory Looks \nI have defended a non-standard version of intentionalism about perceptual experience\, according to which (visual) experiences are beliefs\, but have contents — so-called looks-contents — that very rarely are false. In this talk\, I shall develop this view further\, in particular\, I shall work out how it can harness the epistemology of perception to account for non-veridical experience. Just like some of today’s relationalists or disjunctivists\, I think that error and misrepresentation typically are a matter\, not of experience\, but of belief or judgment downstream from experience. Nevertheless\, the distinction between veridical and non-veridical experience can be preserved where it intuitively belongs: Illusions can be characterized in terms of misleadingness. \nHeather Logue: “The Epistemology of Aesthetic Properties”\nAbstract: In this talk\, I’ll sketch two models of how one forms the belief that a given aesthetic property is instantiated (e.g.\, that something is graceful\, gaudy\, and so forth). One model appeals to the controversial claim that we literally perceptually experience aesthetic properties (i.e.\, the scope of perceptually-based knowledge includes aesthetic properties)\, and the other eschews this claim. I will argue that both models are unacceptable for broadly the same reason\, and suggest that we can fix the problem by adopting a theory on which emotion plays a central role in aesthetic judgment. \nJack Lyons: System 1 Thinking as Intellectual Blindsight\nRational intuition is often viewed as importantly similar to perception: we just “see” that a given thesis is true. In the best cases\, we have intellectual seemings with “presentational phenomenology\,” in very much the way that the best cases of perceptual experience do. Dual system psychology draws our attention to a different kind of intuition—often with empirical content—that normally lacks this presentational phenomenology. In all the important subjective respects the seemings that result appear to be essentially like those of blindsight patients\, who are capable of forming fairly reliable visual beliefs even though they deny having any visual experiences. These System 1 intuitions enjoy a range of epistemic status\, and the differences don’t seem to be explicable in terms of introspectable states of the agent or features of the experience. If this is right\, it has important epistemological consequences. \nDeclan Smithies: Against Strong Phenomenal Conservatism\nStrong phenomenal conservatism says that epistemic rationality is governed by a single unifying principle: you should always believe that things are the way that on balance they seem to be. The attraction of this view is that it offers a simple and unified theoretical framework for capturing the epistemic role of consciousness. Despite its attractions\, however\, strong phenomenal conservatism is too simple: its simplicity comes at the cost of distorting epistemic rationality in ways that obscure its epistemic value. By subsuming everything under a perceptual model\, strong phenomenal conservatism accommodates one structural principle about epistemic rationality at the cost of sacrificing many others. In this talk\, I will develop this objection to strong phenomenal conservatism and I’ll offer an alternative view that preserves its strengths while avoiding its weaknesses. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/the-epistemology-of-perception-and-the-perceptual-analogy-workshop/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/EpistemologyImage11.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20170615 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20170618 DTSTAMP:20170915T213421Z CREATED:20170914T164616Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170915T213421Z UID:10016782-1497517200-1497689999@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Blame and Norms DESCRIPTION:The notion of blame has historically been central to much work in ethics. What is it to blame someone and what is it for someone to be blameworthy? It’s widely accepted that one can be blameless for violating a norm\, say because one has an overriding reason to do so. More recently\, the idea that whether one conforms to a norm can come apart from whether one is blameworthy has become central to epistemology. Much recent work focuses on the idea that there are epistemic norms for activities or states\, such as the suggestion that assertion or practical reasoning is governed by a knowledge norm. Just as in the ethical case\, we should expect that whether one conforms to the norm and whether one is blameless can come part. Indeed\, this idea has been used to defend the idea that knowledge is the norm of assertion and practical reasoning. Further\, some epistemologists have been interested in how blame might be instrumental in shaping social practices\, such as testimony\, and what it might tell us about the nature of epistemic norms governing such practices. \nThis workshop aims to bring together work on blame from both epistemology and ethics to cast light on the nature of blame\, and the conditions under which one blamelessly violates a norm or conforms to it but in a blameworthy way. \nSchedule \nThursday 15th June \n10 00 – 11 30 Jessica Brown (St Andrews) Epistemic Blame \n11 45 – 13 15 Brian Weatherson (St Andrews) Thick Moral Ignorance \n14 30 – 16 00 Paulina Sliwa (Cambridge) Reverse-Engineering Blame \n16 15 – 17 45 Dana Nelkin (UCSD) Equal Opportunity: A Unifying Framework for Moral and Epistemic Responsibility \n19 00 Workshop dinner \nFriday 16th June \n09 30 – 11 00 Elinor Mason (Edinburgh) How Do I Blame Thee? Let Me Count the Ways… \n11 15 – 12 45 Rik Peels (VU Amsterdam) Blameworthy Belief: In the Absence of Doxastic Obligations \n14 00 – 15 30 Elizabeth Harman (Princeton) Does Reasonable or Justified Moral Ignorance Exculpate?\nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/blame-and-norms/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20170605 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20170608 DTSTAMP:20210311T132030Z CREATED:20210311T131956Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210311T132030Z UID:10017475-1496653200-1496825999@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Moral and Aesthetic Testimony DESCRIPTION:The purpose of the conference is to bring together researchers from aesthetics and metaethics—especially moral epistemology—to discuss the nature of moral and aesthetic testimony. It has been observed that\, while testimony is an important and perfectly good source of justification and knowledge in most domains\, there is something odd about basing one’s moral and aesthetic beliefs (purely) on the testimony of others. For example\, while I can know that there’s an ATM around the corner purely on the basis of your testimony\, and basing my belief on this testimony seems totally unproblematic (assuming I don’t have reason to think you’re lying\, unreliable\, etc.)\, basing my belief that eating meat is morally wrong\, or that the new painting in the gallery is beautiful wholly on your testimony is problematic in some way. This conference will explore questions such as\, ‘What\, if anything\, is problematic about this?’\, ‘What does this mean for the possibility of moral and aesthetic experts?’\, and ‘Are there relevant asymmetries between the moral and aesthetic cases?’.\nSchedule \nMonday\, 5 June \n11:00-11:30 Coffee/Welcome \n11:30-13:00 Errol Lord Indirect Ways of Learning about Aesthetics and Morality: Deference\, Inference\, Appreciation\, Expertise \n13:00-14:00 Lunch \n14:00-15:30 Louise Hanson Aesthetic Testimony: Why to be a Pessimist and How to be a Realist \n15:30-15:45 Break \n15:45-17:15 Aaron Meskin The Folk Theory of Aesthetic Testimony \n17:30-19:00 Reception \n19:30 Conference dinner at Forgan’s \nTuesday\, 6 June\n09:30-10:00 Coffee \n10:00-11:30 Alison Hills Testimony\, Understanding and Virtue in Aesthetics \n11:30-13:00 Jonathan Robson Is there a Default View of Aesthetic Testimony? \n13:00-14:00 Lunch \n14:00-15:30 Julia Driver Deference\, aesthetic worth\, and the virtue of creativity \nPlease let us know if you would like to come by emailing either Justin Snedegar (js280@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Lisa Jones(lj14@st-andrews.ac.uk) \nThis conference is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association\, the Mind Association and the British Society for Aesthetics. \n \n  URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/moral-and-aesthetic-testimony-2/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20170605 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20170607 DTSTAMP:20170321T113507Z CREATED:20170321T113454Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170321T113507Z UID:10016746-1496653200-1496793599@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Moral and Aesthetic Testimony DESCRIPTION:The purpose of the conference is to bring together researchers from aesthetics and metaethics—especially moral epistemology—to discuss the nature of moral and aesthetic testimony. It has been observed that\, while testimony is an important and perfectly good source of justification and knowledge in most domains\, there is something odd about basing one’s moral and aesthetic beliefs (purely) on the testimony of others. For example\, while I can know that there’s an ATM around the corner purely on the basis of your testimony\, and basing my belief on this testimony seems totally unproblematic (assuming I don’t have reason to think you’re lying\, unreliable\, etc.)