2020
Online Workshop on Conceptual Engineering (Pre-read)
Time: Nov. 9, 2020 9:00 AM–Nov. 13, 2020 5:00 PM
This is an pre-read online workshop. The format of the workshop is a bit different from a traditional ‘in-person’ event. The workshop will be entirely asynchronous. This means that no participants are required to be online at the same time, or for prolonged periods of time. Instead, discussion will take place via a text-based online forum. Questions can be posted to the forum and answered over the course of 5 days, at times that are convenient for participants.
The workshop focuses on frameworks, challenges, and foundational issues in conceptual engineering. Questions addressed may include: What is the best framework for understanding conceptual engineering? What does it mean to say that a representational device is defective? What are the limitations of conceptual engineering as a methodology? Is revising a concept just ‘changing the subject’? How are concepts or word meanings individuated? Do concepts have functions? How should conceptual engineers respond to the ‘implementation challenge’? Do we have control over our representational devices? What is the role of metalinguistic negotiation in conceptual engineering?
Speakers:
- Sarah Sawyer (University of Sussex)
- Teresa Marques (University of Barcelona)
- Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky (University of Melbourne)
- Jennifer Nado (University of Hong Kong)
- Esa Díaz-León (University of Barcelona)
- Mirela Fuš (University of Oslo)
- Eleonore Neufeld (University of Illinois)
- Sigurd Jorem (University of Oslo)
- Mark Pinder (Open University)
- David Plunkett (Dartmouth College)
Concept Lab and Super Linguistics joint seminar: Gillian Ramchand
The Super Linguistics research group & Concept Lab joint colloquium series are happy to announce our first talk of the semester (details below).
Time and place: Jan. 13, 2020 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, GM 652
Speaker: Gillian Ramchand (Tromsø)
Title: Concepts and Compositionality (Or, ‘Escape from Alcatraz’)
Abstract
The open-ended ability of humans to construct meaning creatively from the lexical ingredients they store in memory is one of the most striking properties of human cogni- tion. Compositionality has been the empirical focus of the modern semantic tradition that concerns itself with natural language semantics, starting with Montague and Par- tee (which in turn has its roots in the philosophical truth-making traditions leading from Frege through to Tarski, Church and Lewis). But in this talk I will argue that while this tradition has been very successful descriptively, we are still very far from explanations of the most basic phenomena and generalizations about natural language compositionality and meaning layering. In the first part of the talk, I use evidence from meaning layering in the verb phrase—- from lexical verb, aspectual auxiliary to tense and modality—– to motivate the reality of the ‘explanation gap’. The diagnosis of the problem will be that very foundational questions get begged because of the encapsula- tion/encarceration of conceptual content away from standard semantic compositional machinery (Alcatraz). In the final part of the talk, I will sketch a solution for how the hyperintensionality of lexical conceptual content can indeed be formally integrated into a truth making version of semantics, without begging the compositionality question (Escape).
2019
Workshop on Jonathan Quong's forthcoming book"The Morality of Defensive Force"
Time and place: Dec. 16, 2019 9:15 AM–5:40 PM, GM 652, University of Oslo
Programme
09 15 Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
10 30 Lars Christie
11 45 Kim Ferzan
13 00 Lunch
14 00 Jakob Elster
15 15 Jonathan Parry
16 30 Camilla Serck-Hanssen
17 40 End of workshop
Abstracts
Jonathan Quong.The Morality of Defensive Force
When is it morally permissible to engage in self-defense or the defense of others? Jonathan Quong defends a variety of novel ideas in this book about the morality of defensive force, providing an original philosophical account of the central moral principles that should regulate its use. We cannot understand the morality of defensive force, he reasons, until we ask and answer deeper questions about how the use of defensive force fits with a more general account of justice and moral rights. In developing this stance, Quong presents new views on liability, proportionality, and necessity. He argues that self-defense can sometimes be justified on the basis of an agent-relative prerogative to give greater weight to one's own life and interests, contrary to the dominant view in the literature. Additionally Quong develops a novel conception of individual rights against harm. Unlike some, who believe that our rights against harm are fact-relative, he argues that our rights against being harmed by others must, in certain respects, be sensitive to the evidence that others can reasonably be expected to possess. The book concludes with Quong's extended defense of the means principle, a principle that prohibits harmfully using other persons' bodies or other rightful property unless those persons are duty bound to permit this use or have otherwise waived their claims against such use.
