FALL 2008

1. Friday, August 29, 2008 - 3:00pm, Location TBA



2. Friday, September 5, 2008 - 3:00pm, Location TBA



3. Friday, September 12, 2008 - 3:00pm, Location TBA

SPRING 2008

1. Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 211
"Bolzano on Logical Consequence and Mathematical Proof"
Sandra Lapointe, Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University

It is relatively well known that Bolzano contributed to the birth of modern mathematics and, in particular, that he had interesting views on mathematical proofs. Few, however, are familiar with the details of these views, and fewer still acknowledge Bolzano's distinction between what are in fact three different notions: grounding (Abfolge), objective justification (objective Erkenntnisgrund) and what we may call objective demonstrations or proofs (Begründungen). This tripartite distinction in itself testifies to Bolzano's acute sense of the differences between logical, epistemological and pragmatic concerns: grounding is a relation between propositions (not propositions and facts or states of affairs), objective justification is a relation between beliefs (i.e. certain types of mental states) and Begründungen are linguistic objects that generate objectively justified knowledge of the type we find in mathematics. In this paper, I present these three notions, and explain how they are related in order to stress the specificity of Bolzano's views on demonstrations in mathematics.



2. Friday, February 1, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 211
"Truth-Definitions and Definitional Truth" (Download here.)
Douglas Patterson, Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University

Putnam, Etchemendy, Heck and others have criticized Tarski's definitions of truth on the grounds that they turn what ought to be contingent truths about the truth conditions of sentences into logical, mathematical or necessary truths. I argue that this criticism rests on the misguided assumption that substitution in accord with a good definition preserves logical, mathematical or necessary truth. I give a number of examples intended to show that substitution in accord with good definitions need preserve none of these. The paper should be of interest not only to students of Tarski, but to anyone interested in definition and analyticity, and it includes some discussion of the contingent a priori, logicism, the nature of applied mathematics, and early Wittgensteinian doctrines about showing and saying.



3. Friday, February 8, 2008 - 3:00pm, CBC C117
"From a Genetic Predisposition to an Interactive Predisposition: Rethinking
the Ethical Implications of Screening for Gene-Environment Interactions"
Jim Tabery, Department of Philosophy, University of Utah

The concept of gene-environment interaction, or G×E, refers to cases where different genetic groups respond differently to the same array of environments. In a widely acclaimed study from 2002, researchers found a case of G×E for a gene controlling neuroenzymatic activity (low vs. high), exposure to childhood maltreatment, and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Cases of G×E are generally characterized as evincing a genetic predisposition; for example, individuals with low neuroenzymatic activity are generally characterized as having a genetic predisposition to ASPD. I first argue that the concept of a genetic predisposition fundamentally misconstrues these cases of G×E. This misconstrual will be diagnosed, and then a new concept—interactive predisposition—will be introduced. I then show how this conceptual shift reconfigures old questions and raises new questions for genetic screening. Attempts to screen embryos or fetuses for the gene associated with low neuroenzymatic activity with an eye towards selecting against the low-activity variant fall prey to the myth of pre-environmental prediction; attempts to screen newborns for the gene associated with low neuroenzymatic activity with an eye towards early intervention will have to face the interventionist's dilemma.



4. Friday, February 15, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 211
"The First-Person Concept and a Puzzle about Intersubjectivity"
Gurpreet Rattan, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto

This talk aims to answer two questions at once: (1) the question of how to incorporate the first-person concept in a general theory of concepts; and (2) the question of how to understand the rational force of the sheer fact of disagreement with one's epistemic peers. The first part of the paper explains exactly what problem the first-person concept poses for a theory of concepts. It is argued that the problem is that first-person thoughts resist incorporation into a view of thoughts organized around an idea of objective knowledge. The second part of the paper argues that the first-person concept plays a role in understanding the rational force of disagreement with peers, explaining how it can be rational to persist in one's attitudes in the face of disagreement with one's peers. This gives the first-person concept a role in objective knowledge that allows its incorporation into a general theory of concepts in a natural way.