\, basing my belief that eating meat is morally wrong\, or that the new painting in the gallery is beautiful wholly on your testimony is problematic in some way. This conference will explore questions such as\, ‘What\, if anything\, is problematic about this?’\, ‘What does this mean for the possibility of moral and aesthetic experts?’\, and ‘Are there relevant asymmetries between the moral and aesthetic cases?’. \nConfirmed speakers are: Alison Hills (Oxford) Julia Driver (Washington) Louise Hanson (Cambridge) Errol Lord (Pennsylvania) Jon Robson (Nottingham) Aaron Meskin (Leeds) \nPlease let us know if you would like to come by emailing either Justin Snedegar (js280@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Lisa Jones(lj14@st-andrews.ac.uk) \nThis conference is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/moral-and-aesthetic-testimony/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spa.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20170603 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20170606 DTSTAMP:20190918T074332Z CREATED:20161205T121701Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190918T074332Z UID:10016644-1496480400-1496653199@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Slurring and Swearing Conference DESCRIPTION:The conference brings together researchers from the philosophy of language\, philosophy of mind\, semantics and pragmatics to explore issues concerning pejoratives\, swear words and expressive language. \nThe conference aims to address a range of questions directly related to such language. For instance\, what is the semantic content of such expressions? What are the pragmatic effects of the use of such terms? What is the relationship between such expressions and psychological attitudes like disapproval or contempt? What accounts for their distinctive status as offensive or derogatory pieces of language\, and how did they come to be that way? In addition to being important independent objects of inquiry\, such questions have the potential to deepen and forge new directions in our understanding of well-worn topics in a diverse range of sub-disciplines. For instance\, issues discussed touch on the semantics-pragmatics distinction in the Philosophy of Language\, the nature of offence and derogation in the Philosophy of Law\, meta-ethical expressivism\, the nature of `thick’ concepts in debates in meta-ethics\, and so on. \nFeatured speakers include: Robin Jeshion (USC)\, Christopher Hom (Texas Tech.)\, Rachel Sterken (Oslo)\, Ernie Lepore (Rutgers)\, Rebecca Roache (RHUL)\, and Geoffrey Pullum (Edinburgh). We are organising this conference in accordance with the BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme and are committed to ensure the conference is fully accessible.’ \nProvisional Schedule\nSaturday 3rd June\n09:30 – 10:00 Coffee\n10:00 – 11:20 Rachel Sterken (Oslo)Transformative Communicative Disruptions\n11:20 – 11:40 Coffee break\n11:40 – 13:00 Alper Yavuz (St Andrews/MSFAU) Metaphors and Slurs\n13:00 – 14:00 Lunch\n14:00 – 15:20 Ernie Lepore (Rutgers) Pejorative Tone\n15:20 – 15:40 Coffee break\n15:40 – 17:00 Geoffrey Pullum (Edinburgh) Words Are Things: Lexicography and Philosophy 18:00 Conference dinner \nSunday 4th June\n09:30 – 10:00 Coffee\n10:00 – 11:20 Rebecca Roache (RHUL) What do we do when we censor swearing?\n11:20 – 11:40 Coffee break\n11:40 – 13:00 Poppy Mankowitz (St Andrews) and Ashley Shaw (UCL)‘Focusing on Pejoratives’\n13:00 – 14:00 Lunch\n14:00 – 15:20 Robin Jeshion (USC) Pride and Prejudice: On the Creation and Appropriation of Slurs\n15:20 – 15:40 Coffee break\n15:40 – 17:00 Christopher Hom (Texas Tech) Ideological Words and Thoughts \nFor more information please contact the organisers: Poppy Mankowitz\, Ashley Shaw and Alper Yavuz by sending an email to slurringandswearing@gmail.com \nRegistration is now closed \nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Analysis Trust\, the Aristotelian Society\, the Mind Association and the Scots Philosophical Association. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/slurring-and-swearing/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Conference END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20160903 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20160906 DTSTAMP:20170917T235056Z CREATED:20170914T172406Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170917T235056Z UID:10016783-1472893200-1473065999@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:The Metaphysics of Knowledge I: Epistemic Indexing DESCRIPTION:  \nTime: 3 September\, 2016 – 4 September\, 2016\nLocation: School II \nAn Arché/EIDYN Collaboration. EIDYN logo \nConfirmed Speakers: \nKelly Becker (University of New Mexico)\, Jessica Brown (St Andrews)\, Julien Dutant (King’s College London)\, Daniel Greco (Yale)\, Patrick Greenough (St Andrews)\, Clayton Littlejohn (King’s College London)\, Sherrilyn Roush (Kings College London).\nConfirmed Roundtable: Jessica Brown (St Andrews)\, Jesper Kallestrup (Edinburgh)\nSince Nozick (1981) it has become standard practice to index various modal principles—such as tracking conditions and safety conditions—to methods (or bases). The guiding motivation is roughly this: if we are to properly test a belief that p for reliability then we need to test the reliability of the method which produced this belief. So\, for example\, on a sensitivity based conception of reliability\, in order to test a belief that p for sensitivity to falsity we need to check whether the subject believes that p in the nearest not-p worlds where the subject is using (roughly) the same method of belief formation that they are using in the actual case. Put this way\, indexing to methods seems to be just a form of good epistemological housekeeping\, of no great importance to the larger\, more vital debates within epistemology. The theme of this conference is that such a view is mistaken—that indexing to methods (and bases) ought to be a central topic in epistemology. For one thing\, indexing to methods and bases can clarify and make rigorous a variety of important principles governing knowledge and justification\, and thereby help us get clearer on the nature of knowledge\, justification\, and reliability. Moreover\, a strong case can be made that getting clear about what methods and bases are and just how we should index to them\, will also help illuminate and unlock a number of epistemological puzzles such as Cartesian Scepticism\, Cartesian Meta-Scepticism\, the various forms of Lottery Scepticism\, the Paradox of Dogmatism\, Kripke’s Red-Barn Closure Puzzle\, the paradoxes of confirmation\, and more. Despite the centrality and prominence of epistemic indexing\, there has been very little scrutiny of the nature and application of methods and bases—from either a formal or philosophical direction. The purpose of this workshop is to initiate such scrutiny. Some of the many questions addressed will include: What should we index? Belief ascriptions\, knowledge ascriptions\, anything else? \nWhat should we index to? Methods\, bases\, or something else? \nWhat exactly are methods? What are bases? How do they relate to each other? \nHow should we individuate methods or bases? Internally or externally? \nHow does such individuation impinge upon the generality problem? \nHow do methods or bases interact? What of conjunctive or disjunctive methods? \nAre methods/bases monotonic? \nWhat is the importance of Nozick’s distinction between one-sided and two-sided methods? \nHow can methods or bases be formally represented in some suitable epistemic logic? \nWhat is the best indexed formulation of safety? \nWhat is the best indexed formulation of singe-premise and multi-premise closure? \nHow can indexing help illuminate the various puzzles and paradoxes concerning knowledge? \nHow does one best make sense of epistemic indexing from within a Knowledge-First Epistemology? \nThis workshop is one of two workshops which explores the broad theme of the metaphysics of knowledge. A second Arché/Eidyn workshop\, The Metaphysics of Knowledge II\, will be hosted by Eidyn at the University of Edinburgh and will organised by Professor Jesper Kallestrup.\nWorkshop Programme:\nSaturday\n11:00-11:30 Tea & Coffee\n11:30-13:00 Sherrilyn Roush (KCL) Closure Failure and Methods\n13:00-14:00 Lunch\n14:00-15:30 Patrick Greenough (St Andrews) Why Index Knowledge?\n15:30-16:00 Tea & Coffee\n16:00-17:30Julien Dutant (KCL) Safety without method\n17:30-19:00 Reception\nSunday\n09:00-09:30 Tea & Coffee\n09.30-11.00 Daniel Greco (Yale) Fragmented Belief and Knowledge.