Author: cful

Disputed Disputes

Pedro Abreu & Marcin Lewiński (IFILNOVA, New University of Lisbon)

15 March 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Our goal is to isolate and analyse a category of “disputed disputes”: philosophically relevant disputes which do not admit of an easy dismissal as verbal nor of straightforward recognition as factual. We offer a new set of arguments challenging the attempts of adjudicating between these two possibilities. We pay special attention to how these attempts are articulated in the recent debates over metalinguistic negotiations — worthwhile disputes about which meaning to associate with some particular expression (Plunkett & Sundell, 2013, 2023). While Plunkett and Sundell hold metalinguistic negotiations to be “ubiquitous”, some recent criticisms maintain that many such disputes should be taken at face value as standard disagreements (Ball, 2020; Schroeter et al., 2022; Koslicki & Massin, 2023). Both positions are built on the underlying assumption that there is indeed a principled and operationalizable distinction to be made between two fundamentally different kinds of disputes. We challenge this assumption. Careful attention to the conditions of the debate reveals: i) unexpected congruence between the interpretative strategies and resources deployed by the two sides in the debate, ii) circularity and indeterminacy brought about by the possibility of applying the metalinguistic negotiation interpretation to the very disputes over the nature of disputed disputes, and, iii) the proliferation of available notions of meaning and corresponding forms of disagreement and verbalness. We show how these considerations coalesce to undermine the possibility of a principled choice between the two interpretations — metalinguistic negotiation and first-order disagreement — and to cast doubts on the claim that there is really a significant choice to be made between them.

Mariana Teixeira

Praxis-CFUL

Ambiguidade e Dilaceração: Simone de Beauvoir Entre o Eco- e o Xeno-Feminismo

12 March 2024, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

A distinção entre género como construção social e sexo como dado biológico tem implicações emancipatórias bem conhecidas: se as mulheres não são naturalmente inclinadas a determinados papéis, espaços e actividades sociais, ou seja, se estes condicionamentos são historicamente impostos, também podem ser historicamente transformados. Por mais libertadores que tenham sido os seus efeitos, esta ideia foi mais tarde contestada por uma suposta depreciação masculinista da natureza em favor da agência humana. No âmbito do feminismo, estas posições opostas são representadas pelas vertentes xeno- e ecofeminista: enquanto a primeira vê a emancipação como transcendência, como domínio da natureza, a segunda equipara-a antes à imanência, a uma ligação harmoniosa com a natureza. Em ambos os casos, no entanto, a divisão sexo/género tende a ser preservada na sua dicotomia aparentemente intransponível. Para evitar a adoção unilateral de um dos pólos – natureza ou cultura, imanência ou transcendência -, sugiro que um tratamento mais convincente da relação entre sexo e género (natureza e cultura, corpo e mente) pode ser obtido a partir dos escritos de Simone de Beauvoir. Embora critique decididamente o confinamento multissecular das mulheres à imanência, Beauvoir não equipara a emancipação ao mero aumento do controlo das mulheres sobre os seus corpos e o mundo natural, , uma vez que a imanência não é vista apenas como um limite à transcendência, mas também como a sua própria condição de possibilidade. A conceção intersubjectiva de Beauvoir da individualidade e a sua recusa de uma dualidade ontológica entre natureza e espírito permitem, assim, uma conceção da condição humana como simultaneamente sujeito e objeto. Para compreender as diferentes formas de experienciar esta tensão, proponho ainda uma distinção entre ambiguidade existencial e dilaceração contingente. Deste modo, numa perspetiva beauvoiriana, a emancipação seria concebida não como a eliminação da ambiguidade entre imanência e transcendência; em vez disso, envolveria a superação, por meio do movimento recíproco das subjectividades encarnadas, de uma dilaceração não mediada.

Why do Computational Templates Work Across Scientific Disciplines?

