Affect and the Body
Seminar
The paper examines the sense of body ownership through various empirical and clinical phenomena, including somatoparaphrenia and the Rubber Hand Illusion. These examples demonstrate that both the sense of ownership and its disownership are experiential phenomena, with specific neurological and…
Left-wing is best wing? The meaning and justification of political orientation.
Seminar
Political philosophers rarely analyse the categories of “left” and “right” in their own right, yet these labels structure much of public political debate. This talk, framed as a response to Joshi’s 2020 paper, What Are the Chances You’re Right About Everything? An Epistemic Challenge for Modern…
Topic Continuity, Realism, and The Objects of Philosophical Inquiry
Seminar
Some philosophical inquiry is directed at our thought and talk about a subject matter (e.g. how to understand the nature of moral thought, or our concept of consciousness), while other philosophical inquiry is directed towards understanding the “things themselves” (e.g. the nature of moral facts…
The Impropriety of Punishing Negligence in a Liberal State
Seminar
On the suppositions that criminal punishment requires blameworthiness and that blameworthiness requires culpability in addition to wrongdoing, the issue raised about punishment for negligently caused harm is whether and how inadvertent but unreasonable risk-taking (i.e., negligence) makes a…
Die Hard: Chance and Selective Causal Decision Theory
Seminar
Many existing causal decision theories do not correctly handle cases in which agents have information about the outcome of a chance process. Those causal decision theories—such as Lewis's—that deliver the correct verdicts in some such cases do so for the wrong reasons. Alexander Sandgreen adapts…
Farewell Celebration for Professor Fiona Jenkins
Other
Please join us to celebrate the role Fiona has played at the ANU, both in the School of Philosophy and as Convenor of the Gender Institute.Great conversations and much good cheer will be provided. Children and babies most welcome!If you cannot attend and wish to send Fiona well wishes, please…
Babies, Bots and the Birth of Consciousness
Lecture/seminar
When does consciousness first emerge in human development? Professor Tim Bayne develops one answer to this question, and suggests that this answer has interesting implications for the question of artificial consciousness. Tim Bayne is a philosopher of mind and cognitive science, with a…