\n11.00-11.30 Tea and Coffee\n11.30-13.00 Kelly Becker (New Mexico) Is an appearance-based individuation of basic methods compatible with epistemological and content externalism?\n13.00-14.00 Lunch\n14.00-15.30 Clayton Littlejohn (KCL) tba\n15.30-16.00 Break\n16.00-17.30 Jessica Brown (St Andrews) Defeat and Closure\n17.30-18.15 Roundtable: Jesper Kallestrup\, Jessica Brown\, Julien Dutant\nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association and The Mind Association. \nThe Workshop organiser is Patrick Greenough. For more information\, please send an email to Patrick at pmg2@st-andrews.ac.uk \nTo register for this event\, please send an email to arche@st-andrews.ac.uk\nSPA Logo\nMind Logolol URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/the-metaphysics-of-knowledge-i-epistemic-indexing-2/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20160610 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20160613 DTSTAMP:20190918T074425Z CREATED:20170917T171630Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190918T074425Z UID:10016784-1465549200-1465721999@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Concepts and Understanding Workshop DESCRIPTION:A number of traditional strands in thinking about concepts closely associate concept possession and understanding\, but there are a number of widely discussed cases in which a thinker seems to possess a concept despite only partially understanding or misunderstanding it. How can these cases be explained? What are the connections between possessing concepts and understanding them? How should the phenomena of partial understanding and misunderstanding shape our view of concepts and concept possession? What other cognitive structures can we appeal to in order to explain cases of understanding and misunderstanding? Are there different forms of partial understanding or misunderstanding? \nSpeakers include Derek Ball (St Andrews)\, George Bealer (Yale)\, Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers)\,Walter Pedriali (St Andrews)\, Gabriel Rabin (NYU Abu Dhabi). Sarah Sawyer(Sussex). \nSchedule\nFriday 10th June\n\n09:30 – 10:00 Coffee/Tea\n10:00 – 11:30 Gabriel Rabin (NYU Abu Dhabi) Toward a Theory of Concept Mastery\n11:30 – 12:00 Coffee/Tea\n12:00 – 13:30 Derek Ball (St Andrews) Understanding and Revisionary Analysis \n13:30 – 14:30 Lunch\n14:30 – 16:00 Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers) Framing Truth and Perspectival Aptness\n19:00 Conference dinner\n\nSaturday 11th June\n\n09:30 – 10:00 Coffee/Tea\n10:00 – 11:30 Sarah Sawyer (Sussex) Externalism\, Ignorance and the Implications of Partially Grasped Concepts\n11:30 – 12:00 Coffee/Tea\n12:00 – 13:30 Walter Pedriali (St Andrews) Conceptions\, Concepts\, and Incomplete Understanding. Caught Between Two Ways of Being Infallible?\n13:30 – 14:30 Lunch\n14:30 – 16:00 George Bealer (Yale) Simple Concepts and Varieties of Misunderstanding\n\nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association and The Mind Association \nTo register for this event\, please send an email to arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \n\nAbstracts\nDerek Ball\nUnderstanding and Revisionary Analysis \nAbstract: to follow \nGeorge Bealer\nSimple Concepts and Varieties of Misunderstanding \nAbstract: \n\nMisunderstanding the Concept of Analysis\n\nThe Concept-Identity Version of the Paradox of Analysis\nLogical Setting and the Simple Concept Thesis\nCorrecting the Core Misunderstanding of Concept-Identity Analyses\n\n\nBurgean and Local Misunderstanding of Concepts\n\nBurgean Misunderstanding\nLocal Misunderstanding\nLocal Misunderstanding and Explaining & Correcting A Priori Error\n\n\nThe Need for Individualist & Anti-individualist Understanding: a Parable.\n\nElisabeth Camp\nFraming Truth and Perspectival Aptness \nAbstract: Ordinary intuitive thought is often perspectival in the rich sense that two thinkers may agree about a set of base-level facts while interpreting those facts in markedly different ways. Metaphors and other framing devices are rhetorically useful tools for inducing and manipulating perspectives. But because the effects of such framing devices frequently depart from the logical consequences of conceptual thought\, they are often theorized as having a merely causal\, purely associative influence on cognition. I articulate epistemic norms for assessing perspectives and frames which respect the fact that they are not true in any straightforward sense of the term. \nWalter Pedriali\nConceptions\, Concepts\, and Incomplete Understanding. Caught Between Two Ways of Being Infallible? \nAbstract: In the literature on incomplete understanding of concepts\, it is customary to distinguish between conceptions and concepts\, where conceptions are said to encase a thinker’s (more or less) tacit understanding of the concepts she deploys. In Frege’s terminology\, the distinction is between the sense of a concept-word (the conception) and its reference (the concept). Tyler Burge has argued that Frege was committed to the view that thinkers may possess and deploy concepts that are only incompletely understood. On this view\, a thinker might be credited with possessing a specific concept even if the sense attached to the relevant concept-word is confusedly grasped. In particular\, Frege is said to have claimed that the senses of the fundamental notions of arithmetic remain stable and are stably grasped by thinkers throughout history. Fully competent practitioners grasp those senses clearly and distinctly\, while uncertain practitioners grasp them\, the very same senses\, “as if through a mist”. There is thus said to be a common object of the understanding apprehended to a greater or lesser degree by thinkers of diverging conceptual competence. In this paper\, I argue that the idea that senses could be grasped as a matter of degree is in tension with the constitutive theses that Frege held with regard to sense. Given those theses\, there can in fact be no such thing as misty grasp of sense\, since any uncertainty as to the logical features of a given sense will entail that one is getting hold of a different sense or of no sense at all. I consider various ways of resolving the tension\, and conclude that Burge’s interpretation of Frege’s position cannot be defended as it stands. More generally\, I argue that a proper account of incomplete understanding must avoid two equally undesirable results\, namely\, that we be forced to treat thinkers as infallible about concepts (as Burge’s view seems to entail) or as infallible about conceptions (as the views Burge opposes seem to entail). I close the paper by sketching a view that purports to avoid either result. \nGabriel Rabin\nToward a Theory of Concept Mastery \nAbstract: This essay investigates the question “Under what conditions does a thinker fully understand\, or have mastery of\, a concept?” A thinker can possess\, and think thoughts with\, concepts he or she does not fully understand. I argue against three views of concept mastery\, according to which mastery is a matter of holding certain beliefs\, being disposed to make certain inferences\, or having certain intuitions. None of these attitudes is either necessary or sufficient for mastery. I propose and respond to objections to my own “recognition view” of the conditions under which a thinker has mastery of a concept. \nSarah Sawyer\nExternalism\, Ignorance and the Implications of Partially Grasped Concepts \nAbstract: In this paper\, I argue that the most significant element of the content externalist view is the claim that concepts are things we come to possess over time and through experience; as a result\, partial grasp of concepts is not only possible\, but prevalent. I go on to suggest that this has theoretically significant implications for a range of philosophical issues in prima facie unrelated areas. I then look at moral concepts as a case study. The claim that moral concepts can be grasped partially allows us to resolve a debate concerning the nature of moral judgement and a debate concerning the nature of moral reasons. