Contact: Preston Werner
Area: Epistemology/Metaphilosophy
Reading Description: Philosophy Without Intuitions by Herman Cappelen (Oxford)
When: Thursdays, 3:00 p.m. (beginning May 31, 2012)
Where: 1038 Oldfather Hall
Contact: Clare LaFrance
Area: Social and Political
Reading Description: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault
When: Thursdays, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Where: The Coffee House, 1324 P Street
Readings:
June 7: Part One
June 14: Part Two
July 5: Part Three - Docile bodies
July 12: Part Three - The means of correct training
July 19: Part Four - Panopticon
Contact: Aaron Elliott
Reading Description: This week in ethics reading group we will be reading Jonathan Way's paper "Reasons as Premises of Good Reasoning." Please see the abstract below.
When: Our reading group will be meeting at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 17th in the Common Room.
Abstract: Many philosophers have been attracted to the view that normative reasons are premises of good reasoning - that for some consideration to be a normative reason to P is for is for it to be the premise of good reasoning towards P-ing. However, while this reasoning view is indeed attractive, it faces a problem of accommodating outweighed pro tanto reasons. In this paper, I argue that the standard solution to this problem is unsuccessful, and propose an alternative, which draws on the idea that good patters of reasoning can be defeasible. I conclude by drawing out some implications of the resulting view for a popular form of reductionist realism about reasons, and for the debate over pragmatic reasons for beliefs and other attitudes.
Contact: Aaron Elliott
Reading Description: This week in ethics reading group we will be reading a paper that will be presented at this years Chambers Conference. The paper is by Stephen Finlay and Justin Snedegar, and is titled "One Ought too Many." An abstract of the paper is below.
When: Our reading group will be meeting at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 10th in the Common Room.
ABSTRACT: Some philosophers hold that ‘ought’ is ambiguous between a sense expressing a propositional operator and a sense expressing a relation between an agent and an action. We defend the opposing view that ‘ought’ always expresses a propositional operator against Mark Schroeder’s recent objections that it cannot adequately accommodate an ambiguity in ‘ought’ sentences between evaluative and deliberative readings, predicting readings of sentences that are not actually available. We show how adopting an independently well-motivated contrastivist semantics for ‘ought’, according to which ‘ought’ is always relativized to a contrast set of relevant alternatives, enables us to explain the evaluative deliberative ambiguity and why the availability of these readings depends on sentential grammar.
Contact: Preston Werner
Reading Description: Centered around the work of Niko Kolodny, in preparation for his upcoming visit.
When: Our reading group will be meeting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, November 15th. I realize that this is a non-ideal time for some, however this time seemed to be the best compromise, given those I have spoken with.
For the reading group, we will be reading two of Kolodny's papers: "Scanlon's Investigation: The Relevance of Intent to Permissibility" and "Which Relationships Justify Partiality? General Considerations and Problem Cases".
There are two other Kolodny papers which may be of general interest. The first is his most famous paper, "Why Be Rational?" If I understand correctly, we will be reading this in Mark's seminar, which is why we opted not to read it for the reading group. The second is a paper he co-authored with John MacFarlane, called "Ifs and Oughts". I know Jan recently taught a course on epistemic modals, which is what that paper discusses, so those of you that took the course may be interested.
All faculty and students are welcome and encouraged; hope to see you there!
Best,
Preston Werner
Contact: Christopher Gibilisco
Area: Metaphysics/Philosophy of Physics
Reading Description: We shall be discussing some of the basic issues of the philosophy of space-time and related issues in metaphysics, as well as the effect quantum mechanics and special and general relativity have had on the debate. Writers that we shall focus on are Julian Barbour, Howard Stein, and Tim Maudlin. After the sixth meeting, we will vote on new readings for the following few meetings in order to address our evolving interests (or disband). I would particularly like to get to discuss Tim Maudlin's excellent book, Quantum non-locality and relativity: metaphysical intimations of modern physics, and Barbour and Berotti's work on Machian mechanics.
Christopher Gibilisco will provide pdf's upon request for those unable to obtain the readings. We shall try to limit readings to about 50 pages a week, and we will make readings optional as needed. Feel free to attend and skip meetings as you please, but e-mail me to find out what you missed.
Where: The Philosophy Common Room
When: Wednesdays, 1:00 p.m.
Begin date: May 25, 2011
End date: TBA
Tentative Reading List
Meeting 1:
1. Leibniz and Clarke (1717) - 5th letters from the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence
2. Isaac Newton (circa1670, unpublished until 1960;s) - 'De graviatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum'
3. (optional) Alexandre Koyré and I. Bernard Cohen (1961) - 'The case of the missing tanquam: Leibniz, Newton, and Clarke'
Meeting 2:
1. Tim Maudlin (1993) - 'Buckets of water and waves in space: why space-time is probably a substance'
2. Howard Stein (1967) - 'Newtonian Space-time'
3. Isaac Newton (1688) - 'Scholium on Space from the Principia'
Meeting 3:
1. Hans Reichenbach (1958) - TBA, Selections from The philosophy of space and time
2. Julian Barbour (1982) - 'Relational concepts of space and time'
Meeting 4:
1. Julian Barbour (1989) - Ch. 11 of The Discovery of Dynamics
Meeting 5:
1. (Optional for clarification) Einstein (1961) - Various chapters from Relativity: the special and general theories
2. John Earman (1989) - 'General relativity and substantivalism: a very holey story'; Chapter 9 of World Enough and Spacetime
3. Howard Stein (1968) - 'On Einstein-Minkowski spacetime'
Meeting 6:
1. Tim Maudlin (2007) - 'On the passing of time' from his collection The metaphysics within physics
2. Julian Barbour (2001) - 'A timeless world,' Ch. 3 of The End of Time
Contact: Clare LaFrance
Area: Feminist Philosophy
Reading Description: Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology (Blackwell Publishing; ed. Ann E. Cudd and Robin O. Andreasen)
Where: The Coffeehouse
When: Tuesdays, 2:00 p.m.
Begin date: May 17, 2011
End date: TBA
Contact: Clare LaFrance
Area: Foucault
Reading Description: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, 2, 3 (Michel Foucault)
Where: The Philosophy Common Room
When: Mondays, 3:00 p.m.
Begin date: May 16, 2011
End date: TBA