Mariana Seabra (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

8 March 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Computational methods and their subsidiary models (including both physics-driven methods that appeal to differential equations, and data-driven computational methods that allow the extraction of meaningful patterns from data sets, often without explicit appeal to laws of nature or theories) are used to perform diagnosis, characterization and prediction in systems of interest. Furthermore, these computational methods are applied successfully across scientific disciplines, that is, the same computational structures, termed computational templates, are employed to solve problems in a wide range of scientific domains, from physics to biology, neurology, economics, and so forth. In this talk I try to explain the success of computational templates across different science fields, constructing a scientifically informed version of the ‘fudging solution’ for the applicability of mathematics as it arises for computational templates. I argue that the various templates available, from differential calculus to statistical models, capture change or changing tendencies in a system of interest. Corrections performed within the various stages of model construction not only concern updates in the formal structure of computational templates, but also progressively update the ontology of interest. What is perceived as the applicability of templates to physical reality is already the result of many such corrections, in which models are tailored to the system at hand.

Jamila Mascat

Utrecht University

If I Can’t Speak For You, It’s Not My Revolution! Feminist Politics Between the Personal and the Political

5 March 2024, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

In the genealogy of feminist and postcolonial critique, the act of “speaking for” another – that is, representing their voice on their behalf – has long been condemned as a violation, undermining the legitimacy and agency of marginalized subjects. However, as Adrienne Rich perfectly phrases it in her “Notes towards a Politics of Location” (1984), if “You cannot speak for me,” “I cannot speak for us,” and the use of pronouns becomes a “political problem,” feminist praxis risks being reduced to a collection of “ego-histories” and “singular pasts” (Traverso, 2022). Drawing from the predicament of pronouns as it emerged in contemporary feminist politics, the paper critically engages with the role of personal experience, first-person accounts, and individual feelings in feminist narratives. In conclusion, it advocates for revisiting the Hegelian form of the concrete universal to rethink radical feminist partisanship.

The HPhil (History of Philosophy) Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon announces the 2023/24 edition of its permanent seminar on the history of philosophy, devoted to the presentation of conferences by renowned specialists while also creating opportunities to emerging scholars, aiming to promote advanced studies in groundbreaking debates and the permanent training of its academic community.

In this session of the seminar, Yury Arzhanov (University of Salzburg) will present a paper, entitled “Syriac Aristotle: between Alexandria and Baghdad” , (abstract below)

The session will take place on March 7, 2024 at 5 p.m., in the Room C201.J (Room Mattos Romão, Department of Philosophy). Admission is free.

Abstract

The Syriac reception of Aristotle is a rather underexplored episode in the history of philosophy. In spite of our insufficient knowledge of this phenomenon, there is little doubt that Syrian scholars have played a decisive role in the process of transmission of the late ancient philosophical tradition to the Arab world and thus, indirectly, to medieval Europe.  According to the apocryphal story reported by al-Farabi, it was Syrian scholars who became the heirs of the Alexandrian philosophical school after the decline of the latter in the 6th century and who brought this tradition first to Ḥarran and later to Baghdad.  Although this story, which has become known as “from Alexandria to Baghdad” complex of narrative, lacks historical credibility, it still points out to the close connection of the Syriac Aristotelians with Alexandria and their influence on the knowledge of Aristotle in the Arab world.

Combinatory Intensional Logic: Towards a Formal Theory of Meaning

Clarence Lewis Protin (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

1 March 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In this talk we give an outline of Combinatory Intensional Logic (CIL), a general framework for a formal theory of natural language meaning and reasoning, including intensional logic. What sets this approach apart is a syntax close to the logico-semantic mechanisms of natural language and being compatible with logical realism, the view that properties, relations and propositions are entities in their own right as well as furnishing the senses of linguistic expressions. CIL models, which formalize a realm of interweavings of senses, are not based on possible world semantics or set-theoretic function spaces. Truth-values and references of senses are extensions determined by states-of-affairs, an idea that goes back to the Stoics. CIL was initially inspired by Bealer’s project in Quality and Concept (1983). It was subsequently found that CIL is a good tool to address the shortcomings and gaps present in Bealer’s approach, in particular with regards to the soundness proofs and the problem of unifying intensional and modal logic. After giving an outline of CIL and the main soundness result, we discuss approaches to classical problems involving definitions, definite descriptions, proper names and other topics relevant to the formalization of natural language.