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/concepts-and-understanding/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20160604 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20160608 DTSTAMP:20170917T232803Z CREATED:20170917T232803Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170917T232803Z UID:10016789-1465030800-1465289999@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Sensing Strange Things DESCRIPTION:Workshop Theme: What can (allegedly) strange cases of perception and misperception tell us about the nature of ordinary perception and indeed about the nature of objects perceived? \nProgramme\nSaturday 4th June\n\n13.00-14.30 Fiona Macpherson Redefining Illusion and Hallucination in Light of New Cases\n14.30-14.45 Break\n14.45-16.15 Jennifer Corns Hedonic qualities\, independence\, and heterogeneity\n16.15-16.30 Break\n16.30-18.00 Zoe Drayson Action-oriented perception\n18:00-19:30 Workshop Reception\n19:45 Workshop dinner\n\nSunday 5th June\n\n09.30-11.00. Ema Sullivan-Bissett and Paul Noordhof Delusional Experience and Relationist Accounts of Perception\n11.00-11.15 Break\n11.15-12.45 Anya Farrenikova Invisible Art\n12.45-13.45 Lunch\n13.45-15.15 Simon Prosser Sensing Motion\n15.15-16.45 Mathew McGrath The metaphysics of looks\n16.45-17.00 Break\n17.00-18.00: Roundtable: Fiona Macpherson\, Jennifer Corns\, Anya Farrenikova\n\nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association and The Mind Association. \nThe Workshop organiser is Patrick Greenough. For more information\, please send an email to Patrick at pmg2@st-andrews.ac.uk \nTo register for this event\, please send an email to arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \n \n\nAbstracts\nJennifer Corns\nHedonic qualities\, independence\, and heterogeneity \nAbstract: Hedonics are plausibly qualitative. The most common objection to hedonic qualities is the heterogeneity problem: pleasant and unpleasant mental episodes are\, it is alleged\, qualitatively heterogeneous. I first argue that the heterogeneity problem can be solved by recognizing the independence of hedonic and sensory qualities. Next\, I defend hedonic qualities from seeming problems of hedonic variation. It should be granted that there is considerable hedonic variation across persons\, creatures\, and times despite interaction with physical stimuli of the otherwise same type. I argue\, however\, that this hedonic variation is not different in kind from sensory variation. Moreover\, while the limits on sensory variation are better explored\, hedonic variation has underappreciated limits. Insofar as sensory qualities are not threatened by variation\, neither are hedonic qualities. I conclude by discussing some implications of the foregoing discussion for our understanding of the nature of hedonic qualities specifically\, and mental qualities more generally. In particular\, the implication that a wide range of non-perceptual cognitve and conative states may be qualitative \nZoe Drayson\nAction-oriented perception \nAbstract: It is increasingly common to find perception described as ‘action-oriented’ in philosophy and the mind-sciences: sometimes as a claim about the contents of perception\, and sometimes as a claim about the underlying mechanisms of perception. ‘Embodied’ approaches to perception and cognition sometimes combine these two claims into a third: the claim that the contents of perception are action-oriented because the mechanisms that carry the content are action-oriented (see e.g. Clark\, Wheeler\, Millikan\, Mandik). I will argue that this seemingly straightforward claim is problematic once we start considering its commitments in terms of approaches to perceptual content (Fregean versus Russellian)\, accounts of content acquisition (causal\, teleological\, functional)\, breadth of content (wide\, narrow\, or two-factor) and the conditions for individuating the bearers or vehicles of content \nAnna Farennikova\nInvisible Art \nAbstract: Can absence of art be art? Is art of absence a form of conceptual art? I discuss experiences of absence elicited by present and absent artworks\, and present a model of how we aesthetically appreciate absences. \nFiona Macpherson\nRedefining Illusion and Hallucination in Light of New Cases \nAbstract: We present new cases of illusion and hallucination that have not heretofore been identified. We argue that such cases show that the traditional accounts of illusion and hallucination are incorrect because they do not identify all of the cases of non-veridical experience that they need to and they elide important differences between cases. In light of this\, we present new and exhaustive definitions of illusion and hallucination. Identifying new instances of illusion and hallucination provides much needed\, important data for testing theories of experience and perception—theories that are frequently motivated\, and should be judged\, by their ability to account for cases of illusion and hallucination. \nDrawing on the ideas uncovered by considering pure property experience – an account which some might find to be plausible of olfactory experience – we bring to light many new cases of illusion and hallucination within ordinary experience as of objects having properties. In order to accept that these new cases of illusion and hallucination exist one does not need to accept the idea that there is pure property experience\, or that olfactory experience is an instance of it. Such a conception of experience is simply a tool—a ladder to gain a good vantage point from which one can appreciate that there are these further cases. But this is a ladder that\, as Wittgenstein might say\, can be thrown away once it is used. \nMatt McGrath\nThe metaphysics of looks \nAbstract: Objects have looks. Distant mountains can sometimes have a bluish look. A file cabinet has a metallic look. Objects vary in their looks across viewpoints. For instance\, a square surface in a plane orthogonal to the line of sight has a different look than the same surface titled relative to the line of sight. In this paper\, I examine questions about what these looks are. It considers whether facts about objects having looks are perceiver independent or not. I give reasons for thinking the instantiation of viewpoint relative looks are perceiver independent\, both in the sense that an object’s having such a look doesn’t modally depend on the existence of perceivers and in the more substantive sense of being irreducible to facts about perception. As for what looks are\, the paper sympathetically explores the view that an object’s viewpoint-relative looks consist in features of the light\, including relational features\, coming from the object to the viewpoint. Problems for this proposal are discussed \nSimon Prosser\nSensing Motion \nAbstract: The perception of motion presents a number of puzzles that\, until relatively recently\, have been neglected due to a focus on the perception of objects and the properties they possess at a given time. I shall discuss two such puzzles. Firstly\, I shall discuss the question of whether the perception of motion can be reconciled with the claim that experience presents us with the state of the world at an instant. Contrary to specious present theorists\, I shall argue for a positive answer. Secondly\, a question can be raised as to whether all creatures must experience the same phenomenological ‘speed’ when perceiving the same moving objects. I shall discuss the implications of this for the phenomenal content of motion and experience\, and perhaps for experience in general. \nEma Sullivan-Bissett and Paul Noordhof\nDelusional Experience and Relationist Accounts of Perception \nAbstract: We relate theoretical approaches to monothematic delusion with currently fashionable approaches to the nature of experience. Certain kinds of anomalous experiences are plausibly central to the production of related monothematic delusions because they provide an immediate explanation of their monothematic character. One-factor approaches\, most famously developed and defended by Brendan Maher\, hold that monothematic delusions are a normal response to such anomalous experiences (Maher (1974)\, (1988)\, (1999)\, (2003)\, (2006)). Two-factor approaches identify a clinically abnormal pattern of reasoning in addition to the anomalous experience to explain the resultant delusion (e.g. Davies\, Coltheart\, Langdon\, and Breen (2001); Stone and Young (1997)). In the first section of this paper\, we argue that the case for two-factor theories has not been made. It has involved a misreading of Maher’s work and an underestimation of the resources available to the one-factor theory. \nThe plausibility of a one-factor theory is obviously related to the notion of experience to which it appeals. Our defence will\, thus\, turn to this issue and here we may join forces with two-factor theorists since the plausibility of their approach also depends upon the same understanding of experience. We shall argue that the relationist account of experience distinctive of naive realism is in conflict with these two so-called empiricist approaches to delusion for a certain class of cases: those involving experience with positive hallucinatory elements. Our target relationist cannot accept that the response of the subject with a delusion to such experiences is a normal response to anomalous experiences because they deny that there are experiences with the relevant phenomenal content. \nWe consider two lines of response to our argument. The first is that although some relationists deny that experiences with positive hallucinatory elements have the relevant phenomenal content\, they make other claims which are sufficient to explain how to accommodate this class of delusions within the empiricist framework (that is\, a framework which has an explanatory role for experience in an explanation of delusion formation). We explain why this is not so. The second line of response is that\, even if we are right\, all this shows is that delusions putatively based upon anomalous experience with positive hallucinatory elements should be dealt with in another fashion. The relationist can just go disjunctive about this class of monothematic delusions. We do not deny the possibility of such a manoeuvre but we claim that it involves a theoretical cost distinctively different from other disjunctivisms. There are no obvious disjunctive explananda for which a disjunctive account of monothematic delusions can play an explanatory role. \nWe conclude that our target relationist rules out the one-factor account in cases of positive delusion and this is a considerable cost: the relationist has to recognise a difference in kind in the class of monothematic delusions\, a difference that there is no reason to recognise from the study of monothematic delusion alone. