The Ontology of Rock Music: Recordings, Studio-Performances or Songs?
Hugo Luzio (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

21 May 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia) & on Zoom

Abstract: Ontologists of music (generally) agree that classical works are pieces (or compositions) for live performance. But, just as classical works from different historical periods may be ontologically diverse, so may works from different (non-classical or non-Western) musical traditions. In this talk, I discuss the ontological nature of rock works. I start by distinguishing between the fundamental and the comparative levels of enquiry in musical ontology. I then present and discuss the three main ontological accounts of rock music. The recording-centered account (Gracyk 1996, Kania 2006) claims that rock works are recordings for playback in appropriate devices. The studio-performance account (Davies 2001) claims that rock works are for a special kind of performance that takes place in the recording studio. Finally, the song-centered account (Bruno 2013) claims that rock works are songs. I argue, first, that the recording-centered account has unreasonable consequences towards the status of recorded covers, remixes, remasters, and unrecorded (rock) songs. I then argue that the studio-performance account is in tension with the (sometimes, radical) temporal and spatial disunity of some studio recordings. I close by offering some reasons for thinking that a song-centered account can accommodate the distinctive importance of recording and performative practices in rock music.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

Reasons in Deception
Artūrs Logins (University of Zürich)

14 May 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia) & on Zoom

Abstract: According to a popular and pretheoretically appealing view, victims of radical deception (e.g., the New Evil Demon scenarios, cf. Cohen and Lehrer (1983) and Cohen (1984)) are epistemically justified in their beliefs about the external world (after all, they have no clue about the appearances being radically misleading). But what reasons are there for them to believe as they do? According to the Sameness Thesis, the reasons for deceived subjects to believe as they do are the same as the reasons for their non-deceived counterparts. I argue that this thesis is false. Once we get a better grasp on how normative reasons work in general, we can see that there are good grounds for doubting the Sameness Thesis. My argument relies on the connection between normative reasons, answers to normative questions, and premises of good patterns of reasoning. Moreover, given additional assumptions about the justification – reasons connection, this conclusion seems to provide a further theory-driven argument against the view that victims of the radical deception cases and their non-deceived counterparts are the same justification-wise. I argue that this conclusion is not as crazy as it might initially appear.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

Varieties of Risk and Recklessness
Philip Ebert (University of Stirling)

07 May 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia) & on Zoom

Abstract: A number of philosophers have recently argued that danger or risk judgments do not track underlying probabilities of a bad outcome and have argued for non-probabilistic notions of risk or danger (Williamson 2009, Pritchard 2016, Ebert, Smith & Durbach 2020). However, the intuitive examples used so far to motivate non-probabilistic notions were often found unconvincing. In this talk, I first present some new experimental work on intuitive risk/danger and recklessness judgements. The data raises a challenge for the probabilistic notion and I discuss different ways in which these intuitive judgments could be explained within a probabilistic framework. In the second part of the talk, I will outline and explain two recently defended non-probabilistic notions: the modal and the normic notion of risk and show how they could explain the relevant data and assess in what way they do better (or worse) than the probabilistic notion of risk. In the last part of the talk, I discuss the notion of recklessness and show how a normic notion of risk can underwrite and motivate a distinctive non-probabilistic notion of recklessness that may do well to explain some of our intuitive judgements about recklessness.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

NeoRussellian Logicism
Bruno Jacinto (CFCUL/LanCog) & José Mestre (Stirling/LanCog)

30 April 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia) & on Zoom

Abstract: Frege’s and Russell’s original projects of deriving the basic laws of arithmetic in pure logic were based on contrasting conceptions of the natural numbers. While Frege thought numbers were logical objects, Russell took them to be attributes of attributes of objects. Both projects failed. The Fregean conception of numbers has been at the basis of attempts to revive the logicist programme. Alas, neoFregean logicism has been the target of devastating objections. All the while, the Russellian route for establishing arithmetic’s logicality has been neglected. Yet, Russell’s is the more promising view on natural numbers. In this talk we show that our NeoRussellian Logicism is capable of finally sustaining the view that arithmetic is nothing but logic. We furthermore indicate one of its striking consequences: that arithmetic is an inherently modal discipline.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