5. Friday, February 22, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 205
"Mathematical Fallacies and Informal Logic"
Andrew Aberdein, Department of Philosophy, Florida Institute of Technology

It might be supposed that mathematical fallacies could be defined very simply. If all mathematical reasoning is formal and deductive, then surely mathematical fallacies are merely invalid arguments? This definition has several shortcomings. Firstly, there are many invalid mathematical arguments that would not normally be described as mathematical fallacies. Secondly, much reasoning in mathematics is conducted informally. So a satisfactory account of mathematical fallacies must explain what is distinctive about formal fallacies, beyond their invalidity, and also address informal fallacies. This paper considers the application to mathematical fallacies of techniques drawn from informal logic, specifically the use of 'argument schemes'. (You can download related background papers here and here.)



6. Friday, February 29, 2008 - 3:00pm, CBC C117
"Defending Copernicus and Galileo: Critical Reasoning in the Two Galileo Affairs"
Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Although recent works on Galileo’s trial (1613-1633) have reached new heights of erudition, documentation, and sophistication, they typically exhibit over-inflated complexities; neglect 400 years of historiography; and make little effort to learn from Galileo. I am working on a book aiming to avoid these lacunae. I argue that the Copernican Revolution required that the earth’s motion be supported not only with new arguments but also with new evidence, and that it be not only supported constructively but also critically defended from numerous objections. This defense in turn required not only the destructive refutation but also the appreciative understanding of those objections in all their strength. A major Galilean accomplishment was to elaborate such a “reasoned” and “critical” defense of Copernicanism. Galileo’s trial can be interpreted as a series of ecclesiastic attempts to stop him from defending Copernicus. And an essential thread of the controversy (1633-1992) about Galileo’s trial is the emergence of numerous arguments for and against the claim that his condemnation was right. My thesis is that the defense of Galileo can and should have the reasoned and critical character which his own defense of Copernicus had.



7. Friday, March 7, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 211
"Constitution, Inescapability, and Necessity"
Nadeem Hussain, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Prof. Hussain will take up the claim that we can avoid mainstream metaethical theories once we see that certain mental states and mental processes, or human activities and practices, are constituted by principles or norms. He will look at various versions of such claims, including claims that certain practices presuppose normative commitments, and argue that they do not succeed.



8. Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - 7:30pm, Barrick Museum Auditorium
"Is Compassion Good for Us? Nietzsche's Politically Incorrect Thoughts"
Clifford Orwin, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto

Few people today doubt that it is good to be compassionate. But reading the nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche makes us doubt it. Pity or compassion was a major theme of Nietzsche's, and his treatment of it was not just idiosyncratic but sometimes frightful: it lent itself to horrific misinterpretation, and it received it. It also furnished a major ground of his rejection of democracy, science, and modern "progress" generally. But we cannot then simply ignore Nietzsche's treatment of compassion, because the problems with compassion are too obvious to ignore. Nietzsche's treatment proves more subtle and ambivalent than it at first appears, but precisely for this reason poses a formidable challenge to the current reverence for compassion. Indeed he makes us suspect that the most pitiable thing about us is our infatuation with pity.
(Sponsored and hosted by the Great Works Academic Certificate Program, University of Nevada, Las Vegas)



9. Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 4:00pm, Dept. Conference Room
"Do Customs Compete with Conditioning? Turf Battles and Division of Labor in Social Explanation"
Todd Jones, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Situations that social scientists and others explain using concepts like custom and norm often tend to be situations where many other explanations seem plausible as well. Do these other explanations compete with the custom/norm explanations or do they compliment them? In this talk Prof. Jones will sort out what makes high and low level accounts competitors.



10. Friday, March 28, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 211
"Possible Worlds of Doubt"
Ron Wilburn, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

A prominent contemporary anti-skeptical strategy, most famously articulated by Keith DeRose, aims to cage the skeptic’s doubts by contextualizing subjunctive conditional accounts of knowledge through a conversational Rule of Sensitivity. This paper argues that this strategy courts charges of circularity by virtue of its selective invocation of heavy counterfactual machinery. Because of the danger that this invocation essentially employs a metric for modal comparison that is implicitly informed by judgments of epistemic sameness, this metric proves objectively indefensible. We have reason to fear that this metric is selectively cherry-picked in advance to support the very anti-skeptical conclusion for which the contextualist longs. (You can download the full paper here. On Friday, I will quickly summarize he first eleven pages and read the subsequent ten. So, if you have an opportunity to read any of it, your time would be best spent on "Section IV. The Argument from Modal Circularity," pp. 11-21.)