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/sensing-strange-things/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20160507 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20160510 DTSTAMP:20170917T233855Z CREATED:20170917T233855Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170917T233855Z UID:10016791-1462611600-1462784399@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Testimony and Context DESCRIPTION:Confirmed speakers are: Emma Borg (Reading)\, Herman Cappelen (Oslo/St Andrews)\, Rachel Fraser (Oxford)\, Lizzie Fricker (Oxford)\, Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern)\, Mikkel Gerken (Edinburgh)\, Patrick Greenough (St Andrews)\, Katherine Hawley (St Andrews)\, Andrew Peet (St Andrews) and Joey Pollock (Edinburgh) \nIn acquiring knowledge from others we rely on speakers to be reliable and honest\, and we rely on our own ability to understand what we have been told. Most research in the epistemology of testimony focuses on the former reliance. However\, our ability to communicate successfully is no less important. Moreover\, given the widespread context sensitivity of natural language it is puzzling that we seem able to reliably acquire testimonial knowledge. Thus\, a complete epistemology of testimony will consider not only the epistemology of our reliance on others\, but also the epistemology of linguistic communication. This conference brings together epistemologists and philosophers of language to explore the epistemology of testimony in light of the complexities of linguistic communication. Topics addressed include: \nWhat are the conditions for communicative success? \nWhat are the implications of semantic minimalism\, radical contextualism\, or speech act pluralism for the epistemology of testimony? \nHow reliable is linguistic communication? \nDoes contextual knowledge contribute to the justificatory status of testimonial beliefs? \nWhat are the implications of the semantic internalism/externalism debate for the epistemology of testimony? \nCan implicit or non-literal communication be a source of testimonial knowledge? \nSchedule\nSaturday 7th May\n\n13.00-14.30 Emma Borg Linguistic Meaning\, Context and Assertion\n14.30-14.45-Break\n14.45-16.15 Rachel Fraser Saying and ‘De Se’-ing\n16.15-16.30 Break\n16.30-18.00 Elizabeth Fricker On Not Being Able to Believe What One Is Told\n18.00-19.00 Reception Edgecliffe Rm 104\n19:45 Workshop Dinner – Forgans Restaurant\n\nSunday 8th May\n\n09.30-11.00 Katherine Hawley Telling or Trying to Tell?\n11.00-11.15 Break\n11.15-12.45 Andrew Peet Knowledge-Yielding Communication\n12.45-13.45 Lunch\n13.45-15.15 Joey Pollock Testimony and linguistic understanding\n15.15-16.45 Sandy Goldberg Context\, Assertibility\, and the Epistemology of Testimony\n\n16.45-17.00 Break\n\n17.00-18.00: Roundtable Discussion (Herman Cappelen\, Mikkel Gerken\, Patrick Greenough) \n\nThe Workshop organisers are Patrick Greenough and Andrew Peet. For more information\, please send an email to Patrick at pmg2@st-andrews.ac.uk or Andrew at arp7@st-andrews.ac.uk \nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association \, The Mind Association and Aristotelian Society. \nTo register for this event\, please send an email to arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \n \n\nAbstracts\nEmma Borg\nLinguistic Meaning\, Context and Assertion \nAbstract: This paper explores the difference between asserting and implying\, and the role the context of utterance plays in determining either kind of content. I begin by introducing two distinct approaches to the difference between asserting and implying: one which locates the difference in the language\, as it were\, and one which locates it in the mind. However I argue that both these approaches face problems. Instead then I argue that the distinction is better captured in sociolinguistic terms\, whereby the difference between asserting and merely implying emerges from the distinct kinds of social role these speech acts play. I conclude by sketching how this socially-orientated view of assertion relates to debates about how and where to draw the semantics/pragmatics boundary. \nRachel Fraser\nSaying and ‘De Se’-ing \nAbstract: I look at the consequences of de se content and attitudes for the epistemology of testimony. \nLizzie Fricker\nOn Not Being Able to Believe What One Is Told \nAbstract: Testimony is a means of spreading knowledge that has the potential to iterate: suppose A knowledgeably tells B that P\, and B takes her word for it\, thereby coming also to know that P; then B may in turn tell C that P\, who in turn passes on that knowledge further. This process can in principle continue without limit. This being so\, testimony can spread knowledge widely across both space and time: it is used both to pass on knowledge\, and when concretised in written form\, to preserve it for future generations. But for B to learn from A’s testimony she must understand it; and this requires shared meanings between speaker and hearer. So\, for testimony widely to spread knowledge\, and to preserve it\, there must be shared stable linguistic meanings of expressions of a common language. In this paper I explore how the fact of context-sensitivity in determination of reference of many expressions of natural language complicates\, and in some cases renders problematic\, this spreading and preserving of knowledge via spoken and written word. \nSandy Goldberg\nContext\, Assertibility\, and the Epistemology of Testimony \nAbstract: Though by no means a consensus\, a popular view in the literature on assertion is that the standards for warranted assertion can vary with context. I will call such a view\, ‘Variability in Assertion’s Standard\,’ or ‘VAS’ for short. Most familiarly\, VAS has been used\, together with the Knowledge Norm of Assertion\, as part of an argument for a contextualist semantics for ‘knows’ (see e.g. DeRose 2002; Shaffer 2008 defends a contrastivist account on these grounds). Others have used VAS\, together with a commitment to an invariantist semantics for ‘knows’\, to reject the Knowledge Norm of Assertion itself\, in favor of a contextualist account of the norm of assertion (Levin 2008; Maitra and Weatherson 2010; Gerken 2014; Goldberg 2015; McKinnon 2015). One might also try to explain away the phenomena that appear to support VAS\, by arguing that what appear to be warranted assertions answering to different standards are actually no such thing. Perhaps this is because the appearance of warrantedness itself is illusory. Alternatively\, perhaps this is because the appearance of warranted acts of assertion is illusory (Turri 2010). While the discussion surrounding VAS has taken place mainly in the literature on assertion\, we can shed some light on the commitments of these various views by linking that discussion to the literature in the epistemology of testimony. On the (plausible if not universally-endorsed) assumption that the act of testifying requires a speech act that is governed by the norm of assertion\, I ask what the various views described above imply for the epistemology of testimony – in particular\, for the conditions on\, and prevalence of\, justified testimonial belief and testimonial knowledge. \nKatherine Hawley\nTelling or Trying to Tell? \nAbstract: We do not always control which type of speech act we perform. This opens up a gap between telling and trying to tell. In this paper I explore the consequences of this gap for the ethics and epistemology of testimony. \nAndrew Peet\nKnowledge-Yielding Communication \nAbstract: Testimonial knowledge is knowledge acquired through communication. A complete epistemology of testimony will include an account of the communicative preconditions for testimonial knowledge. This talk sets out to provide such an account. Several conditions are considered\, including coordination on content\, knowledge of what is said\, mutual understanding\, and the satisfaction of complex Gricean intentions. These views are found to be inadequate. The second half of the talk develops an anti-luck and anti-individualist account of the communicative preconditions for testimonial knowledge. \nJoey Pollock\nTestimony and Linguistic Understanding \nAbstract How well do we need to understand a speaker in order to gain knowledge from her speech? One attractive answer to this question is that we do not need a very sophisticated understanding of the content of a speaker’s testimony in order to gain knowledge from this testimony: so long as we grasp the right content\, it does not matter if we understand this content poorly. Such a view looks especially promising when combined with the thesis that we share a public language that makes it very easy to grasp the content of a speaker’s testimony. This picture is attractive because it allows us to claim that we often and easily gain knowledge from others. In this talk\, I argue that this picture is epistemically problematic. Unless a hearer possesses a relatively good understanding of what a speaker’s asserts\, her resultant testimonial belief will not be justified. Given that we often do not possess a sufficiently good understanding of the testimony we consume\, I argue that we acquire far less knowledge from testimony than is popularly thought. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/testimony-and-context/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20151206 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20151209 DTSTAMP:20220117T165138Z CREATED:20170917T234603Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220117T165138Z UID:10016793-1449392400-1449565199@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Epistemic Incoherence DESCRIPTION:What is Epistemic Incoherence? In one form\, it is roughly the idea that the concept of knowledge/justification is incoherent. In another form\, it is the idea that the rules governing ‘knows’/’is justified in believing’ issue in contradictory instructions if sufficiently pressed. In another guise\, it is the (related) idea that the demands of rationality are incoherent in that they place inconsistent requirements on action. These ideas have been kicking around for a while — see Vogel (1990)\, Schiffer (1996)\, Weiner (2009)\, and Spicer (2008). However\, there has been little systematic scrutiny of the nature and scope of Epistemic Incoherence. The broad idea belongs to an older tradition that holds that many or even most philosophically interesting concepts are incoherent—an idea found in Dummett (1975) and Wittgenstein; see also Frege and Tarski (1944). This workshop aims to explore just what Epistemic Incoherence amounts to and whether it is a useful notion in coming to understand the many puzzles and paradoxes concerning knowledge. \nConfirmed speakers are: Herman Cappelen (Oslo) Matti Eklund (Uppsala) Claire Field (St Andrews) Patrick Greenough (St Andrews) Nick Hughes (St Andrews) Gillian Russell (UNC Chapel Hill) Kevin Scharp (Ohio State) Elia Zardini (Lisbon) \nProvisional Schedule\nSunday 6th December\n\n10:30-12:00 Nick Hughes (Oslo) Damned if You Do\, Damned if You Don’t: A Defense of Doxastic Dilemmas\n12.00-13.00 Lunch\n13:00-14:30 Herman Cappelen (Oslo/St Andrews). Inconsistent concepts: What they are and what to do about them\n14.30-14.45 Break\n14.45-16.15 Elia Zardini (Lisbon) Unstable Knowledge\n16.15-16.30 Break\n16.30-18.00 Patrick Greenough (St Andrews) Is “Knows” Incoherent? \n18:00-19:00 Workshop Reception\n19:30 Workshop dinner at Forgans \n\nMonday 7th December\n\n09.45-11.15 Gillian Russell (UNC Chapel Hill) Knowledge Attributions and Inconsistency\n11.15-11.30 Break\n11.30-13.00 Kevin Scharp (Ohio State) Replacing Knowledge\n13.00-14.15 Lunch\n14.15-15.45 Matti Eklund (Uppsala) Epistemology and Inconsistent Concepts\n15.45-16.00 Break\n16.00-17.30: Claire Field (St Andrews) Rational Incoherence: how to make mistakes about what rationality requires\n\nThe Workshop organiser is Patrick Greenough. For more information\, please send an email to Patrick at pmg2@st-andrews.ac.uk \nThis event is open to all philosophers in Scotland and beyond and is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association and The Mind Association. \nTo register for this event\, please send an email to arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \n \n\nAbstracts\nMatti Eklund\nEpistemology and Inconsistent Concepts \nAbstract: In my talk I plan to address the following cluster of questions: Is the concept of knowledge inconsistent? And what should talk of inconsistency of concepts even be taken to mean and imply? If the concept of knowledge – and other central epistemic concepts – are inconsistent\, what implications does that have for epistemology? When addressing these questions I will keep relating to Matt Weiner’s important paper “The (Mostly Harmless) Inconsistency of Knowledge Ascriptions”. My own view is that the concept of knowledge is inconsistent (whether or not for the kinds of reasons Weiner adduces)\, but that this inconsistency does not immediately have any radical implications. \nClaire Field\nRational Incoherence: how to make mistakes about what rationality requires \nAbstract: I argue that accepting two plausible claims about rationality leads to trouble when we consider agents with particular kinds of perspectives\, and that this trouble is best avoided by accepting a view I call ‘incoherentism’. The two claims are: (a) that rationality involves conformity to wide-scope consistency requirements and\, (b) that what it is rational for you to believe is determined at least to some extent by features of your perspective. However\, all sorts of perspectives are possible\, including perspectives that misleadingly support falsehoods about what rationality requires – that is\, they support ‘mistakes’ about what rationality requires. Believing what is intelligible from these perspectives will mean that in fulfilling claim (b)\, agents will contravene (a). What\, then\, should agents with mistake-supporting perspectives believe\, according to rationality? I consider three views that offer an answer to this question: perspectivism\, dogmatism\, and incoherentism. I argue that despite its counterintuitive consequences – notably its rejection of the enkratic principle – incoherentism is the best solution if we want to retain both claims. \nNick Hughes\nDamned if You Do\, Damned if You Don’t: A Defense of Doxastic Dilemmas \nAbstract: I raise a challenge for the view that knowledge is the norm of belief in the sense that it is epistemically permissible to believe that p only if one knows that p. I then survey possible responses to the challenge. One of the responses involves embracing the existence of doxastic dilemmas: situations in which one faces conflicting epistemic obligations with respect to doxastic attitude formation with the result no matter what doxastic attitude one takes\, one is doomed to violate at least one epistemic obligation. I offer the beginnings of a defense of this view by considering and rejecting one important objection to it. \nKevin Scharp\nReplacing Knowledge \nAbstract: Of the dozens of purported solutions to epistemological skepticism published in the past fifty years\, the vast majority are “traditional” in the sense that they reject one of the premises or inference rules that are used to derive the skeptical conclusion. Over the years\, however\, several philosophers have developed an alternative to the traditional approaches; according to them\, our very competence with the concept of knowledge leads us to accept that the reasoning used to derive the skeptical conclusion. That is\, our conceptual competence leads us into skepticism. We can call this alternative the inconsistency approach to skepticism. Although this approach has many positive features\, I argue that several of the well-developed versions of it that have appeared recently are unacceptable. In particular\, they do not recognize that if knowledge is an inconsistent concept\, then we should replace it with new concepts that do the work of knowledge without giving rise to skeptical problems. I outline an inconsistency approach to epistemological skepticism that satisfies this condition. \nElia Zardini\nUnstable Knowledge \nAbstract: I start by arguing that the Knower paradox offers underappreciated resistance to standard non-classical approaches to the paradoxes of self-reference\, because of the divergence they require between rejecting a sentence and accepting its negation. I move on to address a problem which the Knower paradox raises for my own favoured non-contractive\, instability-based approach\, and which consists in the apparent lack of a suitable principle of “epistemic ascent”. Shifting from logic and metaphysics to pragmatics\, I defend the coherence and reasonableness of accepting sentences (like the Knower sentence or its negation) that express unstable states-of-affairs. Consequently\, appealing to unusual conceptual resources\, I close by revealing whether paradoxical sentences are true or not… URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/epistemic-incoherence/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20141101 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20141104 DTSTAMP:20170917T172947Z CREATED:20170917T172947Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170917T172947Z UID:10016785-1414832400-1415005199@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Mereology Workshop DESCRIPTION:Mereology is the formal theory