The Exploding Philosopher

Thursday, May 8, 4-6 pm, AB Anderson 345
All are welcome to attend.

Emily Esch
College of St. Benedict and St. John's University

Know-How: What's It Good For? [Absolutely Nothin' --CM]

The publication of Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson's 2001 paper,
“Knowing How,” resurrected an old debate about the nature of know-how.
The history of this debate, at least in its contemporary form, begins
with Gilbert Ryle's argument that not only is know-how distinct from
propositional knowledge, but its distinctness is necessary to stop a
potentially infinite regress. A few decades later, David Lewis relies
crucially on the claim that know-how is distinct from propositional
knowledge in his influential response to Frank Jackson's knowledge
argument. More recently, it has been argued that know-how has a central
role to play in the cognitive sciences, for example in Alva Noë and
Kevin O’Regan’s enactive approach to perception. In an effort to get
past the linguistic and semantic arguments that characterize much of the
debate over know-how’s relationship to its more esteemed sibling, I
explore some of the different purposes know-how has served. I'm
interested in two questions: first, do these different uses of know-how
underwrite a genuine distinction between know-how and propositional
knowledge? And second, do these different uses share the same basic
conception of know-how?

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UMD Philosophy alumnus Luke Donahue will present on the Monty Hall
Problem. Socratic Society meets at 7:30, Thursday, in Kirby 355.

[As I (Cole) understand it, the "Monty Hall Problem", strangely
enough, stems from a daytime tv game show. The contestant has to
choose between three doors, one of which has the grand prize behind
it. After the choice, host Monty Hall reveals what is behind one of
the other doors, it is never the grand prize. MH then allows the
contestant to switch his/her choice between the two remaining closed
doors. Should the contestant switch his/her choice? There is an
alleged proof that one should.

Luke Donahue (no doubt now standing behind door number 2 to K355) will
prove otherwise! He describes the drama as follows:]

Critique of the Monty Hall Problem

presented by Luke Donahue

First, I will be giving a history of the Monty Hall problem and giving
examples of use of the problem in popular culture. Then, I will
present the problem and the classical answer. Following this, I will
provide two objections to the problem and assess those objections.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There will be a Philosophy Colloquium on
Tuesday, April 22nd at 4:00 pm in Humanities 403.

"Happiness and Duty"

Presented by Jing Wang
UMD Philosophy major

People often use the word "happiness" in everyday life, but the term
"happiness" is ambiguous. Happiness can describe the overall structure
of a life, a state of feeling, or satisfaction of desires. The problem I
propose to study is whether one's life could be happy while still living
up to all one's duties and what this means for the nature of happiness
and duty.

I will contrast the ancient views of happiness with modern views.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please join us for a talk on the role of Trust in Political
Reconciliation Tuesday April 15 at 4pm.

The talk, by Professor Colleen Murphy, is sponsored by the Center for
Ethics and Public policy and will be at 4:00 pm Tuesday April 15 in the
library rotunda on the 4th floor of the UMD library. All are invited
and the talk is open to the public. Professor Murphy has researched in
Northern Ireland and South Africa, and has studied at Oxford University,
the University of Notre Dame, and the University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill. She is currently an assistant professor of philosophy at
the Texas A&M University, where her research focus is on the role of
trust and rule of law in post-conflict political reconciliation.
Details of her research can be found below.

Colleen Murphy Research Statement
Political reconciliation refers to the process of re-building damaged
political relationships within societies transitioning from civil
conflict or repressive rule to democracy. Societies that have faced or
are facing the need for this type of political reconciliation include
South Africa, Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Political
reconciliation is an /important /and /controversial/ challenge. It is
/important/, given the consensus that reconciliation is a condition for
successful democratization. It is /controversial/, both because the
moral justifiability of the pursuit of political reconciliation has been
questioned and because there is significant disagreement about what
kinds of processes (e.g., amnesty, criminal trials, truth commissions)
actually promote political reconciliation. In my research, I am
articulating and arguing for 1) criteria for critically evaluating
particular accounts of political reconciliation and 2) a specific
analysis of what political reconciliation entails. I develop my
proposed understanding of political reconciliation by focusing on three
concepts in moral and political philosophy: the rule of law, substantive
justice, and trust. Each provides, I argue, distinctive resources for
1) explaining /how /intuitively problematic aspects of political
relations during civil conflict or repressive rule are damaging in
morally significant ways 2) suggesting /why/ and /how/ political
relations need to change and 3) evaluating the effectiveness and moral
justifiability of processes of reconciliation.
http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~cmmurphy/

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tonight's presentation will be brought to you by Mike Wadding. He will be
leading a discussion on the evils of Facebook and how it is destroying
personal interaction.

7:30 pm in Kirby 355-57

Everyone is welcome.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"V for Vendetta we will be viewing my friends. Complete government
control and submission of free choice are the topics. Is it ever ok to
lie to provide comfort in a society? And then we have a superhero, what
is there not to like. Monday April 7th, 2008 at 7pm in ABAH 345.

Hope to see you's a there."

--Mike Wadding

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please join us for a Philosophy Colloquium

*"Free Will and Representation"*

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 4:00 pm in Humanities 403

*Presented by Dennis Stampe*

/Professor Stampe is currently on faculty at UW-Madison (Oxford,
D.Phil.) with research interests in philosophy of language, philosophy
of mind, epistemology.