Kim Ferzan "Quong and the Means Principle,"
The means principle plays a central role in Quong's theory, but I believe that Quong fails to defend it robustly and to demonstrate its contours fully. I want to raise some questions about how Quong understands the principle, the ways in which it may be too strong, and perhaps most importantly, the ways in which it is too weak.
Kasper Lippert Rasmussen "Quong on liability to defensive harm"
In my presentation I pursue two aims. First, I assess the strength of Quong's critiques of the culpability and the moral responsibility accounts of liability to defensive harm. I argue that they are inconclusive and, in particular, that "distributivist" views of liability to defensive harm have the resources to defeat the objections he presents. Second, I take a look at his own ingenious and competing account of liability to defensive harm, the moral status account. I identify some points where I would like to hear more about how exactly one should understand it, and some potential objections.
Lars Christie "The relevance of culpability to proportionality in defensive harming"
In this talk, I present one internal and one external objection to Quong’s view on the irrelevance of culpability to proportionality. While Quong denies the relevance of culpability to proportionality, he accepts that it is wrong to impose harm on a non-culpable threatener when one could have imposed harm on a culpable threatener instead. Quong justifies the latter claim by appeal to desert. I argue that this gives rise to an internal tension in Quong’s view because the desert-based justification cannot be limited to the situation Quong applies it to. Insofar as the appeal to desert is convincing, the same appeal to desert can be used to justify imposing more harm on culpable threateners than on non-culpable threateners. However, rather than extending the desert based justification Quong offers, I argue that the appeal to desert in the context of defensive harming should be rejected. This leaves us with the choice of granting culpability a non-desert based role in defensive harming or reject the role of culpability in defensive harming altogether. In the latter part of the talk, I pursue the first alternative and explore how culpability can be granted a role in defensive harming without appeal to desert.
Jakob Elster "Self-defense, property and distributive justice"
One of the themes of Jonathan Quong’s forthcoming book “The Morality of Defensive Force” is that the moral theory of defensive force must rely on a broader theory of distributive justice, which tells us which rightful claims we have over our bodies and our property. I will discuss this theme, concentrating on the issue of the just distribution of property: First, I will argue that, pace Quong, “property rights are different”. Allowing property rights to influence our moral theory of self-defense amounts to allowing, in Michael Walzer’s terms, one distributive sphere to dominate another distributive sphere in a way which gives unfortunate results. Next, I will explore the implications of the relation between distributive justice and self-defense for using Quong’s theory of self-defense in non-ideal theory.
Jonathan Parry "The Scope of the Means Principle"
One of the central contributions of Quong’s The Morality of Defensive Force is its detailed articulation and defence of the Means Principle, which holds that there is an especially stringent constraint on harmfully using persons. In this paper, I focus on Quong’s account of the scopeof the means principle. First, I consider Quong’s treatment of harmful omissions under the Means Principle. On Quong’s view, failures to aid only falls within the scope of the Means Principle if the subject of the omission has a right to be aided. I argue that this proviso generates some highly counter-intuitive results: there are clear cases of wrongful use that Quong’s Means Principle fails to capture. Second, I consider Quong’s extension of the scope of the Means Principle to include harmful uses of persons’ rightful property. As Quong points out, this means that the Means Principle (and the morality of defensive harm more generally) is parasitic on an independent theory of our just entitlements over the physical world. I (tentatively) suggest that the inclusion of property with the Means Principle may itselfconstrain our distributive entitlements. Third, I make the case for extending the Means Principle along a different dimension. Whereas Quong emphasises our authority over parts of the material world, I suggest that we have structurally similar moral powers with respect to the parts of the normative realm. More specifically, we have control rights over moral reasons grounded in our own good or wellbeing, and others commit a use-based or opportunistic wrong against us by acting for those reasons against our will. I argue that this idea provides an attractive account of the distinctive wrong of paternalism (and contrast it with Quong’s own view).
Organizer
Lars Christie
Talk by Thom van Gessel: "Two-dimensional inquisitive semantics"
Time and place: Nov. 20, 2019 3:00 PM–4:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
Since Kripke, philosophers have distinguished a priori true statements from necessarily true ones. A statement is a priori true if its truth can be established before experience, and necessarily true if it could not have been false according to logical or metaphysical laws. This distinction can be captured formally using two-dimensional semantics.
