Kai Spiekermann (LSE): Reversal of Fortunes
Other
Kai Spiekermann & Alex Voorhoeve (both LSE) When discussing the use of lotteries in allocation problems, three questions can be asked: When are lotteries a fair (or the fairest) way to allocate goods? Why are lotteries fair, when they are? Which lotteries are fair? The first question…
Robert Williams (Leeds): Representations of an external world
Other
This talk will look at an underdiscussed challenge to Radical Interpretation (construed as a metaphysical story about the foundations of intentionality). The challenge is mentioned in passing in Lewis’s “New work for a theory of universals” and recently re-presented by Brian Weatherson. The upshot…
James Dreier (Brown): Is there a supervenience problem for moral realism?
Other
The moral supervenes on the descriptive: things can’t differ morally without differing in some descriptive way. The connection is a necessary one, so it needs an explanation, and non-naturalist realism cannot provide any, while other theories can; non-naturalist realism is in this way worse at…
Caspar Hare (MIT): When Many Things Matter
Other
Do big ideas in cosmology, physics and metaphysics have practical significance? Maybe so. As a starter case, let's consider a big idea in metaphysics -- the Doctrine of the Many. In the vicinity of every screaming person there are a multitude of screaming, person-like things. Would this mean that…