The Problem of Logical Omniscience: aboutness and impossible worlds approaches
Francisca Silva (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

23 April 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia) & on Zoom

Abstract: Possible worlds semantics has been applied successfully in many areas in Philosophy, including in the construction of epistemic logics in which knowledge is treated as a necessity operator over epistemically possible worlds. This application, however, has been criticized on grounds that it cannot capture non-ideal agents’ systems of knowledge, as logics for knowledge construed in this way have as a consequence that: i) all agents know all logical consequences of what they know; and ii) all agents know all logical truths. These are two very prominent variations of what has come to be known in the literature as the problem of logical omniscience. In my talk I’ll survey and assess two aboutness approaches (Yalcin (2018) and Hawke, Berto and Özgün (2020)) and two impossible worlds approaches (Jago (2014), Berto and Jago (2019) and Bjerring (forthcoming)) to the aforementioned variations of the logical omniscience problem. From this survey some conclusions will follow for what a solution to the problem of logical omniscience should look like for the cases of explicit and normatively relevant implicit knowledge.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

Interpreting Groups
J. Robert G. Williams (University of Leeds)

16 April 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Online, via Zoom

Abstract: Some theories of content entail that an entity cannot be a believer/desirer without being a chooser/perceiver. This includes my version of radical interpretation, on which the correct belief-desire interpretation of an agent is that interpretation which best rationalizes their choices given their evidence. But (I’ll argue) group agents can be believers and desirers, without the group as a whole making choices, and without the group as a whole having any analogue of a perceptual state. Rather than give up on my favourite theory of content or denying group attitudes, I explore a generalization. Drawing on Plantinga’s proper-functionalism theory of warrant, I’ll characterize a radical-interpretation schema in which the choice-evidence-centric version I developed in previous work is just one special case. I’ll draw out connections to related proposals for group thinking by List and Pettit, and Tollefsen.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

On Proper Presupposition
Julia Zakkou (Bielefeld University)

09 April 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Online, via Zoom

Abstract: In this talk, I investigate the norm of presupposition, as one pervasive type of indirect speech act. I argue against the view that sees presuppositions as an indirect counterpart of the direct speech act of assertion and propose instead to consider them an indirect counterpart of the direct speech act of assumption. More concretely, I suggest that the norm that governs presuppositions is not an epistemic or doxastic attitude such as knowledge, justified belief, or mere belief; it’s a practical attitude, most plausibly the attitude of rational acceptance. This view has important ramifications well beyond debates in philosophy of language and linguistics. It affects not only our view of which speech act sequences are fine and which are off; it bears on whether presuppositions can function as testimony, whether they can be lies, and whether they are ontologically committal.

Free Attendance, but preregistration required: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/lancog/registration/

Apr 7 2021 15:00 – 17:00: Celso Alves Neto (Dalhousie University)
What is it that Evolves?
Traditional formulations of natural selection assume that entities undergoing selection form lineages. This assumption motivates recent claims that multispecies microbial communities do not undergo selection. Yet, these claims are controversial in part because the role and nature of lineages are poorly understood. In this paper, I clarify these issues by revisiting David Hull’s notion of units of evolution. Lineages are units of evolution in traditional formulations of natural selection, while the entities that form lineages are units of selection. I revise this idea in two ways. First, we argue that lineages can also be units of selection. Second, I argue that units of evolution do not have to form clear parent-offspring relations. With this aim in mind, I analyze a set of borderline cases of lineage and the underlying notions of reproduction and inheritance. Our analysis offers a framework to compare traditional and more recent formulations of evolution by natural selection. It also helps to clarify how multispecies microbial communities might evolve.

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For details of past and upcoming talks, please see: https://www.kdyates.com/events/#upcoming.