of parts and wholes. It has become increasingly important in philosophical disputes in metaphysics and has found application in areas such as formal semantics\, the philosophy of mathematics\, and computer science. The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers who are at the cutting edge of research into mereology and its applications. \nConfirmed speakers are: \, Kris McDaniel (Syracuse)\, Josh Parsons (Oxford)\, Marin Pickup (Oxford)\, Caroline Touborg (St Andrews)\, Achille Varzi (Columbia)\, Gabriel Uzquiano (USC/Arche) \nSchedule\nSaturday 1st Nov\n\n10:00-10:30 Coffee\n10:30-12:00 Josh Parsons The Earth and the Aleph \n\nAisling Crean – chair\n\n\n12:00-14:00 Lunch\n14:00-15:30 Gabriel Uzquiano Ex Uno Plures: From Plenitude to Plural Coincidence \n\nMichael Traynor – chair\n\n\n15:30-16:00 Coffee\n16:00-17:30 Kris McDaniel Non-Standard Mereology: Questions about the Dialectical Situation \n\nMartin Lipman – chair\n\n\n19:00 Workshop Dinner at the Russell Hotel \n\nSunday 2nd Nov\n\n10:00-10:30 Coffee\n10:30-12:00 Martin Pickup Situations and Persistence through Change\n\n Patrik Hummel – chair\n\n\n12:00-14:00 Lunch\n14:00-15:30 Caroline Touborg Admissible ways of counting \n\nStephen Read – chair\n\n\n15:30-16:00 Coffee\n16:00-17:30 Achille Varzi Atomism\, Gunk\, and the Limits of “Composition”\n\n Aaron Cotnoir – chair\n\n\n\nFor more information\, please send an email to the workshop organisers at arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \n\nAbstracts\nMartin Pickup\nSituations and Persistence through Change \nAbstract: In talk I present a new way to understand the persistence of material objects through change. It is a view that solves the problem of change\, which is the problem of how one and the same thing can have incompatible properties (at different times) without contradiction. To describe the view\, I will firstelaborate a metaphysical picture of the world that is drawn from the Fragmentalism of Kit Fine before giving some concrete shape to the metaphysics by modelling it using the tools of situation semantics. The key notion is mereological: fundamental reality is inherently partial and the combination of these parts leads to truth-value gaps. This view\, which I callsituationalism\, gives a new account of change and of the world more generally. The primary aim of the paper is therefore to providing a new theory of persistence. But thereis a subsidiary aim too: to get a better handle on the claims of Fragmentalism by cashing out the metaphysics in this novel context. \nCaroline Touborg\nAdmissible ways of counting \nAbstract: Imagine that you are looking up at the night sky. What you see\, one might say\, is just stuff. This stuff can be carved up into objects in many different ways. On one way of carving up what you see\, you might count a particular portion of stuff as one galaxy; on another\, you might count the same portion of stuff as many stars. Once we become aware of these different ways of counting – each corresponding to a way of carving up the world – we might ask: what does it take for a way of counting to be admissible\, in the sense that it accurately reflects the structure of the world? In this talk\, I propose a way of making such a notion of admissibility precise. I then go on to show how this gives us a new framework for thinking about the question: when do some objects compose one object? \nGabriel Uzquano\nEx Uno Plures: From Plenitude to Plural Coincidence \nAbstract: Consider the thesis that the Supreme Court is not identical to the set of Supreme Court Justices because the two exemplify different modal profiles. Furthermore\, the Supreme Court Justices compose the Supreme Court only to the extent to which they stand in a certain complex relation to each other. There is nothing special about the Supreme Court. Some individuals make up a queue only to the extent to which they stand in some spatial relation to each other. Nor is the phenomenon restricted to social groups; the Shetland Islands are composed of several islands\, but the archipelago is not to be identified with the set of them. Now\, the question naturally arises: under what conditions do some objects compose a group? It might seem objectionable to answer that they do only when such a group is recognized by common sense. So\, one may be tempted by a plenitudinous answer according to which no matter what some objects may be\, if they bear a certain relation to each other\, there is a group to which they belong to the extent to which they stand in the relation. This thought\, if taken seriously\, might force one to rethink the claim that a group is a single composite object over and above its members. \nAchille Varzi\nAtomism\, Gunk\, and the Limits of “Composition” \nAbstract: It is customary practice to define ‘x is a composed of the ys’ as ‘x is a sum of the ys and the ys are pairwise disjoint (i.e.\, no two of them have any parts in common)’. This predicate has played a central role in the debate on the special composition question and on related metaphysical issues concerning the mereological structure of objects. In this talk I will argue that the customary characterization is nonetheless inadequate. I will do so by constructing a mereological model where everything qualifies as composed of atoms even though some elements in the domain are gunky\, i.e.\, can be divided indefinitely into smaller and smaller proper parts. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/mereology-workshop/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20141011 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20141014 DTSTAMP:20210315T102448Z CREATED:20210310T122722Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210315T102448Z UID:10017465-1413018000-1413190799@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Non-Alethic Aims of Enquiry DESCRIPTION:Everyone admits that some theories are better than others. What makes good theories good? A natural first thought is that an ideal theory must at least be true\, so our acceptance of our best current theories rests on the idea that they are at least closer to truth than the seemingly inferior theories that they superseded. But this conception of inquiry has been called into question. Philosophers of science\, in particular\, have often maintained that scientific theories aim at usefulness\, or at observational adequacy\, so that an ideal scientific theory might be (at least in part) untrue. Despite much debate about particular views of scientific inquiry\, general questions about the metaphysics and epistemology of claims about aims and theoretical success have been relatively neglected. What are aims? What makes it the case that a given discipline (or theorist\, or theory) is aimed at truth\, and how can we tell? Moreover\, these questions are rarely addressed outside of philosophy of science. How do these debates play out with respect to theorizing in other areas (including philosophy itself)? Questions to be addressed include: \nDoes inquiry (in science\, in philosophy\, or elsewhere) aim at truth? If not\, what constitutes progress in these areas of inquiry?\nHow can we evaluate claims about aims?\nPlausibly\, most if not all forms of inquiry have multiple aims. (Even those who maintain that truth is an aim typically deny that compiling trivial truths is sufficient for theoretical success – features such as explanatory scope and power\, simplicity\, novelty\, beauty\, etc. are also necessary.) How are these aims related?\nWhat psychological states (belief\, suspension of belief\, etc.) are involved in inquiry? How do questions about the aims of theoretical inquiry relate to questions about the aims of psychological states\, such as belief?\nDo the roles of idealisations\, abstractions\, and models in some theoretical disciplines suggest that these disciplines do not aim at truth?\nSome well-known models of assertion and belief\, and of representational content generally\, (e.g.\, Stalnaker’s) seem to presuppose that inquiry aims at truth. How can these models be adapted to forms of inquiry that are not focused on truth? \nSpeakers include: Derek Ball (St Andrews)\, Nancy Cartwright (Durham/UCSD)\, Jane Friedman (NYU)\, Allan Hazlett (Edinburgh)\, Juha Saatsi (Leeds)\, Andreas Stokke (Umea) \nSaturday: \n09:30 – 10:00 Coffee/Tea\n10:00 -11:30 Allan Hazlett Understanding and Structure\n11:30 -12:00 Coffee\n12:00 -13:30 Juha Saatsi tba\n13:30 -14:30 Lunch\n14:30 -16:00 Jane Friedman Inquiry and the Doxastic Attitudes \nTba\nConference dinner\n Sunday: \n09:30 – 10:00 Coffee/Tea\n10:00 – 11:30 Derek Ball Untrue and Unbelievable: Assertion and Inquiry in Philosophy\n11:30 -12:00 Coffee\n12:00 -13:30 Andreas Stokke tba\n13:30 – 14:30 Lunch\n14:30 – 16:00 Nancy Cartwright tba\nThis event is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association. \nFor more information\, please send an email to the workshop organisers at arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \n  URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/non-alethic-aims-of-enquiry/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20140616 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20140620 DTSTAMP:20210315T102109Z CREATED:20210310T121132Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210315T102109Z UID:10017462-1402909200-1403168399@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Gibbard on Meaning and Normativity DESCRIPTION:A workshop on themes from Allan Gibbard’s book\, Meaning and Normativity. \nConfirmed speakers are: Derek Ball (St Andrews)\, Josh Dever (Texas)\, Allan Gibbard\, and Anandi Hattigandi (Stockholm) \, Dilip Ninan (Tufts)\, Åsa Wikforss (Stockholm)\, Seth Yalcin (Berkeley) \nSchedule\nMonday 16th June\n\n10:00 – 11:30 Allan Gibbard\n13:00 – 14:30. Allan Gibbard\n\nTuesday 17th June\n\n\n\n10:00-11:30 Åsa Wikforss ‘Does Semantics Need Normativity?’