11. Thursday, April 3, 2008, 7:30pm - Barrick Museum Auditorium
"Seeing Movies and Watching the Stars"
Gregory Currie, Professor of Philosophy and Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Nottingham

If the movie star sometimes inhibits our ability to see through the celebrity into the character, cinema is usually more successful at overcoming the ‘tyranny of reality’ than still photography. Our speaker argues that the reason for this lies in the dynamic narrative structure of film. He explores a tension between the make-believe that promotes narrative, and the make-believe that suppresses the realism of its images. Illustrations include still photographs and scenes from Blackhawk Down and The Thin Red Line.
(Co-sponsored by the UNLV Department of Philosophy and UNLV Department of Film)



12. Friday, April 4, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 211
"Narrative and Scepticism about Character"
Gregory Currie, Professor of Philosophy and Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Nottingham

We say that people have distinctive Characters, and much literature reinforces this idea, developing narratives wherein people's Character is subject to development and test. But social psychological investigation has failed to find evidence for the existence of Character, from which some conclude that the notion of Character is a cognitive illusion. I ask whether narratives which depend on the notion of Character are significantly compromised by these findings. I offer a (limited) defence of the narrative of Character.



13. Friday, April 11, 2008 - 3:00pm, CBC C113
"What is a Truth Value and How Many Are There?"
Roy T. Cook, Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota

Typically within formal semantics the semantic status of a sentence is represented by a truth value. Thus, these semantics represent the situation as one where there is a special relationship between statements and a special class of objects - the truth values (typically, but not always, true and false). In actuality, however, truth values, as objects, are mere surrogates for the different sorts of relations that can hold between a statement and the world. Thus, a statement receives the truth value 'true' if and only if it is true - i.e. if and only if what it says is the case. If truth values are really objectual surrogates for the various semantic relations that can hold between a statement and the world, however, then the critical question "how many truth values are there?" becomes transformed into a question about the number of possible semantic relations that can hold between a statement and the world. If we take the Liar paradox, and the Revenge phenomenon arising from strengthened versions of the Liar statement, seriously, then it turns out that the answer to this question is "more than can be contained in any set". In other words, the class of relevant semantic relations is indefinitely extensible, and as a result there is a proper class of truth values.



14. Tuesday, April 15, 4:00pm, Sociology Dept. Conference Room, CDC-B-225B
"Pragmatist Theory of Action"
Dr. Erkii Kilpinnen, Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki



15. Friday, April 18, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 205
"Counterexamples to Modus Ponens and Theories of Conditionals"
Ian Dove, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Since 1985, when Vann McGee published a set of putative counterexamples to modus ponens, (at least) two other possible counterexamples have convinced some theorists that modus ponens isn't generally valid. McGee's and William Lycan's (1993 and 2001) separate counterexamples come with two fully developed theories of conditionals. Douglas Walton (2002) offers a series of putative counterexamples along with a suggestion of yet another theory of conditionals. If the counterexamples are anything more than mere theoretical possibilities, this suggests that natural language conditionals are ambiguous – there are conditionals that support modus ponens and (at least) three others that don't. This is not a happy situation. Of the possible responses, biting the bullet and accepting the ambiguity is the least welcome. Still, that may be our only solution, in the end. Before accepting this unhappy state of affairs, I suggest ways to avoid each of the counterexamples and hence salvage modus ponens.

That's the official abstract. Unofficially: Counterexamples to Modus Ponens are like Bigfoot sightings: they come with a presumption of falsity. Hence, any (adequate) mundane explanation will trump the extraordinary one. In this talk, I give competing commonplace explanations for the extraordinary phenomena.



16. Friday, April 25, 2008 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 205
"Two Emotional Issues in Descartes: Intentionality and Animals"
Abel Franco, Department of Philosophy, California State University, Northridge

The intentionality of emotions and emotions in animals are two of the issues related to Descartes' Theory of Passions still insufficiently treated in the secondary literature. Whereas the former (intentionality) is crucial to properly understand Descartes' theory of passions, the latter has the potential to help revise not only some of the common assumptions held on Descartes' view of animals--in particular that they are machines--but also his view of the mind. I will try to show that our "passions" are for Descartes our only natural guides to our natural perfection (or natural happiness). For Descartes, the "importance" of the objects which our emotions represent--the specific representational content which distinguishes passions from sensations--is their worthiness to be joined in order to constitute unities of greater perfection with them. In this sense, we can talk about, at least, three different levels of aboutness. If we take into account the so-called "emotions"--caused only by the soul, not the body--of which Descartes mentions "intellectual" and "internal" ones, we can add a fourth level: the state of the soul. That "internal emotions," the ones on which "our well-being depends principally" (Passions II, art, 147, AT XI 440 : CSM I 381) are about the third level, as I would suggest, is particularly significant to understand Descartes' ethical goals in his treatment of the passions.
As to animals, I will try to show that they are clocks, yes, but clocks with passions. Descartes' theory of (human) passions, and, specially, the view of the human mind which emerges from it, allows, first, to avoid the apparent conflict that many scholars have seen in Descartes' attribution to animals of sensations and passions at the same time that he denies them a rational soul; and, secondly, to show that Descartes' theory of (human) passions can account, with small adjustments, for passions in animals. None of this requires denying animals a mind, but rather providing them with a non-human one.



