June 30, 2011

Crispin Wright’s Philosophical Ramblings
By S. Matthew Liao

This summer Crispin Wright (NIP Director and Professor at NYU) will walk The Pennine Way, 268 miles across the Pennine mountain tops.

The Aim: To raise money to support graduate students from elsewhere to visit the Northern Institute of Philosophy and to support Northern Institute of Philosophy graduate students to visit other institutions. This is in line with a general mission of the Institute to support early career philosophers to develop their interests and skills through collaboration and philosophical interactions. The costs of such visits and exchanges are seldom adequately provided for in the budgets of grant giving authorities, and philosophy departments, even when in principle willing to support research-related travel by graduate students, are less and less able to do so. The hope is to build a Trust Fund at NIP to enable NIP to provide such support as a part of the regular working routine of the Institute.

Read the full post here

Posted on June 30, 2011 at 9:53 pm in Epistemology, General Announcement, Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

June 25, 2011

Conference on Death at Newcastle
By S. Matthew Liao

Here is a fantastic looking conference on Death organized by one of our Contributors, Thom Brooks, and with Saul Smilansky, among others, as a speaker.

Death: Its Meaning, Morality, and Metaphysics conference
July 6-7, 2011
Politics Building, Newcastle University

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/deathconference.htm

Keynote speakers:
Ben Bradley (Syracuse)
Mary Midgley (Newcastle)

Speakers include:
Timo Airaksinen (Helsinki)
William Baird (Georgia State)
Kathy Behrendt (Wilfrid Laurier)
Stephan Blatti (Memphis)
Ben Curtis (Nottingham)
Jon Garthoff (Northwestern)
Geoffrey Scarre (Durham)
Saul Smilansky (Haifa)
Alex Voorhoeve (LSE)
Aaron Wolff (Syracuse)

Read the full post here

Posted on June 25, 2011 at 1:28 am in Conference Announcement, Metaphysics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

July 25, 2009

Fictionalism Conference at Manchester
By S. Matthew Liao

FICTIONALISM
15-17 September 2009
Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre, University of Manchester

Tuesday 15 September
2-3.15 John Divers (Leeds) If You Don’t Succeed, At Least Pretend To: The Explanatory Poverty of Modal Fictionalisms

3.45-5 Mary Leng (Liverpool) Mathematical Fictionalism and Constructive Empiricism

5.30-6.45 Daniel Nolan (Nottingham) There’s No Justice: Ontological Moral Fictionalism

Wednesday 16 September
10-11.15 Jonas Olson (Stockholm) Getting Real about Moral Fictionalism

11.45-1 Mark Balaguer (California State, Los Angeles) (title TBA)

2-3.15 Anthony Everett (Bristol) Meinongian Fictionalism Reconsidered

3.45-5 Jussi Suikkanen (Reading) Saving the Moral Fiction: The Content Challenge

Read the full post here

Posted on July 25, 2009 at 12:48 am in Conference Announcement, Metaethics, Metaphysics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

May 1, 2009

Stockholm June Workshop in Philosophy 2009: Metaphysics and Normativity
By Jonas Olson

Stockholm June Workshop in Philosophy 2009

Metaphysics and Normativity

June 4, 9.30 – 17.00
Stockholm University, room B497

Speakers

KENT HURTIG (UPPSALA):
‘The Scope of (External) Reasons’

JENS JOHANSSON (STOCKHOLM):
‘Temporalism about Death’s Badness’

NED MARKOSIAN (WESTERN WASHINGTON):
‘Rossian Minimalism’

JONAS OLSON (STOCKHOLM):
‘Getting Real about Moral Fictionalism’

STEPHAN TORRE (OXFORD):
‘Eternalism and the Open Future’

Organizers: Jens Johansson and Jonas Olson

Attendance is free of charge, but please email the organizers if you plan to attend.

jens.johansson@philosophy.su.se
jonas.olson@philosophy.su.se

Posted on May 1, 2009 at 5:19 pm in Conference Announcement, Jonas Olson's Posts, Metaethics, Metaphysics | Leave a Comment

November 21, 2008

Hare on Obligation and Regret
By S. Matthew Liao

Professor Caspar Hare from MIT will be giving a talk this Monday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “Obligation and Regret When There is No Fact of the Matter About What Would have Happened If You Had Not Done What You Did.” Here is an abstract of his talk:

This paper is about conditional under-specification and the objective ought. Moral: sometimes there is a difference between what there is most reason for you to do and what a fully informed, benevolent observer would want you to do.

A copy of Caspar’s talk can be found here, and he would welcome any comments/suggestions.

Posted on November 21, 2008 at 12:35 am in Metaphysics, Normative Ethics, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

December 5, 2007

Hegel’s Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right
By Thom Brooks

If I may be allowed a chance to make a brief announcement, I am delighted to say that my new monograph, Hegel’s Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right, is hot off the press. It is published by Edinburgh University Press and distributed in the United States by Columbia University Press.

For a taster:

Read the full post here

Posted on December 5, 2007 at 11:44 am in General Announcement, Metaphysics, Normative Ethics, Political Philosophy, Thom Brooks's Posts | 2 Comments

October 28, 2007

Prepunishment in the Garden
By Saul Smilansky

There is an excellent discussion on prepunishment going on in the Garden of Forking Paths blog. Normally I wouldn’t refer to discussions there as free will is a distinct topic, but this discussion is more on prepunishment and punishment in general than strictly on free will; and the discussion is really illuminating (but it takes a while to get going and the thread is long, so you need to be patient). Other Ethicsetcetniks involved are Neil Levy and Thom Brooks (and sorry if I’ve missed anyone else). The link is:

Read the full post here

Posted on October 28, 2007 at 10:40 am in Metaphysics, Normative Ethics, Saul Smilansky's Posts | Leave a Comment

June 18, 2007

My future self or myself in the future
By Nick Shackel

In discussing issues such as, for example, whether prudential reasons can be accounted for in terms of desire based reasons, we sometimes contrast our present self with our future self. It’s possible that some arguments turn on whether my present and future selves are distinct or whether talk of these selves is just a misleading way of speaking of me now and in the future. 4 dimensionalism (4D) accounts for persistence through time in terms of temporal parts, and if it is true then my future self is not identical to my present self, but both are temporal parts of me, whilst I am a space time worm that is the fusion of all my temporal parts (for short, a maximal space time worm). Jim Stone has recently offered a refutation of 4D in Analysis. Here is my condensed version of his argument:

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Posted on June 18, 2007 at 11:28 am in Metaphysics, Nick Shackel's Posts, Normative Ethics | 8 Comments