Richard Shapcott (University of Queensland), "Humanitarianism as Beneficence"
Other
In the context of ‘complex emergencies and military humanism a number of disputes have occurred regarding the nature and purpose of humanitarian action and its relationship to other desirable goals. In particular the emergence of a humanitarian discourse of rights defense and a practice of…
David Ripley (Melbourne), "Revising up: Strengthening classical logic in the face of paradox"
Other
At first blush, classical logic seems to be incompatible with certain intuitively valid principles. These principles include the T-schema for truth (for liar and curry paradox reasons) and tolerance principles for vague predicates (for sorites paradox reasons). When these principles are added…
Jeffrey Sachs (McGill), "Ambiguity and the Rule of Law: Disorder as Strategy in the Age of Empire"
Other
Theorists of modern state formation, as well as many scholars of legal pluralism, usually offer some variant of the “Standardization Model” to explain state behavior toward law and legal institutions. In essence, they claim that the state is primarily interested in rendering the law “legible…
Jakob Hohwy (Monash), "Phenomenally social: the private and public nature of conscious experience"
Other
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…