\n11:30-11:45 Short break\n11:45-13:15 Derek Ball tba\n13:15-14:30 Lunch\n14:30-16:00 Anandi Hattiangadi ‘The Limits of Expressivism.’\n16:00-16:30 Tea/coffee\n\n\n\n  \nWednesday 18th June\n\n10:00-11:30 Dilip Ninan“Gibbard on the Objects of Belief”\n11:30-11:45 Break\n11:45-13:15 Josh Dever tba\n13:15-14:30 Lunch\n14:30-16:00 Seth Yalcin tba\n\nFor more information about this event\, please send an email to the workshop organisers at arche@st-andrews.ac.uk URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/gibbard-on-meaning-and-normativity/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20140605 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20140608 DTSTAMP:20210315T101830Z CREATED:20210310T120441Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210315T101830Z UID:10017461-1401958800-1402131599@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Tense in Semantics and Philosophy of Language DESCRIPTION:This workshop aims to bring together researchers from philosophy and linguistics to discuss tense in natural language. Among the questions to be addressed may be the following: \nShould tense be analyzed with object-language quantifiers and variables\, or could an adequate analysis be provided using Priorian operators?\nTo what extent should tense and modality receive parallel treatments in semantics?\nWhat can we learn from data concerning embedded tenses?\nDoes the semantics of tense tell us anything about the metaphysics of time\, or vice versa?\nAre propositions temporally neutral\, or are they time-specific objects with eternal truth-conditions?\nCan the compositional semantics of tense tell us anything about whether temporalism or eternalism about propositions is correct?\nWhat is the status of the Kaplanian “operator argument” for temporalism?\nConfirmed speakers are: Dorit Abusch (Cornell) Berit Brogaard (Missouri) Peter Ludlow (Northwstern) Angelika Kratzer (UMass Amherst) Brian Rabern (Edinburgh) Mark Steedman (Edinburgh) \nSchedule\nThursday 5th June\n10:00-11:30 Brian Rabern The compositionality argument for temporalism\n11:30-11:45 Short break\n11:45-13:15 Mark Steedman Computation\, Probability\, and Temporal Ontology\n13:15-14:30 Lunch\n14:30-16:00 Berit Brogaard Temporalism and the Problem of Intentionality\n16:00-16:30 Tea/coffee \nFriday 6th June\n10:00-11:30 Peter Ludlow Four-dimensional Tensism\n11:30-11:45 Break\n11:45-13:15 Dorit Abusch Temporal succession and aspectual type in visual narrative\n13:15-14:30 Lunch\n14:30-16:00 Angelika Kratzer Representing temporal relations\nThis event is made possible by the generous support of the Scots Philosophical Association. \n \nFor more information about this event\, please send an email to the workshop organisers at arche@st-andrews.ac.uk URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/tense-in-semantics-and-philosophy-of-language/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20131116 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20131118 DTSTAMP:20170917T173536Z CREATED:20170917T173426Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170917T173536Z UID:10016786-1384592400-1384678799@www.st-andrews.ac.uk SUMMARY:Formal Metaphysics Workshop DESCRIPTION:Confirmed speakers include: Mark Jago (Nottingham)\, Jean-David Lafrance (Oxford) Bryan Pickel (Edinburgh) \nSchedule\n09:00 – 10:20 Jean-David Lafrance On the Fusion of an Object with Itself \n10:20 – 10:30 tea/coffee\n10:30 – 11:50 Aaron J Cotnoir Composite Objects as Ersatz Constructions\n11:50 – 12:00 break\n12:00 – 13:20 Bryan Pickel In Defence of Tarski on Variables \n13:20 – 14:30 lunch\n14:30 – 15:50 Bruno Jacinto\nSupervaluationism\, its Model -Theory and Higher-Order Vagueness \n15:50 – 16:00 tea/coffee\n16:00 – 17:20 Mark Jago Truthmaking Logics\n19:00 Workshop dinner at Playfairs Restaurant \nFor more information about this event\, please send an email to the workshop organisers at arche@st-andrews.ac.uk \nThis workshop has been sponsored by the Scots Philosophical Association \n \n\nAbstracts\nAaron Cotnoir\nComposite Objects as Ersatz Constructions \nAbstract: In this paper\, I explore an under-represented view in the metaphysics of material objects — what I call mereological ersatzism\, or the view that ordinary objects are set-theoretic constructions built up from fundamental things. I show how ersatzists can represent any mereological structure\, and any non-emergent properties of macrophysical objects. The technique applies some formal results in temporal logics in a novel way. \nMark Jago\nTruthmaking Logics \nAbstract: This paper describes preliminary investigations into truthmaking logic. I develop several semantics in terms of truthmakers\, and use these to construct various notions of truthmaking entailment\, which stands to classical entailment as truthmaking stands to truth. The resulting logics are relevant logics\, and this fact provides a neat way to give semantics for (some) relevant logics in terms of a truth-like notion. I present a number of technical results about these truthmaking semantics\, and discuss some of their philosophical applications. \nJean-David Lafrance\nOn the Fusion of an Object with Itself \nAbstract: Any object is both the mereological fusion of its proper parts and of its improper part: an object fuses the many things that are parts of it\, as well as itself. Surprisingly\, many philosophers think that the fusion of an object with itself could be another\, distinct object. They contend that an object that is (wholly) located at more than one place at once can compose alone a further thing. In these cases\, the operation of fusion operates on an object\, but results in something that is not the object. I call ‘cases of magical composition’ these alleged cases of composition\, and I argue that they are not coherent. Along the way\, I show that we should think of cases of magical composition as cases of coincidence. \nBryan Pickel\nIn Defence of Tarski on Variables \nAbstract: The theory of quantification developed by Tarski is a fixed point for many debates in metaphysics\, formal semantics\, and philosophy of logic. Kit Fine (2003\,2007) has offered an intriguing set of challenges to Tarski’s account\, which threaten to undermine it at its very heart. Fine insists that a version of Russell’s “antimony of the variable” plagues all extant treatments of variables\, including the standard Tarskian approach. He says\, “There are deep problems concerning the role of variables that have never been properly recognized\, let alone solved\, and once we attempt to solve them we see that they have profound implications not only for our understanding of variables but also for our understanding of other forms of expression and for the general nature of semantics.” We show how Fine’s arguments can be resisted\, and thus that there is no compelling reason to abandon the Tarskian semantics of variables and variable binding. \nBruno Jacinto\nSupervaluationism\, its Model-Theory and Higher-Order Vagueness \nAbstract: Some attempts to capture the supervaluationist logic for a propositional language with a ‘definitely’ operator (standing for supertruth) have made use of model-theoretic semantics for modal logic\, with some debate ensuing concerning what are the definitions of model\, truth in a model and validity that best capture the commitments of supervaluationists. I show how Williamson’s (1994) suggestion of seeing the points in a supervaluationist model as ω-level precisifications leads to definitions of these notions that the supervaluationist should see as appropriately reflecting their commitments\, and a fortiori\, to the correct supervaluationist logic for the language in question. Furthermore\, I show that the resulting semantics provides the supervaluationist with a sound reply to Delia Graff Fara’s gap-principles’ argument\, an argument purporting to show that there is some incoherency in the supervaluationist position\, since given a finite sorites series for a vague predicate\, not all of its gap-principles can be true. URL:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/formal-metaphysics-workshop/ LOCATION:Edgecliffe 104\, United College\, St Salvator's Quad\, St Andrews\, KY169AL\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Workshops END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR