Philosophy Seminars 2011
Seminar 9
When: Wednesday, 26 October at 4:30pm
Where: Building 19, Room 1003
Title: Inferential Virtues
Abstract: The possibility of epistemic luck has long provoked a Pyrrhonian disdain of finding gold in the darkness, but the attempt to devise an account of knowledge that accounts for this intuition stumbles when confronted by Gettier-style scenarios. Recently Pritchard has suggested that an appropriate combination of virtue epistemology and anti-luck epistemology will meet the Pyrrhonian’s needs. I suggest that this solution at least depends on a satisfactory incorporation of pragmatist insights - specifically aspects of inferentialism - if it is to satisfactorily account for the place of epistemic agents.
For more information, contact Patrick McGivern at patrickm@uow.edu.au
Seminar 8
When: Wednesday, 7 September at 4:30pm
Where: Building 19, Room 1003
Title: Phenomenally social - the private and public nature of conscious experience
Abstract: Conscious experience is usually portrayed as so inherently private that its actual role in our cognitive lives becomes deeply puzzling. This talk discusses a solution to this puzzle, suggested by social cognitive neuroscience: that the role of conscious experience is in fact social. Introspected conscious perception is for joint decision-making, and our experience of agency and choice is for common knowledge and social cohesion. Part of the proposal is that conscious experience can play this public role, not in spite of the privacy, but in virtue of the privacy.
This seminar is funded by UOW's Institute for Social Transformation Research, as part of the Cognitive Niche Construction project.
For more information, contact Patrick McGivern at patrickm@uow.edu.au
Seminar 7
When: Wednesday, 24 August at 4:30pm
Where: Building 19, Room 1003
Title: Persuasive Force and Liberal Autonomy: How Violent Protest Can be Democratic
Abstract: In this talk, I analyse the relationship between civil disobedience and non-violence in a liberal democracy. Since Rawls’ definition in 1971, there has been general agreement that for an act of social protest to be compatible with the rules of a democracy it has to be ‘non-violent’. That is, it has to be an attempt to persuade, rather than coerce, others that a particular law need be revised or repealed. According to this view, while a peaceful protest can represent a valuable form of communication in a democratic society, and lead the majority in power to understand the protesters’ plea, violent protests constitute an attempt to coerce the majority in power to yield to the activists’ demand, and are incompatible with the values of a liberal democracy. I will question this idea, arguing that a protest involving force or violence does not necessarily constitute a ‘coercive’ act. Drawing on the work of Joel Feinberg, Gerald Dworkin, and Joseph Raz, I will argue that acts that force people to act in a certain way are not necessarily disrespectful of their autonomy. Rather, the duty to respect others as autonomous choice-makers might require, under some circumstances, using force or even violence to address them. First, I will propose that the notion of ‘autonomy’ be kept distinct from that of ‘freedom’. Second, I will argue that the infringement of one’s freedom might be necessary to protect and promote her autonomy. If this is tenable, we then have an argument to the conclusion that both non violent and (some forms of) violent civil disobedience can be justified in a liberal democracy as persuasive acts of communication that treat fellow citizens as autonomous agents.
For more information, contact Patrick McGivern at patrickm@uow.edu.au
Seminar 6
When: Wednesday, 10 August at 4:30pm
Where: Building 19, Room 1056
Title: "Globe Justice"
Philosophy at the University of Wollongong is very pleased to have Professor Thomas Pogge (Yale/ANU) speaking at our seminar series. The title of Professor Pogge's talk will be "Globe Justice".
Professor Pogge is Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, and a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at ANU. He is internationally renowned for his work on global poverty, global health, and global justice, as is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts in moral philosophy and ethics.
In addition to his talk in the Philosophy seminar series, Professor Pogge will be speaking in the UOW Economics seminar series on the 11th of August where he will give a paper titled "Health Impact Fund: Making New Medicines Accessible for All".
The Economics seminar series meets in room 40A:G81 at 12 noon.
Seminar 5
When: Wednesday, 18th May at 4:30pm
Where: Building 19, Room 1003
Title: Title: Apparent animacy and modularity: Minding the gap between the perception of animates and the understanding of other minds.
UOW Philosophy is pleased to have Dr. Nicolas Bullot (Macquarie, MACCS) speaking at our seminar series.
Abstract: Heider and Simmel (1944) provided the first empirical evidence that humans tend to attribute animate characteristics to inanimate objects when they move in apparently goal-directed motion patterns, a phenomenon commonly referred to as ‘perceptual animacy’. Recent work has demonstrated that the attribution of this apparent animacy can be objectively measured in perceptual tracking experiments. Here, I first discuss two long-standing problems that still beset the literature on apparent animacy: (i) The vague and circular specification of perceptual animacy, and (ii) the ostensible discrepancy between an encapsulated, domain-specific, modular mechanism for tracking animates, and the dependence of animacy attribution on higher-level cognitive processes that allow us to understand the minds of others (so-called ‘mindreading’ or ‘folkpsychology’). In an attempt to address these problems, I introduce a taxonomy of animacy identifying five concepts of animacy and five distinct concepts of apparent animacy. The taxonomy suggests distinct ways in which animates can be identified or tracked over time. Based on the taxonomy and its implications, I propose a new assessment of the hypothesis of a modular mechanism for the perceptual tracking animates.
