Susan Schneider (U Conn): "Rethinking Physicalism"
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Title: Rethinking Physicalism Abstract: Many contemporary philosophers of mind claim that mental properties are not reducible to physical ones. In this talk, I argue that the mere commitment to property irreducibility leads to substance dualism. Elsewhere, I've argued that this means that non-…
Joe Gottlieb (UIC): Change Blindness, Absent-Minded Perception, and Other Potentially Verbal Disputes in the Theory of Consciousness
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There is a striking pattern in the debate over the theory of (phenomenal) consciousness. The pattern consists in disputants agreeing, on the one hand, with the Nagelian conception of consciousness (NC), viz. that a mental state is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be in that…
Pär Sundström (Umeå): Thinking about things via their properties
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Abstract: Just as I am now and as things are now around me, I can spontaneously generate thoughts about things distant and near in space and time, like Beijing, Cicero, the year of 2025, and the tree outside my window. How am I able to do this? What is involved in being able to throw “…
Finding Space in a Nonspatial World, Professor David Chalmers, Centre for Consciousness, ANU
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We experience a world of three-dimensional space in one-dimensional time. How can we locate this experienced world in the different picture of space and time given by physics? Relativity yields a four-dimensional spacetime in which space is not absolute, and physicists entertain…
Neil Sinhababu (NUS): Desire's Explanations
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I defend a Humean theory of motivation on which desire motivates all action and drives all practical reasoning. First I lay out the significance for this view for metaethics, distinguishing it from a similar view defended by Michael Smith. Then I lay out four properties of desire. It motivates…
Steven Ratner (UMich) on The Thin Justice of International Law (Co-Hosted with RegNet)
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International law and moral philosophy have addressed questions of global justice, but with very little communication between disciplines. The results are moral prescriptions that ignore legal institutions and legal theorising that hides inherent ethical choices. To help bridge this gap…