17. Friday, May 2 - 3:00 pm, CBC C113
"From the Pessimistic Induction to Semantic Anti-Realism"
Gregory Frost-Arnold, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The Pessimistic Induction (PI), roughly put, is the following inductive generalization: since most of our past scientific theories have been radically mistaken in their accounts of what the world is like, our current theories are likely similarly mistaken. But what kind of 'mistake' is at issue here? Most commentators on the PI suggest that we should take our past theories as false--and thus, if the PI is a good argument, our present ones as probably also false. I here argue instead that, given certain widespread (though not universal) views about the relation between language and the world, many of the theoretical claims of previous scientific theories are neither true nor false. This lack of truth-value can arise in at least two related ways: referential failure or semantic presupposition failure. If substantial chunks of our past theories are truth-valueless, then the upshot of the PI is semantic anti-realism, the view that much of our theoretical scientific discourse is neither true nor false. However, semantic anti-realism is anathema to most philosophers of science today, so I conclude by considering various routes to escape this conclusion.



18. Tuesday, May 6, 2008 12:00 - 1:30 pm (Brown Bag Lunch), BSL 112
"Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labor Markets and the Rescue Industry"
Laura Agustín, Visiting Scholar Department of Sociology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Laura Agustín explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work; that migrants who sell sex are passive victims; and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Agustín argues that the label "trafficked" does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the "rescue industry" disempowers them. Based on extensive research among migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis.

FALL 2007

14. Friday, December 14, 2007 - 3:00pm, CBC C133 (Note the location)
"Ought: Between Objective and Subjective"
John MacFarlane, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley

Reflecting on the use of "ought" in deliberation has led many philosophers to assign it a "subjective" sense (ought, given the deliberator's evidence). Reflecting on its use in advice has led others to assign it an "objective" sense (ought, given the facts). We argue that both sides have part of the truth. Attempts to resolve the conflict by "taking sides" one way or the other, or by taking "ought" to be ambiguous or indexical, cannot succeed. Only by recognizing that "ought" is assessment-sensitive, we argue, can we account for its dual role in deliberation and advice. We apply our theory to some paradoxes involving oughts and conditionals, and to a puzzle Allan Gibbard raised about truth and correct belief.

A good background paper I would recommend, for those who have the time, is my paper in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, "Making Sense of Relative Truth."



13. Friday, December 7, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
"Are Philosophers Experts?"
Jonathan Weinberg, Department of Philosophy and the Center for Cognitive Science, Indiana University at Bloomington

(Jonathan will deliver a powerpoint demonstration, of which we have no advance copy. However, a number of broadly relevant papers of Jonathan's are posted here.)



12. Friday, November 30, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
"Lost Innocence: Change Blindness and Visual Consciousness"
Michael Tye, Department of Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin

Prof. Tye will talk about his recent work in the philosophy of perception.
Background Readings: Drestke, F. (2004). “Change Blindness.” Philosophical Studies, 120, 1-18. (Download here.) Also, Cavanagh, P. & Intriligator, J. (1999). “Attentional resolution: The grain and locus of visual awareness.” In C. Taddei-Ferretti and C. Musio (Eds.), Neuronal basis and psychological aspects of consciousness, pp. 41-52. (Click here and run a search on this paper title.)
(Co-sponsored by the UNLV Department of Psychology)



11. Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 207
"Holistic Choice and Complex Intentions: A Sellarsian Approach to
Double Effect." (Download a related paper here.)
Neil Delaney, Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University



10. Friday, November 16, 2007 - 3:00pm, CBC C112 (Note the location)
"Nietzsche's Naturalism, Nietzsche's Skepticism"
Jessica Berry, Department of Philosophy, Georgia State University

