Objective Disagreement and Perspectival Differences

Matheus Valente (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

4 October 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: Could rationality require you and I to disagree about something objective like the outcome of a coin toss even if, knowing we’re equally rational, we have transmitted all of our relevant evidence to each other via communication (reaching a point where we have common knowledge that there’s nothing informative left for any of us to say)? It would be surprising if it could, for that would entail a particularly revisionary form of perspectivalism according to which some peers ought to agree to disagree in their worldly credences just because, as they would put it, “I am I, you are you”. Though most would be inclined to repudiate that type of perspectivalism, I’ll develop an argument inspired by Robert Stalnaker’s discussion of the Sleeping Beauty problem to argue that one cannot both repudiate it and side with authors such as David Lewis who subscribe to the Halfer position on that case. By itself, this amounts to an exceptional, and so far unaddressed, challenge to a reputable philosophical view. But the implications of the argument extend beyond this particular case. In particular, it suggests that there’s nothing essentially private or incommunicable about the epistemic import of the ‘I’ and ‘now’.

The LanCog Research Group, University of Lisbon, welcomes expressions of interest from suitably qualified candidates interested in applying for 3-year research positions funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).

The FCT is the Portuguese national funding agency for academic research and development. In 2024, the FCT will fund the hiring of 400 researchers, holders of PhDs at various stages of career, to carry out their activity in research centres throughout Portugal. The selected researchers are hired by the host institution through a contract between the host and the FCT, which guarantees the funding. In the previous edition, 14 positions have gone to philosophers, and LanCog has a very strong record of supporting successful candidates.

The FCT will accept applications between September 30 and November 29, 2024 (17:00 Lisbon time). Candidates will apply online directly to the FCT, but their application must be supported by a host institution.

The application, written in English, must include the following:

–    A research plan, including a description of the main activities to be undertaken, the expected results, as well as an indication of how the research project fits with (at least one of) the goals set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

–    A brief description of previous academic and scientific experience, highlighting the main activities and results obtained in the last 5 years;

–    Curriculum vitae;

–    A plan for the development of the candidate’s career, including a description of the main scientific goals and how this position would contribute to their achievement;

–    A brief description of the conditions provided by the host institution and of how the proposed research plan fits into the overall strategy of the research centre.

Applications will be assessed by an international panel, according to the following two criteria:

–    The candidate’s CV;

–    The proposed research plan.

The applicant is responsible for choosing the appropriate category in which to apply (Junior is only open to those with up to 5 years’ experience, while Assistant is open to all applicants but is correspondingly far more competitive):

Junior researcher: PhD holders with up to 5 years of post-doctoral experience in the scientific area of application – 2.294,95€ gross wage (c. 1742€/month net*);

Assistant researcher: PhD holders with relevant experience (independently of its duration) in the scientific area of application – 3.427,59€ gross wage (c. 2312€ / month net*).

*IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SALARIES: the monthly value quoted is paid 14x per year (i.e. double that value paid June and November); salaries also depend on a range of factors based on family composition and income, and on whether the candidate chooses to take out health insurance (ADSE). Quoted figures are based on a single person with no ADSE. Please note that if you need to apply for a work permit to work in Portugal, health insurance of some form may be mandatory. Net salaries are typically higher for those who are married with children, whereas ADSE subtracts 3.5% of the gross salary but also covers spouses and children.

It is mandatory to upload the doctoral diploma. In order to comply with the Portuguese legislation concerning the recognition of foreign qualifications, all the doctoral degrees granted by foreign higher education institutions must be duly recognized. Applicants are advised to visit the website of the Direção-Geral do Ensino Superior (DGES) for further information:

https://www.dges.gov.pt/en/pagina/degree-and-diploma-recognition.

If possible, the recognition certificate (or proof that one has been requested) should be uploaded together with the diploma. Applications will be considered even if the recognition certificate is not available. However, the recognition must be obtained before signing the contract.

More information about the call, including a link to the application portal, is available here.

Interested candidates are invited to contact Dr. David Yates (at david.yates@edu.ulisboa.pt), with a brief description of their intended research and current CV no later than October 8.

Inclusivity and dense connectivity: tensions between two democratic ideals

Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

2o September 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

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

Abstract: Two widely discussed liberal democratic ideals are inclusivity and dense connectivity (to ensure extensive interaction among citizens). Inclusivity is a foundational democratic value, based on the idea that all those who are affected by political decisions should have a say on public matters. Dense connectivity as an ideal is reflected in the influential Millian desideratum that all arguments and ideas should receive equal consideration in an epistemic community. In a community where dissenting voices are not heard, dead dogma is likely to prevail, as received opinions are not suitably challenged. By contrast, if arguments and ideas are exposed to the widest range of objections and counterarguments, then the ‘better arguments’ will prevail—or so claims the Millian. In this talk, I argue that the properties of inclusivity and dense connectivity are in fact in tension with each other. I highlight two such tensions, with conceptual tools borrowed from network epistemology and the epistemology of attention: the problem of scale, and the problem of (in)tolerance (drawing on Popper’s paradox of tolerance). The tensions between these two ideals suggest that they cannot be simultaneously fully achieved; I argue that privileging inclusivity over dense connectivity is to be preferred to safeguard democratic institutions.

Argument Rodizio

05 July 2024, 15:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

The Argument Rodizio is a session in which each participant presents a short, desirably surprising, argument in 5-10 minutes, to be discussed in the following 5-10 minutes.

Abstract:

1. Robert Michels – “At the End of Human Inquiry”
2. Ricardo Santos – TBD
3. João C. Miranda – “Why Are You Booing Me? I’m Right!”
4. Hugo Luzio – “Dream Irresponsibility”
5. Ned Markosian – “The Paradox of Suffering”

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!

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.)

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.

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.