2006 Paper Abstracts

Jill Isenberg (University of British Columbia)

“Do True Contradictions Follow From a Deflationist Account of Truth? A Response to the Dialetheic Challenge”

March 9th, 9:30am, Davis Center, Room 1302

In a series of papers, Armour-Garb and Beall argue that deflationists not only can, but must be dialetheists. Armour-Garb and Beall provide compelling evidence for their claim that dialetheism is compatible with deflationism, in the face of skepticism presented by other authors. They provide well reasoned arguments to the effect that there is nothing in the basic commitments of deflationism that rules out dialetheism. However, I find their view that dialetheism necessarily follows from deflationism more problematic. The question turns on the status of the principle of explosion, which dialetheists must reject. Armour-Garb and Beall provide no account as to why familiar arguments for explosion are invalid, and present arguments against the necessity of explosion that are question begging at best. Thus, while deflationists can also be dialetheists, they need not be.

Julie Walsh (University of Western Ontario)

“All or None: The Original Position vs ‘The Every Position’”

March 9th, 10:25am, Davis Center, Room 1302

Perhaps the best known philosophical position on fair political judgment is that of John Rawls. Rawls' original position is intended as a thought experiment for political decision making. The original position places representatives of citizens behind a veil of ignorance where they are prevented from knowing their economic status, race, religion, profession, education etc. The intended outcome of the thought experiment is that the representatives will select principles of justice that guarantee adequate and equal liberties for all. Because the original position mentally removes all identifying characteristics from the decision makers, it is thought that they will decide in such a way that no group is privileged over another.

An alternative to the original position is offered by Jennifer Nedelsky. This view states that genuine judgment is only possible with an enlargement of the mind motivated by taking into account a number of various perspectives. This opposing view, which I will call the 'every position', is characterized by preservation of the self in a decision making context and as a result, both normativity and motivation are built into its results.

After an exposition of both Rawls and Nedelsky's positions, I intend to show that Nedelsky’s position maintains an acceptable conception of the self and accounts for the motivation behind applying the resultant principles of justice. Furthermore, it generates the responsibility of doing so. Rawls’ original position, however, ultimately commits us to a view of the essential self that is neither appealing nor tenable, and does not give an adequate account of how it can engender a responsibility to apply the principles of justice.

Philip Kuchar (University of Western Ontario)

“Substitution and Analogue Representation”

March 9th, 11:20am, Davis Center, Room 1302

In this paper I assume that the relation of substitution, properly understood, is a necessary and sufficient condition of representation. Instead of arguing that representation is substitution, here I lay out some interesting consequences of the assumption. First, I analyze the concept of substitution. Then I distinguish between digital and analogue substitutes. Next I consider the relation between substitution and representation, by addressing Pylyshyn’s criticism of the notion of analogue representation and by showing that analogue artifacts count as representations, given the substitutionary theory of representation. Finally, I briefly consider the objection that this theory can’t explain representation of abstract objects such as fictional characters.

Alain El Hofi (Carelton University)

“Thought Experiments and Zombies”

March 9th, 1:15pm, Davis Center, Room 1302

Thought experiments play an important role in philosophy, particularly in philosophy of mind. Such experiments involving the notion of zombies are often used to defend the claim that physicalism is false. After briefly discussing the nature of thought experiments and their use in other disciplines, I examine Chalmers’ zombie thought experiment. Two strands of objections that challenge the viability of such experiments are considered. The first denies that the conceivability of zombies entails their possibility. Proponents of this strategy draw a distinction between logical and metaphysical possibility and insist that only if the possibility of zombies is established in the latter sense, is the argument a threat to physicalism. I contend that a second more effective strategy is to deny that zombies are properly conceivable. I argue that the notion of a zombie as stipulated in Chalmers’ thought experiment is incoherent and therefore that zombie thought experiments are simply non-starters.

Craig Roxborough (York University)

“Folk Psychological Explanation and Causal Accounts of Behavior”

March 9th, 2:10pm, Davis Center, Room 1302

Folk psychological explanation has traditionally been concerned with providing a causal account of behaviour. By appealing to a causally efficacious notion of beliefs and desires, we utilized a set of generalized patterns or laws to produce an explanation of behaviour. Although this conclusion has been supported by Paul Churchland and the eliminative materialists, I will not echo these arguments here. Instead, I will examine various psychological and empirical studies to support the claims that our folk psychological discourse does not give a causal account of behaviour and that there is reason to believe that folk psychology has not been designed to do so. Rather, we will see how social, cultural and moral considerations deeply control and guide our folk psychological explanations and are the primary function of this discourse.