Some of the most successful recent commentaries on Nietzsche are those that read him as a naturalist. Proponents of these readings have devoted no small effort to the task of explaining away Nietzsche's skeptical-sounding remarks about the value of truth, and the status of knowledge and scientific "objectivity", as they have worked to develop readings that are philosophically coherent, internally consistent, and (importantly) anti-skeptical. This, I shall argue, is the wrong approach to take, for two reasons: First, because Nietzsche's skeptical moments are more than "occasional prevarications". They appear in Nietzsche's earliest writings and then steadily throughout his career. To neglect these passages or to make them consistent with a rigorous anti-skepticism simply strains interpretive credibility too much. Secondly, this strategy also rests on a largely unfounded and, I shall argue, false presupposition that skepticism and naturalism are necessarily incompatible outlooks (since the naturalist must have commitments about the natural world and the methods of scientific investigation that the skeptic is not entitled to hold), so that we must choose between these two competing interpretive templates for Nietzsche's thought. We need not abandon the naturalist readings of Nietzsche in order to accommodate his skepticism, nor need we downplay his skepticism in order to do justice to the centrality of naturalism in his thought. It will be my task to explain how Nietzsche's skepticism in fact leads him to the position we recognize as "naturalistic".


 

9. Friday, November 9, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
"Being Wrong about our Talk"
Jody Azzouni, Department of Philosophy, Tufts University

One thing that all the recent insights coming out of contemporary linguistics seem to have revealed is how little ordinary speaker-hearers know about their own language(s). I discuss some rather dramatic examples of properties of natural languages that I claim speaker-hearers are unaware of (e.g., their inconsistency, the non-existence of sentence and word types, etc.), offer some speculations about the nature of the subpersonal processing of language that causes these "confusions" about natural languages, and conclude with some discussion of burden-shifting arguments by philosophers with respect to the methodological requirement that "error-theories" should be avoided.



8. Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 7:30pm, Barrick Museum Auditorium
"Time-Loops, Superstrings, and Other Weird Stuff: Are Physicists for Real (or Is This Just a Lot of Mathematics)?"
Jody Azzouni, Department of Philosophy, Tufts University

The so-called hard sciences, such as physics, characterize their more theoretical objects in entirely mathematical ways (for example, as ‘electron-fields’). Usually no non-mathematical characterization is possible. Our presenter will discuss ways of distinguishing the real objects recognized by science from what is only the language of mathematics used in hard sciences.
(Co-sponsored by the UNLV Departments of Philosophy and Physics)



7. Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007 - 3:00pm, CBC C133      
"Comparative Choice without Comprehensive Factors" (Download here.)
Jim Okapal, Department of Philosophy,  Missouri Western State University

A comparativist says that if a comparison is possible, then the comparison must take place in terms of properties borne by the items in question. I will call these properties "factors". According to Ruth Chang, rational choice and conflict resolution in each situation is determined by a single, comprehensive factor. She defends this view by arguing that rival approaches fail to meet certain meta-level criteria. I offer a distinct version of a sophisticated orthodox approach that eschews comprehensive factors and meets her criteria, thus showing that her argument by elimination is unconvincing. The heart of this alternative view utilizes factors, normative-level criteria, and interaction principles.  Together, these elements supply content beyond the factors, provide determinate weightings of factors, and leave room for reasonable disagreement.  Finally, I address criticisms that my account will end up offering a fractured account of conflict resolution and choice, and that Chang and I are essentially offering the same view.



6. Friday, November 2, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
Get-together to discuss Michael Tye's work prior to his visit on Nov. 30.

Background Readings: Drestke, F. (2004). “Change Blindness.” Philosophical Studies, 120, 1-18. (Download here.) Also, Cavanagh, P. & Intriligator, J. (1999). “Attentional resolution: The grain and locus of visual awareness.” In C. Taddei-Ferretti and C. Musio (Eds.), Neuronal basis and psychological aspects of consciousness, pp. 41-52. (Click here and run a search on this paper title.)



