Author: cful

The Curse of Satisfaction: Paradoxes of Desire

Ronald de Sousa (University of Toronto)

28 June 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: Plato was perhaps the first but certainly not the last philosopher to take a dim view of desire. Lust, in particular, offers a model of desire reducible, in Shakespeare’s famous phrase, to ‘expense of spirit in a waste of shame’: and other poets and philosophers have argued that desire is essentially pain, that its object is often not what we think it is, and that satisfaction (in the limited measure in which it is even possible) only makes it worse. This talk begins by distinguishing semantic satisfaction (getting what you thought you wanted) from emotional satisfaction (actually enjoying what you are getting). It discusses some findings of recent brain science and psychology, due to Kent Berridge and others, that show that the natural and expected correlation between wanting something and getting pleasure from it can be disrupted. This helps to explain the phenomenon of ‘dust and ashes’—the absence of emotional satisfaction following semantic satisfaction—as well as other ways in which ‘satisfaction’ can fail to prove satisfying. Such explanations, however, don’t altogether resolve the problem of the ‘curse of satisfaction’.

Biologically Autonomous Teleosemantics

Carl B. Sachs (Marymount University)

14 June 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: Teleosemantics remains one of the more promising approaches to naturalizing semantic content. Two long-standing objections to teleosemantics are the normativity objection and the intensionality objection. The normativity objection states that the proper functioning of a cognitive state can only be understood in terms of whether states of that kind are normal or abnormal in a population. The intensionality objection states that teleosemantics can only account for tracking and mapping relations, which are themselves purely extensional. I shall argue that the normativity objection can be addressed by grounding cognitive functions in the organizational approach to biological autonomy, rather than as traits distributed across populations. This approach does not solve the intensionality objection, but it does show that the two objections can be addressed separately.

LanCog is pleased to announce that the 2024 Petrus Hispanus Lectures will be delivered by Professor Susan Schneider (Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton), on June 25th and 27th.

Abstract

The topic of these talks is the Global Brain Hypothesis, according to which, in the near future, humans will become nodes in a distributed information processing network implemented through AI technologies. On this view, the AI ecosystem will feature ‘Emergent hyperintelligences’ arising from ‘megasystems’ of AI services. Humans, as users of AI services, are “nodes” in a larger algorithmic system that I call the computronium.  Eventually, parts of the system, fuelled by advancing generative models, global sensor systems, extensive amounts of users and data (including from brain-machine interfaces), become a ‘Global Brain system’. There may be several global brain systems competing for power (a multipolar system), two foes (a bipolar system), or a single hegemonic Global brain system. This hypothesis has unexplored philosophical implications in a wide range of areas, including: the extended mind, the nature of knowledge, chatbot ‘epistemology’, sentience (is the global brain conscious?), the metaphysics of the part/whole relationship of human nodes and how they relate to the computronium and global brain, and ethical considerations relating to the global brain—how to avoid a dystopia, ways the algorithms manipulate humans and what to do about it.

Lecture I

The Global Brain Argument: Nodes, Computroniums and the AI Megasystem

25 June 2024

16:00 (WET)

Anfiteatro II

Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon

Lecture II

Illusory World Scepticism and the Simulation Argument

27 June 2024

16:00 (WET)

Anfiteatro II

Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon

Free Attendance. No registration required. All welcome!

Encontra-se aberto o concurso para atribuição de uma Bolsa de Investigação Pós-doutoral (BIPD), no âmbito do projeto de I&D “Tradução Anotada das Obras Completas de Aristóteles” (PTDC/FER-FIL/0305/2021), do Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, financiado por fundos nacionais através da FCT/MCTES.

Referência: CFUL_134_2024_BIPD_ProjectoCWA6_Junho

• AUTORIZAÇÃO DE ABERTURA DE CONCURSO
• ACTA N.º 1
• AVISO DE ABERTURA
• EURAXESS NOTICE (Offer ID: 242658)

Prazo de candidatura: 06/06/2024 a 28/06/2028

• ACTA N.º 2
• DECLARAÇÕES DE CONFLITO DE INTERESSES

Período de audiência prévia dos interessados: 04/07/2024 a 17/07/2024

Resumo:

Área Científica: Filosofia

Requisitos de admissão:
Os candidatos devem ser detentores de Doutoramento (Bolsa de Investigação Pós-Doutoral) em Filosofia ou em Estudos Clássicos.
Os candidatos devem residir de forma permanente e habitual em Portugal à data de início da bolsa.
Os candidatos têm de ter obtido o grau de doutor nos três anos anteriores à data da submissão da candidatura à bolsa.
O candidato não pode ter desenvolvido os trabalhos de investigação que conduziram à atribuição do grau de doutor no Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, excepto se a parte maioritária desses trabalhos não
tiver sido desenvolvida na unidade.

Condições de elegibilidade:
São elegíveis os seguintes candidatos:
a) Cidadãos nacionais ou cidadãos de outros Estados membros da União Europeia;
b) Cidadãos de Estados terceiros;
c) Apátridas;
d) Beneficiários do estatuto de refugiado político.

Duração da bolsa: A bolsa terá a duração de 9 meses, com início previsto em 1 de Agosto de 2024.

Métodos de selecção:
Os critérios de seleção, avaliados numa escala de 0 a 20 valores, serão os seguintes:
1. Mérito do Candidato (MC):
1.1. Currículo Pessoal (70%);
1.2. Carta de motivação (20%);
1.3. Cartas de recomendação (10%).
2. Mérito do projecto de trabalho (MPI): o projecto deverá situar-se na área disciplinar da filosofia antiga e
ter um máximo de 2500 palavras, excluindo bibliografia.

Avaliação final = MC (50%) + MPI (50%)

The Copernican Argument for Alien Consciousness: the Mimicry Argument Against Robot Consciousness

Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside)

11 June 2024, 11:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: On broadly Copernican grounds, we are entitled to default assume that apparently behaviorally sophisticated alien species would be conscious. Otherwise, we humans would be inexplicably, implausibly lucky to have consciousness, while similarly behaviorally sophisticated species elsewhere would be mere non-conscious “zombies”. However, we are not similarly entitled to default assume that apparently behaviorally sophisticated robots would be conscious, at least in the present and near-term future. This is because such robots (unlike, we conjecture, most aliens) are normally designed to mimic superficial features associated with consciousness in humans. The Copernican and Mimicry Arguments jointly defeat a parity principle that one might have thought to be plausible, according to which we should apply the same types of behavioral or cognitive tests to aliens and robots, attributing or denying consciousness similarly to the extent they perform similarly. Our approach, instead of grounding speculations about alien and robot consciousness in metaphysical or scientific theories about the physical or functional bases of consciousness, appeals directly to the epistemic principles of Copernican mediocrity and inference to the best explanation. This permits us to justify default assumptions about consciousness while remaining to a substantial extent neutral about such metaphysical and scientific theories. (This is joint work with Jeremy Pober.)

Francesco Biagi

CIAUD-ULisboa

Henri Lefebvre: “Teoria” e “Praxis” para a Renovação do Marxismo

11 June 2024, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

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

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Henri Lefebvre (Hagetmau 1901 – Navarrenx 1991) foi um filósofo e sociólogo marxista que viveu intensamente todo o “breve século XX”. A Revolução Russa irrompeu quando o autor tinha quase dezoito anos, e ele morreu aos 90 anos, dois anos após a queda do Muro de Berlim e alguns meses antes da implosão da União Soviética. A receção portuguesa e internacional de Lefebvre tem sido inadequada e parcial, esquecendo-se frequentemente que o autor é um dos expoentes mais brilhantes, ainda que periféricos, do marxismo francês do século XX. De facto, Lefebvre inaugurou um novo tipo de filosofia, seguindo os passos de Marx e Engels, capaz de se desenvolver simultaneamente no plano teórico e prático: o marxismo deve ser uma “teoria” que ajude a compreender e a transformar a “práxis”. Esta é a perspetiva que lhe permite compreender e analisar as transformações da sociedade, desde a questão espacial, passando pela vida quotidiana, até uma teoria geral da política que abarca toda a análise da modernidade capitalista. A questão rural e a questão urbana tornam-se o “laboratório social” privilegiado para observar as evoluções do capitalismo e dar um novo impulso à tradição marxista, contra a ortodoxia dogmática propagada pelo estalinismo. Se, por um lado, Lefebvre contribuiu para revitalizar os instrumentos de investigação da crítica marxiana, por outro lado, a amplitude dos seus interesses não permitiu um reconhecimento adequado da sua contribuição original em comparação com outras figuras como Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser ou Guy Debord. A minha intervenção, após apresentar a biografia intelectual do autor, centrar-se-á em explicar como os estudos rurais e urbanos de Lefebvre são o instrumento através do qual o autor revitaliza e dá um novo significado ao pensamento marxista.

The Mathematical Context of Frege’s Early Notion of Function

Joan Bertran San-Millán (Centre of Philosophy of Sciences, University of Lisbon)

7 June 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: Tappenden (1995) and Wilson (1992) describe the rich mathematical and historical setting of Frege’s Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884). They point to the connections between Plücker and Clebsch’s understanding of functions – in the context of the duality principle in projective geometry – and Frege’s functional approach. However, I think more should be said about Frege’s early conception of function, developed by Frege in Begriffsschrift (1879). In this talk, I first provide new textual evidence to Tappenden and Wilson’s claim that substantial sources of influence on Frege’s early notion of function can be found in Clebsch and Plücker’s works. I then argue that the concept of function developed in Begriffsschrift is instrumental in Frege’s early mathematical project; shapes the syntax, quantification and calculus of the logical system; and should be distinguished from Frege’s later notion of function.