There is a natural way to extend the notions of apriority and necessity so they can also apply to questions. Questions either can or cannot be resolved before experience, and either are or are not about necessary facts. Intuitively, the question ‘am I here now?’ is a priori and contingent, while the question ‘who am I?’ is a posteriori and necessary. Classical two-dimensionalism has no account of question meanings, so it has to be combined with a framework for question semantics in order to capture these observations.
In this talk I will discuss several options, and work out a two-dimensional variant of inquisitive semantics in detail. In this framework, definitions of apriority and necessity can be formulated in terms of information. These definitions apply to questions and statements uniformly.
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen - "On being in a position to blame"
Time and place: Nov. 8, 2019 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
We often dismiss blame not because we deny that what we have done is blameworthy, but because we deny that the blamer is in a position to blame us for what the person blames us for. I might be blameworthy for flying too much and while, say, Greta Thunberg might be in a position to blame me for that Al Gore might not be so. But under what conditions is one not in a position to blame someone else? And what exactly is it not to be in a position to blame? And is it unique to blame that the agent must be in a certain position to engage in the relevant illocutionary act? In my talk I will answer these question in tandem with an account of what blaming typically involves.
Matthieu Queloz - "Pragmatic Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering"
Time and place: Sep. 18, 2019 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
Though conceptual engineering is a forward-looking enterprise, the thought has been gaining traction that it should be guided by a prior understanding of the functions or points our concepts serve. In this talk, I explore some of the motivations for this backward-looking enterprise of conceptual reverse-engineering. I then argue that there is an under-appreciated tradition which offers a methodologically controlled way of doing conceptual reverse-engineering: the tradition of pragmatic genealogy. I develop an interpretation of pragmatic genealogy which makes sense of the seemingly incongruous way in which it combines state-of-nature fictions with real history.
Workshop on indefinite extensibility and modality
Time: Sep. 17, 2019 9:00 AM–6:00 PM
- 10.00 - 10.30am: Opening remarks (Linnebo, Rayo)
- 10.30 - 11.45am: Rayo, “Logical Contingentism”
- 12.45 - 2.00pm: Linnebo, “An Analysis of Intrinsic Truthmaking”
- 2.15 - 3.30pm: Fritz, “A Path to Worldliness”
Viktoria Knoll - 'Evidence for mere verbalness - or: how (hard it is) to detect a merely verbal dispute'
Time and place: Sep. 3, 2019 10:15 AM–11:15 AM, GM 652
Abstract:
This talk will be about (evidence for) merely verbal disputes in philosophy. According to a prominent proposal by Eli Hirsch, each speaker in a merely verbal dispute should agree that the other party is speaking the truth in her own language. A crucial element of Hirsch's account are principles of charitable interpretation. I will examine two of these principles: 'charity to understanding' and 'charity to retraction'. Despite their shortcomings, an analysis of these two principles leads to two pieces of evidence for a merely verbal dispute in a philosophical debate. The talk will develop and discuss these pieces of evidence and explain how to use them (carefully).
Workshop: Second-order logic and the question of (im)predicativity
Time and place: Aug. 20, 2019 9:00 AM–Aug. 21, 2019 6:00 PM, GM 652, University of Oslo
Tuesday
- 9:00 – 9:15: welcome
- 9:15 – 10.30: Crsipin Wright
- 10:45 – noon: Sam Roberts
Noon – 1:30pm: lunch and celebration of Peter Fritz’ research prize (in GM452)
- 1:30 – 2:45pm: Laura Crosilla
- 3:00 – 4:15pm: Øystein Linnebo
Wednesday
- 10:00 – 11:15am: Stewart Shapiro
- 11:30 – 12:45pm: Chris Scambler
- 12:45 – 1:45pm: lunch
- 1:45 – 3:00pm: Peter Fritz
- 3:15 – 4:30pm: Agustin Rayo
Abstracts
Laura Crosilla (Oslo): "Predicativity and (intuitionistic) logic"
Predicativity originates within fundamental debates at the beginning of the 20th Century under the stimulus of the set-theoretic paradoxes. Poincaré, Russell and, subsequently, Weyl shaped the notion of predicativity. Interest for predicativity faded soon after Weyl’s 1918’s booklet “Das Kontinnum”, but re-appeared prominently within mathematical logic, and especially proof theory, from the 1950’s. Today a form of predicativity is characteristic of constructive foundational systems for Bishop-style mathematics, such as Martin-Löf type theory. A number of questions arise from considering today’s constructive forms of predicativity, one of which is the relation between predicativity and logic. In this talk I explore a possible route from predicativity to intuitionistic logic that makes use of Dummett’s argument from indefinite extensibility. I only aim at highlighting the main steps of such an argument and especially focus on the case of the natural numbers.