5. Friday, October 19, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
"Probabilistic Proofs and Transferability" (Download here.)
Kenny Easwaran, Department of Philosophy, UC Berkeley

Don Fallis, in "The Epistemic Status of Probabilistic Proof", points out that although mathematicians don't require proofs to be complete formal deductions of their results, there are a certain class of "probabilistic" proofs that they don't accept. He argues that there is no epistemic purpose that can be served by accepting proofs with omitted steps and computer-aided proofs, but rejecting probabilistic proofs. I argue that there is in fact such a purpose, namely that of achieving "transferability" of proofs. This notion of transferability relates to an old counterexample to Grice's 1957 account of speaker-meaning, and helps illuminate a certain distinction between the practice of mathematics and the natural sciences. In the end, I suggest that though transferability is a real epistemic phenomenon, it may not be the best criterion, in mathematics or philosophy.



4. Friday, October 12, 2007 - 3:00pm, Dept. Conference Room
Discussion of the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars
David Beisecker, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Prof. Beisecker will shed some light on the subtle and complex views of one of the 20th Century's most important philosophers, focusing on Sellars's papers "Meaning as Functional Classification" and "Being and Being Known".  A background reading is available here.



3. Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
Discussion of Jones-style Social Epistemology
Todd Jones, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Prof. Jones will discuss his recent work. Some relevant background readings include "Swarm Scholarship and the Fundamental Epistemology of the Collective Method" and "Numerous Ways to be an Open-Minded Organization: A Reply to Lahrroodi." Read the papers and show up ready to abuse one of our own.



2. Friday, September 21, 2007 - 7:30pm, Barrick Museum Auditorium
"The Social Critique of Social Knowledge (or, 'But Mom, Crop-Tops are Cute')"
Sally Haslanger, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, and Acting Director of Women’s Studies, MIT

What seems cute to a seventh-grade girl is unlikely to seem cute to her parents, whose standards of dress and deportment may differ widely from her own. Parents and children each possess social knowledge that the other lacks, knowledge based upon facts constituted within specific social milieus. Does the situation lead inevitably to relativism about social knowledge, or rather to the possibility of genuine social critique?
(Co-sponsored by the UNLV Departments of Philosophy and Women’s Studies)



1. Friday, September 21, 2007 - 3:00pm, SU Meeting Room 222
Discussion of Social Construction and Social Kinds
Sally Haslanger, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, and Acting Director of Women’s Studies, MIT

Prof. Haslanger will explain how she understands the notions of "social construction" and "social kind". Some relevant background readings (esp. #2, 3, and 5 under "Articles") are available on her Webpage.

SPRING 2007

17. Friday, May 4, 2007 - 5:30pm, MSU 222
"'Refer' Madness"
Michael O'Rourke, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho

In this talk, I consider the concepts of reference and referring with a view to determining whether it makes sense to account for them together. After reviewing the literature a bit, I describe a model based on the notion of aiming that purports to explain both concepts in a systematic and unified fashion. While this appeals to me (at least), I'm not convinced it is adequate for reasons that I will adduce. I close by sketching an alternative approach that is in some ways akin to the recent work of Howard Wettstein.



16. Friday, April 27, 2007 - 7:30pm, Barrick Museum Auditorium
"Are Emotions Rational?"
Marion Ledwig, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

On the one hand we consider emotions as senseless, passive eruptions that interfere with reasoning. On the other hand we say that the heart has its reasons. I will discuss the ways in which emotions can be considered rational.



15. Friday, Apr. 27, 2007 - 5:30pm, MSU 207 (Note the location)
"The Story about Propositions"
James Woodbridge, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The notion of a proposition plays a central role in philosophical theorizing about language and the mind. Propositions--abstract entities supposedly denoted by expressions of the form that p--are held to be the things we believe and know, what your beliefs can share with mine or with other thought-states, what thought-states can share with assertions and other speech acts, and what utterances from different languages can all mean in common. With such a variety of functions associated with propositions, this notion simplifies, unifies, and systematizes theorizing about our thought and talk. Nevertheless, there are strong reasons for denying that propositions really exist, mainly due to their supposed abstract nature--considerations similar to those that generate doubts about the existence of numbers. In this talk I will explain these reasons for resisting ontological commitment to propositions, but I will then explain how we can retain our talk seemingly about propositions and the theoretical and expressive advantages it offers. The account of proposition-talk I propose explains the discourse as an "as if" talk grounded in a special kind of pretense.