/Abstract: In this paper, I present a novel account of what freedom of
the will is. The thesis is that freedom of the will is the capacity we
have to do as we will (what we want), that derives specifically from the
will itself as opposed to other cognitive or physical abilities we have.
I argue that this ability arises from the same endowments as does the
language capacity, namely the extraordinary powers of mental
representation unique to the human mind. Freedom of the will arises from
particular employments of this capacity, in the service of our own
desires and designs.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There will be a colloquium on Thursday, March 13 at 4:00 pm in ABAH 345.

All are welcome to attend.

Scott Forschler
Minneapolis Community and Technical College, North Hennepin Community
College, Northland Community and Technical College

"Morality as a System of Justificatory Rules"

Abstract
This paper shows how to derive fundamental ethical norms from
practical reason. I argue that any justification of intentional action
must be expressible as a justificatory syllogism, the major premise of
which is a justificatory rule stating that under specified conditions,
the pursuit of a specified end is justified. Potential conflicts
between these rules and the ends they purportedly justify must be
adjudicated with higher-order rules which specify when exceptions can be
made to lower-order rules. I argue that such conflicts can only be
resolved via the endorsement of three very general higher-order rules,
specifying the ultimate ground of justification, our obligations to
improve the information on which we act as well as our general capacity
to be rational agents, and our obligations with respect to others’
justified ends. These rules broadly encompass several widely-shared and
defensible moral views, and their derivation from the logic of practical
reason can explain the perceived universality and objectivity of
morality.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Students in my logic class can get (a small but not-insignificant amount of) extra credit for attending this colloquium and writing a brief (about one page, double spaced) report on what it was about. The report is due by Wed., March 12.

Philosophy Department Colloquium
Thursday, March 6, 4 p.m. ABAH 345
“Contradiction in Fiction (How to Imagine the Impossible without Inferring the Insane)"
A presentation by Casey McGinnis

Logic plays a role in determining what’s true in a work of fiction. For example, if X is true in a work of fiction, and X logically implies Y, then Y is also true in that work of fiction. Many works of fiction are inconsistent or contradictory — some even deliberately so. For example, the philosopher and logician Graham Priest has written a thought-provoking story (“Sylvan’s Box”) about a mysterious box that is somehow both empty and not empty (at the same time). Classical logic tells us that contradictions imply everything, so, from a classical point of view, everything must be true in an inconsistent work of fiction! Intuitively, this seems wrong.

For this and other reasons, some (such as Priest) have recommended that we give up classical logic in favor of a paraconsistent (inconsistency-tolerant) logic. I will argue that replacing classical logic with paraconsistent logic is neither necessary nor sufficient for solving the puzzle about inconsistent fiction. The alternative solution I propose appeals to what I call logical relativism — roughly, the view that judgments about what follows from what are correct or incorrect only relative to a set of background assumptions about what is considered a “live” possibility.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Socratic Society presents

Eugenics and Elitism:
What a Wonderful Idea!

A panel of students will defend this position.

All are welcome. Come and voice your own opinion.

In Search of Utopia

Thursday, March 6, 2008
Kirby 355-57
7:30 pm

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks, all, for coming to Professor Ilea's colloquium today. It was a great success!

Next:

Thursday, March 6, 4 p.m. ABAH 345
“Contradiction in Fiction"
Casey McGinnis

All are welcome!

---

Contradiction in Fiction:
How to Imagine the Impossible without Inferring the Insane

Logic plays a role in determining what’s true in a work of fiction. For example, if X is true in a work of fiction, and X logically implies Y, then Y is also true in that work of fiction. Many works of fiction are inconsistent or contradictory — some even deliberately so. For example, the philosopher and logician Graham Priest has written a thought-provoking story (“Sylvan’s Box”) about a mysterious box that is somehow both empty and not empty (at the same time). Classical logic tells us that contradictions imply everything, so, from a classical point of view, everything must be true in an inconsistent work of fiction! Intuitively, this seems wrong.

For this and other reasons, some (such as Priest) have recommended that we give up classical logic in favor of a paraconsistent (inconsistency-tolerant) logic. I will argue that replacing classical logic with paraconsistent logic is neither necessary nor sufficient for solving the puzzle about inconsistent fiction. The alternative solution I propose appeals to what I call logical relativism — roughly, the view that judgments about what follows from what are correct or incorrect only relative to a set of background assumptions about what is considered a “live” possibility.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There will be a Philosophy Colloquium on Monday, March 3rd
at 4:00 pm in ABAH 235. All are welcome to attend.

Sympathy, Moral Psychology, and Mass Suffering

Presented by Ramona Cristina Ilea

Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Pacific University
http://www.pacificu.edu/as/philosophy/faculty/ramona-ilea.cfm

Abstract: Starting with David Hume, philosophers have praised the virtues
of sympathy. In this presentation, I will argue that we cannot and should
not depend on our natural feeling of sympathy to motivate us to take action
against mass suffering and death. I will analyze psychological literature
to support the view that our individual sympathy has major limitations: (1)
psychological studies indicate that our natural sympathetic responses are
not trustworthy; (2) sympathy can lead us astray, moving us away from
caring
about mass suffering and death; and (3) sympathy can have a paralyzing
effect that leads to ignorance and inaction.

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Philm Night is back and kicken Monday March 3rd at 7pm in ABAH 345.

We will be watching "Ghost in the Shell." It's an animation film about
the blurred line between what makes a human different from a robot. Is
there a difference? Can robots eventually be like us? We'll find out by
the end of the night :). Hope to see you all there!"

--Mike Wadding

Posted by Casey McGinnis at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)