Peter Fritz (Oslo): "Ground and Grain and Predicativity"
Current views of metaphysical ground suggest that a true conjunction is immediately grounded in its conjuncts, and only its conjuncts. Similar principles are suggested for disjunction and universal quantification. Here, it is shown that these principles are jointly inconsistent, and so that the notion of grounding is either not in good standing, or that widespread assumptions about it need to be revised. The inconsistency is established by showing that the relevant grounding principles entail that there is a distinct truth for any plurality of truths. Thus, the argument is similar to the Russell-Myhill argument against structured propositions. However, in contrast to the Russell-Myhill argument, the inconsistency of the relevant grounding principles can -- at least in certain cases -- be established using only predicative plural comprehension.
Øystein Linnebo (Oslo): "Non-instance-based generality and Frege’s Theorem"
Shapiro and Linnebo (2015) proves Frege’s Theorem in intuitionistic logic. But certain impredicative comprehension axioms are needed, which are potentially problematic from a constructivist point of view. Is the apparent problem genuine? First, I reject an argument from constructivism to the Vicious Circle Principle, which would entail that there is a problem. Then, I explore the prospects for a constructivist defense of the needed comprehension axioms, drawing on (1) an alternative conception of predicativity due to Poincaré and (2) a non-instance-based conception of generality which becomes available when the logic is intuitionistic
Agustin Rayo (MIT/Oslo: " A Kaplanian account of the propositional paradoxes"
I offer a formal development of a Kaplan-style answer to the propositional paradoxes.
Sam Roberts (Oslo): "Properties, propositions, and grounding"
Chris Scambler (NYU): "Can all things be counted?"
"Predicativists tend to be cagy about uncountability in mathematics; their caginess also tends to lead them to mathematically restrictive programs in foundations, including for the most part an outright rejection of standard axioms of set theory. In this talk I will present an attempt to rehabilitate standard set-theoretic mathematics in the countablist (or even predicativist) setting."
Stewart Shapiro (Ohio State University): "Properties and Predicates; Objects and Names: Impredicativity and the Axiom of Choice"
Recently, Bob Hale (2010, 2013) has articulated and defended a “Fregean” theory of properties and relations. It is a natural extension of the account of objects adopted by him and Crispin Wright, as part of their abstractionist, neo-logicist philosophy of mathematics, language, and general metaphysics. The purpose of this talk is to take the measure of this perspective as an interpretation of mathematics—the mathematics that is practiced today and plays a central role in just about all scientific theories. The upshot, I think, is that Hale must either defend some prima facie implausible claims about what sorts of languages are possible, for us finite beings, or else he must reject, on purely philosophical grounds, large chunks of contemporary mathematics and, perhaps, even his own neo-logicism. Our main focus is on impredicative definitions and the axiom of choice.
Crispin Wright (NYU and Stirling): "Is (Neo-)Logicism founded on a mistake about Logic? Wright, Hale and Heck on Higher-Order Logic”.
The underlying logic needed for neo-logicist constructions of number theory and analysis faces familiar problems concerning the construal of its higher-order variables. Three such problems are paramount:
(i) how to conceive of the entities in the range of the higher-order quantifiers;
(ii) how to conceive of the domain comprised by such entities;
(iii) how to understand the impredicative comprehension axioms which the constructions demand.
I’ll explore answers to (i) and (ii) which draw their sting. However (iii) is another matter.
Bashshar Haydar: ‘Benefiting from Injustice and the Bias in Favor of the Status Quo’
Time and place: Aug. 15, 2019 1:15 PM–3:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
By examining our moral intuitions about various cases of benefiting from injustice, I argue that these intuitions reveal a bias in favor of the status quo. I then argue that, independently of benefiting from injustice, our moral intuitions manifest a tendency to favor the status quo.
