Katherine Brading
Title: Du Châtelet on the epistemology and metaphysics of time
Abstract: In her Foundations of Physics, Du Châtelet intervenes in the debate over absolute versus relative space and time. Her chapter on time begins on familiar ground, rehearsing arguments offered by Leibniz in response to Newton’s absolute space, but soon switches gear. Du Châtelet offers an analysis of how we come to have temporal experience, and an account of how we arrive at our – mistaken – idea that time is absolute. Though she sides with the relationist in denying that time is absolute, it turns out that her metaphysical simples – which underlie our spatial and temporal experience – are neither spatial nor temporal themselves. As with elsewhere in her Foundations, Du Châtelet is shifting the debate from metaphysics to epistemology, with interesting – and often surprising – results.
David Builes
Title: Nature Never Makes Leaps
Abstract: According to Leibniz, “Nothing takes place suddenly, and it is one of my great and best confirmed maxims that nature never makes leaps. I call this the Law of Continuity.” Modern physics tends to support Leibniz: most of our best physical theories imply that the physical world evolves through time in a continuous way. The goal of this talk is to argue that there is one view in the metaphysics of laws - namely the “grounding view of powers” - that predicts that the world must evolve through time in a continuous way, while other views in the metaphysics of laws make the continuous evolution of the world an inexplicable mystery. I conclude that we have strong empirical reasons to favor the grounding view of powers.
Felipe De Brigard
Title: Memory and Forgiveness
Abstract: Victims sometimes forgive the perpetrators of past wrongdoings, either to repair a relationship or simply to move on. After forgiving, however, victims typically still remember what happened. Yet, the memory of the wrongdoing does not elicit the same affective and reactive attitudes it once did. How does forgiveness interact with memory to bring about this emotional change? In this talk I will offer conceptual and empirical reasons to think of forgiveness as mollifying the affective contents of retrieved memories of past wrongdoings via a process of emotional reappraisal. I will also show how this research, which is currently being conducted with victims of political violence in Colombia, can have implications for peace and reconciliation strategies in post-conflict societies.
Jennifer Jhun
Title: The autonomy of economics
Abstract: It is generally taken for granted that the less fundamental sciences or theories supervene on the more fundamental sciences or theories. I propose that the infamous Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu (SMD) theorem in economics poses a difficulty for this assumption, as it suggests that macroeconomics may not supervene on microeconomics. Some of the strategies used to deal with the SMD theorem do, though, suggest a way of spelling out a workable notion of emergence: what I call informational emergence. However, developments in the discipline pose challenges for thinking of economics at the aggregate or macro level as emergent in general. Despite this, this way of framing emergence allows us to think about such issues in a more perspicuous manner.
Qiu Lin
Title: Moving Physics Forward: the Case of Du Châtelet's Foundations of Physics (1740 & 1742)
Abstract: In the Preface of her magnum opus, Foundations of Physics, Du Châtelet thus describes her role in relation to physics as an organized enterprise: "Physics is an immense building that surpasses the powers of a single person. Some lay a stone there, while others build whole wings, but all must work on the solid foundations that have been laid for this edifice in the last century, by means of geometry and observations; still others survey the plan of the building, and I, among them. (IP 123, my emphasis)" What kind of “plan-survey” work does she find beneficial for philosophers to undertake in order to advance the study of physics? In this paper, I argue that in Du Châtelet’s views, a philosopher’s expertise is well suited for resolving contentious debates in physics, particularly those that do not yield productive empirical research. I point out that her strategy for doing so is highly distinctive: by (1) drawing resources from metaphysics to clarify the terms being used in physics (e.g. “substance”“determination”), (2) separating problems that can be settled empirically and those that cannot, and advising physicists to focus on the former, and (3) reframing debates that have reached an impasse into more productive ones. I illustrate my points with a close discussion of Du Châtelet's interventions in the 18th century debates over refraction, monads, and absolute space.
