We here at the Contemporary Philosophy Workshop are pleased to announce our first guest speaker of the 2011-2012 academic year. Evan Riley (Wooster) will join us on Monday, January 30th at 6:15pm in Cobb 112 to present his paper, “On the Insufficient Kantianism of Singer’s Quasi-Kantian Heirs”. Here is an abstract of Dr. Riley’s paper:
I investigate Jeff McMahan’s recent work deploying the argument from marginal cases against the equalitarian moral status of our folk morality. I argue that McMahan’s view cannot be effectively dismissed by either of the two basic common modes of response: neither Basic Wittgensteinianism nor the Basic Species Norm Response are satisfactory. Despite its disturbing implications, McMahan’s view expresses an insight, viz., that what we owe morally is often a function of the particular characteristics of the creature to whom we have the obligation. McMahan’s error, I claim, lies in his commitment to two more questionable thoughts. First, McMahan seems to think that the issue of moral status always hinges on the question of an entity’s possessing some particular contingent and intrinsic property. Second, McMahan treats the question of moral status as if it were a problem of discovery for theoretical reason, and not, instead, as an elementary issue for practical thought. Kant does not make that mistake.
In keeping with our ancient and revered custom, the paper will not be read during the meeting. Refreshments will be served. See you there!
In keeping with our custom, the paper will not be read aloud during the meeting. Pizza and other refreshments will be served!
This paper is a draft of the second chapter of my dissertation. In the paper I argue, against a recent theory of expression put forward by Mitchell S. Green, that according practical rationality a direct explanatory role for understanding expressions of affective states is misguided. It is often the case, I want to show, that our rational efforts to avoid expressing what we’re feeling end up precisely resulting in expressions of those feelings. This is a possibility that Green’s theory leaves no room for, which, I will argue, makes his theory of expression inadequate. I will also provide a sketch of an alternative picture of expression. What we need in order to articulate a proper understanding of the phenomenon of expression is, I suggest, first of all to abandon a dichotomy, figuring in the background of Green’s theory, between intentional action and merely causally explained behavior.
This essay is an attempt to understand Hegel’s methodology for the deduction of the pure forms of thought in the Science of Logic. I begin by articulating two theses that underly Hegel’s conviction that a deduction of the pure forms of thought about thought must be nothing other than thought’s own immanent self-development. I then raise a question about how an immanent development of thought could deduce pure forms of thought in such a way that meets certain requirements the satisfaction of which is necessary in order for this deduction to provide us with knowledge. Articulating Hegel’s response to this question, I then give an account of Hegel’s method in the Logic, and I provide an example of the deployment of this method by examining one stage of the argument of the Logic. Finally, I conclude by answering a pair of common objections to Hegel’s method and by arguing for the indispensability of this method for gaining insight into an important contemporary approach to a family of philosophical problems about the idea of logical form. The essay as a whole constitutes the first stage of a larger project that seeks to develop the intellect’s absoluteness and creativity. I say little about this larger project in the essay, but I would be happy to discuss it at the workshop.
A defining issue in the philosophy of mind is the so-called “problem of mental causation”, which is the problem of explaining how the various phenomena of our mental lives can make a difference to what happens in the world more generally, as when I raise my hand at a lecture because I want to ask a question. Among contemporary philosophers of mind, there is widespread consensus that the most serious obstacle to making sense of such mental causation is to show how it is consistent with the plausible idea that the physical domain is “causally and explanatorily self-sufficient” (Kim 2005:19), insofar as that fact would appear to exclude mental phenomena from having physical effects. The argument to this conclusion is known as the “Argument from Causal Exclusion” (ACE), and in this paper, I argue that ACE faces an eviscerating dilemma. On the one hand, a construal of the causal self-sufficiency of the physical domain that is strong enough to generate a problem for mental causation is implausible on its face and unsupported by the commitment to science that its proponents argue militates in favor of it. On the other hand, a plausible construal of the causal self-sufficiency of the physical domain is too weak to support ACE’s conclusion that we cannot make nonreductivist sense of mental causation, even when that plausible construal is combined with a reasonable ban on the systematic overdetermination of effects by their causes.
Proponents of the predicate view of names explain the reference of an occurrence of a name NN by invoking the property of bearing NN. They avoid the charge that this view involves a vicious circularity by claiming that bearing NN is not itself to be understood in terms of the reference of actual or possible occurrences of NN. I argue that this approach is fundamentally mistaken. Bearing NN should be explained in terms of the possibilities of reference with NN. Proponents of the predicate view can embrace a virtuous form of circularity by thoroughly rethinking the contribution of convention to the distribution of name-bearing properties. The upshot is a new picture of the structure of name-using practices and the role that such practices have in discourse.