14. Friday, Apr. 20, 2007 - 5:30pm, CBC C122 (Note the location)
"Indeterminism and Branching Time without Truth-Value Gaps"
Alan Rhoda, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

A natural way to model indeterministic causation is by means of a branching future depicting all of the causal possibilities as of a given point in time. Most authors who have taken this approach (e.g., Thomason, McCall, Belnap, etc.) have assumed that branching time requires denying bivalence, such that propositions about future contingents are neither true nor false. A few authors (e.g., Prior, Hartshorne), however, have thought that branching time and bivalence could be reconciled. In this talk I defend the second position. The denial of bivalence for future contingents is motivated by the assumption that corresponding pairs of "will" and "will not" propositions are contradictories. I will present three arguments that they are not contradictories, but contraries, and therefore are jointly false in the case of future contingents.



13. Friday, Apr. 13, 2007 - 5:30pm, CBC C122 (Note the location)
"Virtue Ethics"
Paul Schollmeier, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

See the Handout.



12. Friday, Mar. 30, 2007 - 5:30pm, MSU 222
"Conceptions of Self-Deception"
Erik Lindland, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

Self-deception seems oxymoronic on its face. How can one deceive oneself? After all, in normal cases of deception one person knows the truth (the deceiver) while the other does not (the deceived). Does this imply that when we deceive ourselves we both know and don't know the truth? Furthermore, self-deception seems to pose paradoxical questions about intention. Can we intend to employ a strategy to hide some fact from ourselves? If the strategy works then this process is not present to consciousness. So, in what sense have we then intended anything? On the other hand, the results of self-deception are so precise it is hard to understand them as anything but intentional. In this paper I will explore various ways people have attempted to deal with these apparent paradoxes in recent analytic literature, noting their respective strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I will conclude with a proposal based on the work of Søren Kierkegaard.



11. Friday, Mar. 23, 2007 - 5:30pm, CBC C114 (Note the location)
"Denial through Assertion: The Role of 'False'"
Brad Armour-Garb, Department of Philosophy, University at Albany/SUNY 

Suppose someone were to ask you (editing Groucho Marx), "Have you stopped beating your dog?" This seems like an ordinary "yes-no" question, but neither answer seems to get things right for someone who has never beaten her dog. Any such dog owner would (or: should) deny that she has stopped beating her dog--in fact, she would reject the thought that she has ever done such a thing. But saying, for example, that it is false that she has stopped beating her dog, or (what sounds even worse) that no, she has not stopped beating her dog don't seem to work as denials. Neither says what she means to convey, for if she says either, it seems right to conclude that she is still beating the poor animal! How, then, can she deny that she has stopped beating her dog, when the only obvious means for doing so wind up committing her to something that she also rejects? A number of philosophers (who I will call 'Cancellers') have postulated a separate 'speech act' of denial and have argued that we can (and do) sometimes deny a proposition whose negation we do not--because we cannot--assert. In this talk, I introduce and motivate the canceller view, after which I will provide reasons for rejecting it. My goal is not to provide an answer to the question raised above (although I will provide something of an answer). Rather, I aim to explain how the problem arises, to draw some conclusions about what it shows, and to shed light on certain (heretofore neglected) features of 'truth talk'.



10. Friday, Mar. 9, 2007 - 5:30pm, MSU 222
"Justificatory Independence and Revolutionary Maximalism"
Matthew Noah Smith, Department of Philosophy, Yale University 

Normally, we think that the moral status of an institution determines the moral status of those rules and relationships that are dependent upon the institution for their existence. In this paper, I challenge this view. In particular, I argue for the justificatory independence thesis: the rules and relationships that are dependent upon certain political and social institutions are authoritative even when those institutions are corrupt or illegitimate. I defend this thesis by appeal to three related arguments, an argument appealing to the value of the integrity of one's political commitments, a free-rider argument and an argument from respect for other's practical agency. I conclude the paper by arguing that what I call the revolutionary maximalism thesis follows from the justificatory independence thesis. The revolutionary maximalism thesis is the claim that the only morally appropriate response to an illegitimate or unjust institution whose rules display justificatory independence is either complete conformity or sincere revolutionary activity.



9. Friday, Mar. 2, 2007 - 7:30 pm, Barrick Museum Auditorium
"Are All Values Relative? Seeking Common Ethical Ground in a Pluralist World"
Robert Kane, Department of Philosophy, University of Texas, Austin 

Are there objective values, and can we find common ethical ground in the welter of conflicting contemporary voices and beliefs? In this lecture it will be argued that pluralism need not lead to relativism, but that it may instead lead to a number of universal ethical principles.