Eddy Nahmias
Title: Degrees of Criminal Responsibility
Abstract: In the U.S. legal system, criminal responsibility is an on/off switch: guilty or not guilty. Diminished capacities for rationality or control are not relevant, except in the extremely rare verdict of not guilty by reason of mental insanity. I will argue that the U.S. should add a new verdict of diminished responsibility for defendants with relevant diminished capacities. This proposal is supported by compatibilist views of free will and communicative theories of punishment, as well as our ordinary practices of blame. This view rejects skepticism about free will and criminal responsibility, which flattens all gradations of responsibility and blame, though the skeptics’ quarantine model offers a useful alternative to punishment for offenders with diminished capacities. Other nations have made similar moves, and the US Sentencing Guidelines offers language that could be adopted as a practical legal implementation for such a verdict. The practical upshot would include diminishing the over-incarceration epidemic that sweeps in many offenders with diagnosable mental illnesses, while also avoiding an overcorrection to the skeptics’ medicalized system that risks a deep conflict with most citizen’s sense of justice.
Thomas W. Polger
Title: Color Vision and The Four-Color-Map Problem, Revisited
Abstract: Dale Purves, et al. have argued that there is an explanatory connection between the Four-Color-Map Theorem in topology and the fact that humans (and some other creatures) perceive the world as colored with four opponent hues. Sometimes they say that the visual system “solves” the Four-Color-Map Problem; elsewhere they say that the Four-Color-Map Theorem provides a “rationale” for the organization of the visual system. We can ask: What sort of explanation is being proposed by Purves, et al? Is it causal, adaptation, mechanistic, mathematical, computational? In this paper, I argue that Purves’ explanation may be an example of what Mazviita Chirimuuta dubs an efficient coding explanation. And I argue that a similar interpretation can be applied to a more famous example of computational explanation in the cognitive and brain sciences, namely, David Marr’s account of zero-crossing detection in the early visual system. These cases focus our attention on the features of efficient coding explanations, and raise important questions for advocates of efficient coding explanation.
Rachell Powell
Title: Importing Biological Concepts into Bioethics: Three Problematic Cases (Death, Disease, Sex)
Abstract: TBA
Songyao Ren
Title: The Dual-Perspective Model of Resilience in the Zhuangzi
Abstract: This talk builds on Wong (2006 & 2009) to explore the dual-perspective model of resilience in the Zhuangzi. Through a study of stories of resilience in the text, I argue that this Zhuangist model suggests a kind of identification with Tian 天 (Nature, Heaven) that does not thoroughly transcend one’s humanity. As a human, one has a special attachment to a particular dao or way of life. This makes one susceptible to the pain of loss when one’s dao is obstructed by changes in the circumstance. Yet, the emotional tumult is short-lived: by identifying with Tian 天 (Nature, Heaven), one loosens one’s grip on the old dao, which is no longer viable, and grasps onto a new dao that is fitting to the changed situation, thereby regaining equanimity.
I argue that empirical research not only supports the dual-perspective model of resilience but also sheds further light on it. The continuing bonds theory in psychology shows that to keep the human involves carrying important aspects of the old self, such as care for the deceased, into the new self, as one adapts to the changed world. The work of sociologist Peter Marris (1974) shows that insofar as the continuity of care is guided by Tian 天 (Nature, Heaven), care cannot remain the same, but has to be abstracted from the old context and rehabilitated to fit the new one. Thus, to keep Tian 天 (Nature, Heaven) and the human together is to integrate continuity and responsiveness. It is to move onto the next figure of the same dance (C. S. Lewis, 1961).
Hagop Sarkissian
Title: Knowing Yourself, Knowing Your Vibe
Abstract: A person's vibe refers to the way that person affects others through their presence--the overall mood or feelings they evoke amongst those in their midst. A vibe is something that can be purposefully cultivated, but it need not be; one can have a vibe without realizing it. Either way, one’s vibes impact others, raising a number of interesting issues. To what extent is one responsible for one’s vibe? How does one know one’s vibe? Is a person's vibe a proper target of ethical evaluation? Contemporary philosophers are largely silent on the topic, but this hasn’t always been the case. In this presentation, I will draw on texts in the classical Confucian tradition to show not only their observations on these matters, but also how they cohere with other aspects of Confucian ethics. I end by raising some potential concerns and avenues for further research.