MSPT Seminar: Benjamin Kiesewetter (ANU/HU Berlin): You ought to Φ only if you may believe that you ought to Φ
Other
Abstract: In this paper I present an argument for the claim that you ought to do something only if you may believe that you ought to do it. More exactly, I defend the following principle about normative reasons: An agent A has decisive reason to Φ only if she has sufficient reason to believe that…
Richard Menary (Macquarie): Cognition and Social Niche Construction
Other
I’ll start by looking at the main differences between Sterelny and Clark’s accounts of niche construction, highlighting the importance of social niche construction for cognitive development. I’ll then provide an account of the developmental route by which social niches transform the neural…
Shanna Slank (UW Madison): What, if any, is the practical value of political ideals?
Other
In this talk, I take up a question in the context of the “ideal/nonideal theory” debate in political philosophy. The question is this: What, if any, is the practical value of political ideals? I consider and reject two prominent answers. The first is that principles expressing political ideals are…
Sara Bernstein (Duke): Possible Causation
Other
Causation is thought to be an on or off matter: either an event is a cause of another event, or it isn’t. I challenge this assumption with two sorts of examples, and give a framework for understanding them. My new framework supports two major lessons about the metaphysics of causation: first, that…
Alma Barner (ANU): Perspectival Imaginings
Other
Visual imagination is perspectival. For example, in visualizing a cup on a table, I imagine the cup and the table from a particular visual perspective. This talk focuses on the question whether perspectivity is relevant for the contents of sensory imaginings, and if so, how we can account for it in…