Matthew Shields - "On Stipulation"
Time and place: June 26, 2019 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
In moments of metaphilosophical reflection, philosophers often describe the project of conceptual analysis as having a crucial stipulative dimension, but they rarely explain what they take this act of stipulation to consist in. In this paper, I offer a novel, detailed account of the pragmatics of the speech act of stipulation and explain its role in conceptual analysis and articulation. On my view, speech acts of stipulation are best understood as metalinguistic acts that generate a shared inferential entitlement for speaker and audience, an entitlement justified on the basis of its utility. I distinguish stipulations from more familiar speech act kinds such as assertions and commands. In developing this account, I also synthesize and criticize alternative views of stipulation in the literature, introduce a novel taxonomy for analyzing objections to speech acts generally, provide in-depth discussion of change-of-subject worries, and explore the relationship between stipulation and analyticity. The resulting account of stipulation is one with important metaphilosophical and metasemantic implications.
Hans-Johann Glock - 'Impure Conceptual Analysis and the Question of Animal Minds'
Time and place: June 18, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM 452
My contribution discusses the relation between theoretical philosophical and non-philosophical (scientific, cultural, aesthetic, moral) problems. It defends the method of conceptual analysis both in general and with respect to specific topics like animal minds and animal welfare. But it also argues for a type of conceptual analysis that is non-reductive (‘connective’ in Strawson’s terminology) and impure. It also dismisses the idea that conceptual analysis is based on intuitions.
Impure conceptual analysis distinguishes the conceptual issues of philosophy from the factual issues of science, while stressing the way in which these interact in specific questions, arguments, theories and research programmes. Theoretical philosophy is distinct both from science and normative ethics, yet the three cannot proceed in isolation with respect to topics which pose scientific, philosophical, cultural and moral challenges. An additional reason for favouring impure conceptual analysis in areas like the animal minds is the importance of methodological issues which are neither straightforwardly conceptual nor straightforwardly factual. The vocation of theoretical philosophy is that of critical thinking writ large: it is a means of improving debates that are not confined to philosophy itself, by making them clearer and more cogent. To this end, philosophers must engage with the details of these debates, rather than legislating from above on the basis of preconceived generalities.
Hans-Johann Glock - 'Pluralism about Reasons for Action'
Time and place: June 17, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM 652
There is a hitherto unnoticed parallelism between developments in cognitive scientists’ theorizing about folk psychology and developments in philosophers of action’s theorizing about reasons for action. Both fields come from a firm commitment to identifying the explanantia of human action - ‘practical reasons’ - with mental states, typically belief-desire pairs (Davidson 1963). Both fields have in recent years moved away from this psychologistic commitment, towards a more world-involving, objectivist picture, for instance understanding the explanatory strategies of infants in terms of teleology (Gergely and Csibra 2003, Perner and Roessler 2010), or explaining action by appeal to worldly facts or states of affairs (Dancy 2000; Alvarez 2010).
At the same time there is some mismatch between the developments in these fields. Cognitive scientists have moved towards pluralism, acknowledging a wide variety of explanations and reasons. In the philosophy of action the situation is more complicated. At one level, one finds a new pluralism. Most practitioners accept a trichotomy between justifying, motivating and explanatory reasons (Alvarez 2017). At another level, however, a new monism holds sway in the debate. Participants labor under the assumption that it has to be either mental states or facts/states of affairs that are the reasons which motivate an agent to act and thus explain her action. Furthermore, those who abandon psychologism tend to combine a functional pluralism with ontological monism. Although the normative/motivating/explanatory trichotomy captures three distinct roles that reasons can play, all of these roles are occupied by entities of the same ontological category, namely facts (Alvarez 2010: 33-5).
This contribution argues that objectivism about reasons can and should be combined with a thoroughgoing pluralism. It constructs an ‘expanding circle’ of practical reasons. First, because of error cases these reasons should be conceived not just as facts but as states of affairs, i.e. possible facts that may or may not obtain. Secondly, in addition to such ‘that-ish’ reasons, goals and purposes are also bona fide reasons for action. Thirdly, the facts or possible states of affairs that function as reasons include not just natural or ‘descriptive’ facts, but also normative facts. In an optional final section this idea is related to the recent proposal that folk psychology has a ‘mind shaping’ function.
My lecture is based on collaborative work with Dr. Eva Schmidt (Zürich) on a joint article. It is part of an interdisciplinary DACH project on The Structure and Development of Understanding Actions and Reasons.
Natalia Waights-Hickman - 'Linguistic knowledge: Propositional or Practical?’
Time and place: June 13, 2019 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
A longstanding debate in the philosophy of language concerns the question whether linguistic competence is constituted by partly implicit propositional knowledge of a system of linguistic rules or is, instead, a form practical knowledge-how. I argue that it is both. I consider how two varieties of ‘intellectualist’ views of knowledge-how, which understand this as itself a form of propositional knowledge, combine with traditional conceptions of linguistic competence, defending my own account in favour of Stanley and Williamson’s. I then consider the possible implications of my view for an understanding of the pragmatics/semantics interface in semantic competence.