Arvi Särkelä

ETH Zürich

Life behind a Glass: Alienation and Disclosure in Wittgenstein and Pessoa

4 June 2023, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

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

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Wittgenstein once quipped that philosophy should be written like poetry. Does he himself follow this imperative? Given that he describes his aim in philosophy as “show[ing] the fly a way out of the fly-bottle” (PI, §309), that is, as a method of “showing” rather than “saying” (TLP, 4.1212), one may hypothesize that he perhaps did. When Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations recounts the experience of captivity in the fly-bottle, he sometimes dissociates by writing about “the author of the Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus.” Now, the author of TLP is obviously the same empirical and juridical person as the author of PI, Ludwig Wittgenstein, born on 26 April 1889, in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire. But if we, at least for the sake of experiment, take this person’s quip about writing philosophy like poetry seriously, then the author writing the PI and “the author of the Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus” can be read as different characters. The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, who was born only one year before Wittgenstein, explored intensely this poetic method of self-othering. During his brief life, he produced more than seventy such poetic characters. To emphasize the authorial status of these characters, their independent intellectual life and unique perspective, he did not call them pseudonyms but heteronyms. One of the most famous of these heteronyms is Álvaro de Campos. He was born one year after Wittgenstein. Like Wittgenstein, he studied engineering in Great Britain and wanted to become a philosopher. Unlike Wittgenstein he failed, and instead, mirroring Wittgenstein’s quip, tried to write poetry like philosophy.

In the poem “Tabacaria” (The Tobacconist’s Shop, 1928), Pessoa stages Campos behind a window looking across a Lisbon street at the Tobacconist’s on the opposite side. Like “the author of the Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus,” Campos experiences an existential captivity behind a glass: a state of seeing everything with “absolute clarity” yet unable to get at life, to touch, smell, manipulate the things. Towards the end of the poem, he says to himself, in a language reminiscent of the turn Wittgenstein would take one year after Tabacaria, that “metaphysics is a consequence of feeling sick.” This talk will be devoted to a comparative reading of the poetic method of heteronym and the poetic topos of a life behind a glass in Pessoa’s Tabacaria and Wittgenstein’s PI. The hypothesis is that Wittgenstein and Pessoa use similar yet different poetic methods that, however, appear as philosophically significant. And they do this in an attempt to alienate themselves in order to alienate the reader from an alienating form of life.

Merely Verbal Disputes in Philosophy: Addressing Their Defectiveness with (More) Metalinguistic Awareness?

Delia Belleri (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

31 May 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: In recent years, increasingly more authors have argued that certain philosophical debates are, or can be reasonably interpreted as being, merely verbal disputes. If this phenomenon is real, one might suspect that philosophers are not very good at identifying the meaning(s) of the words on which their disputes are based. To borrow a concept from psycholinguistics, philosophers may lack an appropriate kind of “metalinguistic awareness”. Would increasing the philosophers’ metalinguistic awareness prevent, or help one to diagnose more quickly, such defective linguistic exchanges? This paper advances some hypotheses on how metalinguistic awareness in philosophical disputes may be lost, how one might train oneself to raise it, and how it may be enhanced in practice. The conclusion will, however, be a pessimism of sorts: it is deeply unclear whether more metalinguistic awareness could be of any help in preventing or diagnosing merely verbal disputes in philosophy.

Dirk Quadflieg

Leipzig University

Social Totality and Immanent Critique

28 May 2023, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

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

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

For various reasons, the concept of social totality appears to be outdated today. On the one hand, many social theories have convincingly demonstrated that modern Western societies have differentiated themselves into numerous more or less autonomous subsystems that cannot be subsumed under a single law of reproduction such as that of the economy. On the other hand, the concept of totality nowadays is so strongly associated with totalitarianism that it seems to be normatively overdetermined as a sociological description. Speaking of a social totality is therefore often equated with the assertion that the society under consideration is governed in a totalitarian manner. Despite these plausible objections, I would like to argue that a critical social theory should not only insist on a certain concept of social totality, but must inevitably do so. The main reason for this lies in the widely shared assumption that, especially under postcolonial conditions, we cannot analyze the societies we are living in other than immanently, because any universal norm that could serve as a transcending standard can rightly be questioned as historically and geographically particular. Starting from more general reflections on what immanent critique means, the paper goes back to Hegel to show how the concept of immanence is connected with that of reality as totality. Against this background, I would like to argue that Marx’s Grundrisse could provide us with a version of social totality that does not amount to economic reductionism, but rather allows to understand social totality as a historically highly ambivalent achievement of bourgeois society making both possible: a revolution of society as a whole and a total delusion, as Adorno claimed.