For more information on this and other upcoming talks in Philosophy at UOW, contact Patrick McGivern at patrickm@uow.edu.au
Seminar 4
When: 4:30 pm, Wednesday 4th May
Where: Arts Building, 19:1003
Title: "The Body in Politics"
Abstract: This paper tries to answer the question as to the difference between these 3 types of bodies: first, the naked, beaten body of the political prisoner or the lip-stitched asylum-seeker in detention; second the body of the allied soldier or white life-saver caught up in the Cronulla riots in December 2005; and third, the bodies of the actors playing bomb disposer in the Hurt Locker (2010), or Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008), or the Muslim life-savers graduating in 2007. (A provisional answer might be that 1st kind of body is explicitly and directly subjected to and by political violence; the 2nd kind is an agent of political violence but also a product of modes of government that indirectly perpetuate political violence; and the 3rd kind in different ways tries to turn this around.) All these bodies have been marked, in one way or another, by political violence. This violence though, may not be at its most effective at the point at which the boot hits muscle or the bullet pierces skin. The violence that marks the bodies of the asylum-seeker or the white-skinned surfer happened before any fist was clenched or lip was sewn and before any decision to do either was made. The violence that marks these bodies was political and symbolic, but also physical and real. This is the issue that I will explore in this paper: the intersection of the political, symbolic and the physicality of bodies, or the role of the body and feelings in politics.
Bio: Rosalyn Diprose is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. Her books include Corporeal Generosity: On Giving with Nietzsche, Levinas and Merleau-Ponty (SUNY 2002) and, as co-editor with Jack Reynolds, Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts (Acumen 2008). Her current research projects include completing a manuscript on Community, Sensibility, Responsibility, and an exploration of the relation between “biopolitics and the phenomenology of life”.
For more information on this and other upcoming talks in Philosophy, contact Patrick McGivern at patrickm@uow.edu.au.
Seminar 3
When: 4:30pm, Wednesday April 20th
Where: Arts Building Room 19.1003.
Title: Rational design, kludging and noise in systems and synthetic biology
Maureen O'Malley (Sydney) will be presenting at the UOW Philosophy Seminar series Wednesday, April 20th. All are welcome to attend.
Abstract: Philosophers have long recognized the need to account for the untidy and highly variable nature of scientific inquiry, as well as the messy complexity of evolved biological systems. My presentation will suggest that the concept of kludging could play a fruitful role in that endeavour, especially in an era of massive genome sequence databases and attempts to integrate them into systems-based modelling and the synthetic construction of biological devices. Kludging is the construction of makeshift and often inelegant solutions to practical problems. It can also be seen from epistemic perspectives, as in Bill Wimsatt¹s discussion in his book, Re-engineering Philosophy, of how error-prone humans understand complex systems. In biology, kludging is predominantly discussed as an outcome of evolution. My focus will be on kludging in synthetic biology, a recent incarnation of molecular biology, which aims to rationally engineer biological systems in the process of reconstructing them. I will discuss the issue of noise in constructed and evolved biological systems in relation to kludging. I hope to suggest new lines of inquiry for philosophers of biology, engineering and scientific practice.
Seminar 2
When: 4:30 pm on Wednesday, March 30th
Where: Room 19.1003
Title: What is exploitation?
Abstract: Exploitation is an important moral concept, but one which is very difficult to define. This is partly because the charge of exploitation can be applied to a remarkably broad range of situations, from interpersonal relationships to international trade. In recent philosophical work, three distinct approaches to the analysis of exploitation have been developed: exploitation as unfairness, exploitation as wrongful use and exploitation as degradation. Theoretical work on exploitation has tended to focus on transactions and exchanges. I argue that an examination of the structure of exploitative situations which do not involve transactions reveals some important and unnoticed aspects of the nature of exploitation. This paper also briefly considers the relationship between Marxist and liberal accounts of exploitation.
For more information on this and other upcoming events in Philosophy at UOW, check out phil-gong.blogspot.com
Seminar 1
When: 4:30 pm on Wednesday, March 16th
Where: 19:1003
Title: Speech and the problem of harm
Sarah Sorial (UOW Philosophy/Law) will be presenting at the UOW Philosophy Seminar series
Abstract: This paper examines the question of whether speech can cause or constitute harm. Drawing on J.L. Austin and Rae Langton's respective accounts of authority, this paper offers a normative criterion with which to assess contested speech acts. I argue that the harm caused or constituted by speech is located in the authority of the speaker. The criteria developed is then applied to a number of difficult cases in order to demonstrate how it yields the right result.
For more information on this and other upcoming events in Philosophy at UOW, check out phil-gong.blogspot.com