8. Friday, Mar. 2, 2007 - 5:30pm, MSU 207 (Note the location)
"Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem" (Download here.)
Robert Kane, University of Texas, Austin

In a number of writings over the past two decades, I have sought to answer four questions about free will: (1) Is it compatible (or incompatible) with determinism? (2) Why do we want it? (3) Can we make sense of a free will that is incompatible with determinism? (4) Can such a free will be reconciled with modern images of human beings in the natural and social sciences? On all four questions, I have tried to point current debates about free will in new directions. Is this essay, I discuss some of these new directions.



7. Friday, Feb. 23, 2007 - 5:30pm, CBC C122
"Actually" (Download here.)
Scott Soames, Department of Philosophy, USC, Los Angeles

My topic is the metaphysics and epistemology of actuality and possibility, plus the semantics and pragmatics of the language we use to talk about it. By 'actuality' I mean the actual world-state. By 'possibility' I mean all possible world-states, both the metaphysically and the epistemically possible. The actual world-state is the way the world is. Metaphysically possible states are ways the world could have been. Epistemically possible states are ways the world can coherently be conceived to be. In this talk I will sketch a conception of what these world-states are, and explore how we know about them.



6. Monday, Feb 12, 2007 - 7:30pm, MSU Theater (Room 111)
"The Origin of Species: Then and Now"
Michael Ruse, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University 

2009 is the 200th anniversary of the great English naturalist Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his great work The Origin of Species, in which he argued that all organisms (including humans) are the end results of a long, slow process of development - evolution - by a mechanism known as natural selection. Today, in America especially, Darwin and his ideas are under attack from scientists (like Stephen Jay Gould) and Christians, especially the Intelligent Design supporters. Is Darwinism truly an exhausted paradigm, or is there life yet in the old dog? I argue strongly that the theory of Origin is a great theory, that it works today as never before, and that the critics are hopelessly gloriously mistaken

Sponsored by the Great Works Academic Certificate Program Committee, CSUN, and the Honors College.



5. Friday, Feb. 9, 2007 - 7pm, CBC A106
"Compassion in Daily Living"
Lama Tenzin Dhonden, Personal Emissary of Peace to Gyalwa Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama 

Sponsored by Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada, Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development, and the UNLV Department of Philosophy. Visit http://www.interfaithsn.org/calendar.html for more information.



4. Friday, Feb. 9, 2007 - 5:30pm, MSU 222
"McDowell and Aristotle on 'Second Nature' "
David Forman, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

Detailed background material available here.



3. Friday, Feb. 2, 2007 - 5:30pm, CDC 425, Dept. Conference Room
"Analytic Truth: Then and Now"
Gregory Frost-Arnold, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

This talk deals with analytic truth, both historically and logically. First, I present a historical conjecture to explain how Quine's critique of analyticity was radicalized in the period between 1934's "Lectures on Carnap" and 1950's "Two Dogmas." Second, I contest certain of Paul Boghossian's recent claims concerning the notion of analyticity. In particular, I argue (contra Boghossian) that one can accept Quine's critique of analyticity without also accepting his indeterminacy of meaning thesis.



2. Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 - 10:15am, Imperial Palace Hotel, Room TBA.
Part of The 19th Annual Meeting of the Far West Popular Culture & Far West American Culture Associations
"What Makes Some Political Issues 'Cultural'?"
Todd Jones, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

Many pundits, including Bill O'Reilly in his recent book, Culture Warrior, have discussed how voters make their political decisions based on "cultural issues". By 'cultural issues' they mean abortion, gay marriage, and gun control. What's unclear is why these issues count as "cultural" but issues like minimum wage, the Iraq war, and warrantless wiretapping do not. In this talk I examine what makes something a prototypical "cultural issue".



1. Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 - 9am, Imperial Palace Hotel, Jade Room
Part of The 19th Annual Meeting of the Far West Popular Culture & Far West American Culture Associations
"Rational Emotional Responses to Art"
Marion Ledwig, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

In order to evaluate whether it is rational to respond emotionally to art, it is first necessary to agree upon what art is. Originality is the central feature of art, with the different subject matters or materials used to determine which form in particular that work of art takes. The paradox of fiction is solved by claiming that people have beliefs in the existence and features of objects, even if known to be completely fictional, for seeing means believing. An emotional response to art is rational, if the agent has good reasons for his emotional response with regard to the particular piece of art. Hence, many different emotional responses to art become rational.