Talk by Robert Schwartzkopff: ‘Two Tests To Rule Them All?’
Time and place: May 24, 2019 10:15 AM–11:45 AM, GM 652
Abstract
Neo-Fregean arguments for arithmetical realism often appeal to certain tests for whether an expression functions as a singular term. The aim of my talk is two-fold. First, I demonstrate, that the tests are generally in good order. Second and time permitting, I argue that they nevertheless cannot be relied upon in the context of neo-Fregean arguments for arithmetical realism.
Those interested in some preparatory reading could (but are by no means obliged to) take a look at my article 'Singular Terms Revisited'.
Talks by Vera Flocke and Ethan Brauer
Time and place: May 22, 2019 10:00 AM–12:00 PM, GM 652
Ethan Brauer - "The Dependence of Computability on Numerical Notation"
What function is computed by a Turing machine will depend on how the symbols it manipulates are interpreted. Further, by invoking bizarre systems of notation (i.e. interpretation schemes mapping symbols to their denotations) it is easy to de fine Turing machines that compute textbook examples of uncomputable functions, such as the solution to the decision problem for fi rst-order logic. Thus, the distinction between computable and uncomputable functions depends on the system of notation used. This raises the question: which systems of notation are the relevant ones for determining whether a function is computable? These are the acceptable notations. I argue for a use-criterion of acceptability: the acceptable notations for a domain of objects D are the notations that we can use for the usual D-activities. For example, the acceptable notations for natural numbers are ones that we can count with, and the acceptable notations for logical formulas are the ones that we can use in inference and logical analysis.
Vera Flocke - "Objectivity as a Modality"
I will present a new research project that develops a modal theory of objectivity, according to which objectivity is a form of necessity. The project is novel in two ways: It allows to treat phenomena in several areas of inquiry in a unified fashion—phenomena that received theories of objectivity are bound to treat differently. Furthermore, the theory allows us to use the tools of modal logic to investigate objectivity and related notions. I will explain the core idea of the project and sketch several sub-projects. For example, I will raise questions concerning the interaction of objectivity with metaphysical necessity, discuss whether the distinction between objective and non-objective propositions is itself objective, and sketch applications of the theory in the philosophy of mathematics.
PhD defence by Joost Vecht: "Concept Attributivism"
Committee: Sarah Sawyer (University of Sussex), Matti Eklund (Uppsala University), Dragana Bozin (University of Oslo)
Time and place: May 15, 2019 10:15 AM–1:00 PM, Gamle Festsal, Domus Academica
Summary of the thesis
We often encounter situations where we must decide which concepts someone possesses. Teachers must decide which of their students has grasped the material, coworkers must figure out whether their colleagues have the theoretical skills necessary to perform some task, and scientists must judge whether they’ve finally really figured out something new. In all these situations, it’s necessary to attribute certain concepts to certain people. The question to the philosopher is: what does that mean? When is it appropriate to say that someone possesses some concept?
This thesis provides an answer to these questions, and it does so by taking into account the confounding factor of time. For example, concepts tend to change over time, which makes it hard to say which concepts people in the past grasped, or partially grasped. In a case study about Leibniz, Newton and Cauchy, I show that the answer to the question “which concept did this person grasp?” depends on when and where the question is asked, against the classical view on the matter. Moreover, I show that almost all concepts will keep changing, due to a phenomenon called “open texture”, the tendency for concepts to keep changing in response to difficult cases. I also show that concepts can retain their identity throughout such changes.
In Concept Attributivism, I develop and defend an alternative view of concepts. According to attributivism, we must take seriously the process of attributing concepts to one another. Concepts are tools for understanding one another. We project a concept on some individual when we find that the other acts according to some relevant theory. For example, a teacher may judge that high school students grasp the concept of gravity if they say and write things according to the norms of Newtonian physics. Questions about concept grasp are then really questions about theory and an individual’s actions.
Trial lecture by Joost Vecht: "Theories of Concepts"
As part of the defence of his PhD, Joost Vecht will be delivering a lecture on "Theories of Concepts".