Existence and Powers in a Dynamic World

Jonathan Tallant (University of Nottingham)

23 February 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In this talk I look to achieve two ends. The first is to offer some clarificatory and defensive remarks about what we think is required of existence in a genuinely dynamic world. In doing so, I lean on work focused on Existence Presentism, connecting that to work on powers. I suggest that this combination of literatures gives us the wherewithal to differentiate a frozen world, from a dynamic world, and in the process respond to challenges that have been raised for presentism. The talk begins with consideration of the notion of dynamism, drawing out the idea of degrees of dynamism and offering an account of what it takes to make a view more (or less) dynamic. In the second part of the talk I explore how to generate dynamism given recent arguments from Lisa Leininger.

Carmen Madorrán Ayerra

Autonomous University of Madrid

Human Needs: Between Social Foundation and Ecological Ceiling

27 February 2024, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

We are experiencing a multiple crisis that goes well beyond the economy. It also concerns finance, employment, health, society at large, ecology, energy and democracy. Rather than undergoing a specific crisis, we could say that the present is crisis. A defining feature of this moment is precisely that it is geared to change—once a certain threshold is crossed, business as usual is no longer possible. The social and ecological unsustainability of our present cannot be solved with small adjustments: almost everything will have to change. In this lecture, in order to think about the possibilities of a good life on Earth I would like to focus on the notion of human needs. It is key to assess what we really need in a context of social and ecological unsustainability. This is where the notion and approach of ecological humanities takes significance—with particular attention to the role of philosophy.

José Miranda Justo

Praxis-CFUL

A «Viúva Negra» da Filosofia: Haverá Lugar para Falar de um Conceito de Heterogeneidade em Filosofia?

20 February 2024, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Entendendo, em termos deleuzianos, a tarefa própria da filosofia como criação de conceitos,
mas pensando, por outro lado, os conceitos como entidades vivas e em devir constante
dentro de um plano de consistência, no qual se articulam com outros conceitos em
processos transformativos de colaboração/conflito, a minha apresentação visa perguntar se
a noção de heterogeneidade pode ser entendida como um verdadeiro conceito. Para
responder a esta questão darei alguns passos exploratórios. Primeiramente, começarei por
confrontar a heterogeneidade com duas outras figuras da diferença com as quais é
frequentemente confundida: a diversidade e a multiplicidade. Ver-se-á assim qual o modo
de agir próprio das heterogeneidades. Seguidamente, tratar-se-á de mostrar que, em
filosofia, a heterogeneidade, enquanto dispositivo heurístico, permite – em primeiro lugar –
exercer uma vasta quantidade de tarefas eminentemente críticas fundamentalmente
dirigidas contra as nefastas consequências da vocação profundamente «unitarista» da
tradição filosófica. De um modo geral, o tópico da heterogeneidade introduz uma crítica
frontal de todos os mecanismos organicamente redutores no seio das discursividades
filosóficas. De seguida, procurará evidenciar-se que a consideração de um espaço filosófico
para a heterogeneidade permite introduzir no trabalho filosófico dimensões de infinitude
potencial que apontam no sentido de um horizonte irremediavelmente mutante das
investigações nos diversos terrenos da filosofia prática e, ao mesmo tempo, dotado de uma
«abundância» previamente indeterminada. Esta abundância indeterminada abre igualmente
o caminho para uma compreensão da criação do radicalmente novo, designadamente – mas
não apenas – em arte. Finalmente, procurarei responder (provisoriamente) à difícil questão
de saber se a heterogeneidade tem uma ontologia própria ou, ao menos, uma inscrição
ontológica determinada/determinável. A tentativa de encarar este problema levar-me-á por
fim a defender que a heterogeneidade é e não é um conceito filosófico no sentido
introduzido no início da apresentação.

Delusions and the Predictive Mind

Federico Bongiorno (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

16 February 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: A growing number of studies in both the scientific and the philosophical literature have drawn on a promising framework of brain function (predictive processing) to account for the formation of delusions. This framework has recently come under criticism for its putative inability to explain (i) why agents adopt implausible hypotheses like delusions over none at all, or over more plausible ones, and (ii) how exactly it is that delusions are thought of to begin with. In this talk I shall defend the framework’s explanatory power by way of showing how it can go a long way in helping disentangle these concerns.