Dr. Chris Viger (The University of Western Ontario)

Lexical Construction of Central Cognition: The Acquired Language of Thought Hypothesis

Keynote Speaker

March 9 th, 3:15pm, Davis Center, Room 1302

Evan Clarke (University of Guelph)

“Postmodernity – The M-C-M Stage”

March 10th, 9:30am, Hagey Hall, Room 373

This paper examines Jean-François Lyotard's diagnosis of the state of knowledge, illuminating this analysis with a reading of Karl Marx's Capital. I argue that Lyotard's understanding of knowledge, specifically, the economy of knowledge, is indebted to Marx's discussion of the self-valorization of capital. Both suggest an overarching, self-replicating structure that marginalizes the agency, and indeed the identity, of the individual subject. I examine Lyotard's formula for intervention into this tautological social structure, asking a) to what extent it reflects Marx's own formula for the disruption of the socio-economic tautology, and b) to what extent Lyotard's formula succeeds(whether it is a viable program for social change. My conclusion is that Lyotard does not succeed in laying the groundwork for social change, and that this failure is roughly proportionate to his departure from Marxism.

I illustrate this conclusion with a discussion of contemporary French philosopher Alain Badiou, who, while echoing Lyotard's diagnosis of the postmodern situation, nevertheless describes the circumstances under which social transformation on a Marxist scale can occur. In attempting this comparison, I do not simply pit Lyotard against Badiou, showing that were the former fails, the latter succeeds. Rather, I attempt to show that Badiou's prescriptions take shape in the conceptual space opened up by Lyotard(that Badiou locates a place within Lyotard's program for the revolutionary change sought by Marxism. In so doing, Badiou demonstrates that we need not view Lyotard and Marx as philosophic opponents, but as participants in a shared project.

Travis Dumsday (University of Waterloo)

“The Failed Marriage of Evolution and Ethical Anti-Realism”

March 10th, 10:25am, Hagey Hall, Room 373

In this paper I argue that the conjunction of evolution and ethical anti-realism is rationally self-defeating. While Simon Blackburn’s evolutionary account is the one specifically addressed here, the argument will be seen to apply to any plausible anti-realist account of the development of ethics. I then observe the links between it and Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, noting the implications of that connection.

Mike Shehan (University of Waterloo)

“Aristotle and Mill On Happiness”

March 10th, 11:20am, Hagey Hall, Room 373

Andrew Robinson (University of Guelph)

“Freedom and Ethics in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception”

March 9th, 1:15pm, Hagey Hall, Room 373

In his Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty attempts to overcome many of the long held dichotomies of Western thought. Among these is the effort to show the nature of human freedom to be neither absolute, nor determined. Merleau-Ponty achieves this by showing our freedom to be one that depends upon certain determined facts of our existence, what he calls commitments. These commitments are necessitated by our being in a world and with others. That is, Merleau-Ponty’s conception of the subject, which moves beyond the dichotomies of subject and object, or I and world, places us in a context, which can be transformed through our freedom. However, this freedom must always take the form of acts, or doing, they must also be in the world if they are to affect our being in the world. The subject, then, is both inside and outside, both internality and externality. It follows from this that our being is both individual consciousness and generalized; we are both an ego (anonymous in its singularity) and the One (anonymous in our generality), but never one to the exclusion of the other. This is the foundation of our intersubjective being, as the One I approach myself from the perspective of the other, and am in this way other. The dichotomy of self and other is fused. From this position of semi-conditioned freedom and intersubjective being, Merleau-Ponty claims that, “your freedom cannot be willed…without willing freedom for all.”(Phenomenology of Perception, 530) Some basis of what we might call an ethics of freedom can be drawn from this and other statements, despite Merleau-Ponty’s insistence upon normative neutrality.

Peter Jaworski (Bowling Green State University)

“Taking Proportionality Seriously”

March 10th, 2:10pm, Hagey Hall, Room 373

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