Time and place: May 14, 2019 4:15 PM–5:00 PM, Arne Næss Auditorium
Skolem Lecture 2019: Steve Awodey
The Skolem Lecture is an annual event in honor of the Norwegian mathematician and logician Thoralf Skolem.
Time and place: Apr. 25, 2019 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, room 652
This year's Skolem lecture will be given by Professor Steve Awodey of Carnegie Mellon University.
Organizer
Øystein Linnebo
Alexander Roberts - 'From Physical to Metaphysical Modality'
Time and place: Apr. 11, 2019 12:30 PM–2:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
In a previous talk, I argued that physical necessity is not the broadest objective necessity. In this talk, I use that claim to argue against common breeds of scepticism about metaphysical necessity. The strategy will be to characterise metaphysical necessity in terms of physical necessity, a naturalistically acceptable modality. I argue that this characterisation allows one to recover a natural logic and theoretical role for metaphysical necessity.
Annina Loets - 'Choice Points for a Logic of Normality'
Time and place: Apr. 10, 2019 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
A range of recent work in epistemology employs a notion of normality and makes claims about its logic. This talk shows how progress can be made in this debate if we appreciate certain delicate issues concerning the ways in which normality claims are formulated and interpreted.
Trial Job Talk - Andrew Peet
Time and place: Mar. 18, 2019 1:00 PM–3:00 PM, GM 652
Talk by David Liebesman - "Copredication and Property Inheritance"
Time and place: Mar. 14, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM 652, University of Oslo
Based on joint work with Ofra Magidor.
Abstract
Intuitively, co-predication occurs when two properties are truly predicated of a single object, where those properties cannot both be instantiated by a single object. Co-predication has led theorists to draw a number of radical conclusions, including a wholesale rejection of referential semantics. We reject the intuitive view of co-predication and the dramatic conclusions others have drawn from it. On our view, co-predication requires nothing more than familiar property instantiation, though the instantiation may hold be explained by property inheritance. A kind, for instance, may inherit properties from its members. Once this is appreciated and defended, co-predication ceases to be particularly puzzling.
Steffen Koch & Francesca Bunkenborg: "Conceptual Engineering between Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory"
Time and place: Feb. 21, 2019 4:00 PM–6:00 PM, GM 652
Abstract
Conceptual engineers aim to make progress by improving the meanings of concepts. However, recent work on the foundations of this method has raised concerns about its actual feasibility. Especially externalist approaches to metasemantics seem to preclude the possibility of changing meanings intentionally. In response, Cappelen argues that conceptual engineering is a form of ideal theory, and therefore free from feasibility constraints. We argue that this response fails. To this end, we focus on conceptual engineering projects in feminist philosophy, known as ‘ameliorative analyses’. Much of contemporary feminist philosophy subscribes to a methodology of non-ideal theorizing, which is incompatible with disregarding feasibility constraints. Therefore, an account of conceptual engineering that views it as a form of ideal theory will end up undermining a large share of actual conceptual engineering projects. We argue that this implication cannot be avoided by appealing to different senses of the ideal/non-ideal distinction, nor by adopting Haslanger’s later account of ameliorative analysis on which it turns out not to be revisionary. Instead, we argue that even externalism allows for meaning control. We will then show that conceptual engineering meets a three-fold standard of non-ideal theorizing, and that conceptual engineering projects in feminist philosophy are therefore not undermined.
Talk by Luca Zanetti: "Pluralism about Abstraction"
Time and place: Feb. 13, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM652, University of Oslo
Luca Zanetti will give the talk: "Pluralism about Abstraction"
2018
Talk by Mark Textor: Frege on the ‘Force-less’ Nature of Thought: The Argument from Polarity Questions
Time and place: Nov. 22, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM452, University of Oslo
Mark Textor will give the talk: "Frege on the ‘Force-less’ Nature of Thought: The Argument from Polarity Questions"
Abstract
Frege’s arguments for the ‘force-less’ nature of thoughts have recently been criticised and as a consequence of this criticism it has been argued that there is no force-less content. In this paper I will argue that Frege has a promising argument for the force-less nature of thought that has so far been neglected and that is not subject to the standard objections. The starting point of the argument is Frege’s characterisation of a thought as the sense of a polarity question. The argument is based on the idea that the sense of a polarity question is re-expressed as well as asserted (denied) if one answers it with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’: these particles are ‘pro-sentences’ (Brentano, Ramsey) that express thoughts. I will first expound a straightforward version of Frege’s argument and then give a more refined version of it. I will defend the argument against criticism and show how one needs to relax Frege’s criterion of sense recognition to make room for the idea that an interrogative and a declarative sentence can express the same thought.
Talk by Mark Steiner (Hebrew University), “How to get more out of mathematics than we put in”
Time and place: Oct. 11, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM 452, University of Oslo
Michael Henry Tessler: Tutorial on Probablilistic Language Understanding
Time: Aug. 22, 2018 2:00 PM–4:30 PM
Tutorial on Probablilistic Language Understanding The full set of materials can be found at problang.org <http://problang.org/> .
Organizer
Rachel Katharine Sterken and Michael Henry Tessler
Talk by Steward Shapiro and Eric Snyder: "Groups and potentiality”
Time and place: Aug. 15, 2018 9:15 AM–11:00 AM, GM652
Steward Shapiro and Eric Snyder will give the talk "Groups and potentiality”
Mini-workshop on "Some worries about Classical Logic"
Time and place: Aug. 13, 2018 12:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM652
- 12.15 - 2PM: Crispin Wright, "Intuitionism and vagueness"
- 2.15 - 4PM: Linnebo & Shapiro, "Predicativism and potential infinity: how to understand quantification over an incomplete totality of sets"
Two talks by Gabriel Uzquiano
Time and place: June 17, 2018 10:30 AM–3:00 PM, GM 652 University of Oslo
Gabriel Uzquiano will give two talks:
- 10.30-12.00: "Uses and abuses of Cantor’s theorem: Elusive propositions and the limits of thought"
- 13.30-15.00: "From Cantorian counterexamples to cardinal inequalities"
These two talks cover material from different chapters of a book project tentatively entitled "The cardinal problem of absolute generality."
Dan Marshall (Lingnan University), ‘ Semantics and Absolute Generality'.
Time and place: May 14, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM 452, University of oslo
Talk by Jose Ferreiros: "Objects by objectivity"
Time and place: Mar. 22, 2018 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, GM 652, UiO
2017
Peter Fritz and Alexander Steinberg: Mini-workshop on “just is"
Time and place: Aug. 17, 2017 1:15 PM – 4:00 PM, University of Oslo, GM 652
Jon Litland and Øystein Linnebo: Mini-workshop on Dedekind abstraction
Time and place: Aug. 9, 2017 1:15 PM – 4:00 PM, University of Oslo, GM 652
Talk: Øystein Linnebo and Stewart Shapiro: "Choice sequences: A modal analysis"
Time and place: Aug. 8, 2017 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, University of Oslo, GM 652
Patrick Greenough: Against Conceptual Engineering
Time and place: May 11, 2017 12:15 PM – 2:00 PM, GM 652
Chapter 8 + 10 of Against Conceptual Engineering
2016
Talks by Aaron Thomas-Bolduc and Beau Mount
Time and place: June 6, 2016 9:15 AM – 12:00 PM, GM 652
Aaron Thomas-Bolduc (University of Calgary): Neo-Logicism: A Prehistory
By the time Carl Hempel published his influential paper on logicism in 1945, discussion of the school of thought developed by Frege, and Russell & Whitehead was narrowing to a trickle. This talk examines the developments in logicism starting with Hempel's paper and ending in the mid-1980's when Wright and Hale's neo-logicist program started gathering steam. The approach is topical, beginning in earnest with a discussion of the distinctions between higher-order logic, type-theory and set theory with respect to which system, if any, counts as logic in the context of a logicist reduction of mathematics to logic. That leads to a discussion of Parsons' 1965 piece in which a version of Frege's Theorem is sketched. Then, rounding out the tools needed for the development of a Fregean neo-logicism, the debate about the interpretation of Frege's context principle in the mid-20.c is analyzed. Throughout, the main points of contact are works produced mid-century, and directly engaged with logicism.
Beau Mount (Oxford): Approximate Indefinite Extensibility
Annual Skolem lecture: Stewart Shapiro (Ohio State University): "Computing with numbers and other non-syntactic things: knowing which"
Time and place: June 2, 2016 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Georg Sverdrups hus, undervisningsrom 2
Abstract
Michael Rescorla has argued that it makes sense to compute directly with numbers, and he faulted Turing for not giving an analysis of this. In line with a later paper of his, however, it only makes sense to compute directly with syntactic entities, such as strings on a given alphabet. Computing with numbers goes via notation. This raises broader issues involving de re propositional attitudes towards numbers and other non-syntactic abstract entities.