António Lopes

LANCOG, University of Lisbon

Sense and Sensibility: Musical Meaning, Expression and Sincerity in Atonal Serialism

8 March 2019, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Steven Cavell famously asked “Must We Mean What We Say?” (1969). Applied to twelve-tone, serial music, the question would be: must serial composers mean what they write? This is due to features and limitations of the serial style or idiom. But are not composers responsible for choosing a style, at least since the 20th century, and thus, to be criticized if the idiom they chose cannot express most of the central musical meanings usually expressible in almost all other musical idioms, from folk music to contemporary non-serial classical music? I will rely mainly on the critique of serialism by Diana Raffman, and on the facts about the limits of musical cognition and memory to which results in recent psychology of music point to, but also on arguments by Roger Scruton, before presenting mine. If the critiques are convincing and those limitations are indeed a fact about human psychology, then, given the prestige and dominance of serialism as the only new “serious” compositional style during the three last quarters of the previous century, in spite of its rejection by the vast majority of a sophisticated public such as the average one for classical music, we may ask: might not artistic sincerity or integrity be at stake in the acceptance of an ineffective idiom such as serialism as the only possible next step in the evolution of music by composers, academics, concert managers, critics, minus the public (and possibly most performers)? I’ll claim that it may, in at least two senses, one of which is relevant to the topic of artistic value and authorial creative merit at the “high art” level at issue here.

Meir Buzaglo

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

On Proving the Unprovability of God’s Existence

1 March 2019, 15:45

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In my talk I use “theology” in a narrow sense, i.e., the analysis of proofs for the existence of God. Meta-theology is the study of the very possibility to prove God’s existence and of whether belief in God is a matter of rational thinking or an issue that must be left to faith. Thus, the lively discussion on Gödel’s ontological argument belongs to theology, while Kant’s attempt in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) to disprove all possible proofs for the existence of God belongs to meta-theology. In the talk, I wish to explore the possible application of Gödel’s Second Theorem (GST) to meta-theology. After showing why there is prima facie evidence for the relevance of GST to meta-theology, I argue that in one sense – which is to be clearly defined below – it is pointless to try to prove that God’s existence is unprovable. As it turns out, this conclusion is not confined to the existence of God and can be generalized to other claims of proving unprovability.

Roberto Giuntini

University of Cagliari &

Centro Linceo Interdisciplinare Benaminio Segre

Yes, No, Perhaps: A Logical Introduction to Quantum Computation

22 February 2019, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Quantum computation has suggested new kinds of logic, which are deeply different both from Boolean logic (the logical background of classical computation) and from multi-valued (fuzzy) logics. The most striking feature of quantum computational logic is the introduction in the realm of pure logic of new and physically motivated connectives (gates) that have neither a classical nor a fuzzy-like analogue. In this talk, we will present some of these connectives (in particular, the square-root of negation and the square-root of the identity) and we will discuss some of their most funny and illogical properties.

Célia Teixeira

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Is There a Special Relationship Between

the A Priori and the Analytic?

21 December 2018, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: The a priori and the analytic have traditionally enjoyed a very special relationship. This relationship may be characterized by two theses: (i) a priori knowledge is mere knowledge of analytic truths, and (ii) we can explain the a priori with the analytic. Both theses were close to orthodoxy during the first half of the twentieth century. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in analyticity, and both theses became, once more, widely held. My aim in this talk is to challenge this special relationship. I argue that even if (i) were true (ii) is false, and that we also have good reason to reject (i). I conclude by suggesting a new argument against the analytic-synthetic distinction.

David Yates

LANCOG University of Lisbon

Functionalism and Transparency: Chalmers on Spatial Concepts

23 November 2018, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In a recent paper (‘Three puzzles about spatial experience’), David Chalmers offers three twin-Earth cases designed to show that our ordinary, everyday spatial concepts do not reveal the essential natures of their referents, but refer to them as the normal causes of spatial phenomenology. Chalmers is thus a realizer functionalist about spatial concepts: they refer to their referents as the occupants of roles, where the roles in question are given in phenomenological terms. The non-transparency of spatial concepts is counterintuitive, since it seems that concepts such as sphericality and separation give us at least some epistemic access to the essential natures of the spatial properties they refer to. In this paper I first argue that phenomenal spatial functionalism is untenable. I then distinguish two variants of theoretical spatial functionalism, the view that everyday spatial concepts are defined by a folk physical theory. According to theoretical realizer functionalism, spatial concepts refer to whatever properties occupy the folk physical roles. According to theoretical role functionalism, spatial concepts refer to second-order properties that are individuated by their folk physical roles. On this latter theory, spatial concepts are (at least partially) transparent: spatial properties are conceived in terms of their places in the theoretical structure that individuates them, hence in terms of their essential natures. I argue that Chalmers’ twin-Earth cases are all consistent with theoretical role functionalism, and conclude that there is no compelling twin-Earth argument for the non-transparency of spatial concepts.

Anne Schwenkenbecher

Murdoch University

Shared Intentions, Loose Groups, and Pooled Knowledge

7 December 2018, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: We study shared intentions in what we call loose groups. These are groups that lack a codified organizational structure, and where the communication channels between group members are either unreliable or not completely open. We start by formulating two desiderata for shared intentions in such groups. We then argue that no existing account meets these two desiderata, because they assume either too strong or too weak an epistemic condition, that is a condition on what the group members know and believe about what the others intend, know, and believe. We propose an alternative, pooled knowledge, and argue that it allows formulating conditions on shared intentions that meet the two desiderata.

Pablo Cobreros

University of Navarra

Inferences and Metainferences

30 November 2018, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: The logic ST has been proposed in different places to deal with paradoxes. There is something very interesting about ST: that it is classical logic for a classical language, but that it provides different ways of strengthening classical logic to deal with paradoxes. For example, the logic STT (ST for a language with a transparent truth predicate and self-referential sentences) is a conservative extension of classical logic. That is, STT is not only non-trivial, but it has exactly the same valid inferences as classical logic for the T-free fragment. How is this possible? Well, because ST preserves all classically valid inferences but not some classical metainferences. The question then arises of exactly which are the metainferences of ST. In their (2015) paper Eduardo Barrio, Lucas Rosenblatt and Diego Tajer show that ST metainferences are closely related to LP inferences. In this note we review their result and try to highlight the connection in a broader context.

Alexandre Billon

University of Lille

The Sense of Existence

30 November 2018, 11:30

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: While the sense of existence — the kind of awareness that grounds our judgments of existence — has been invoked by the phenomenological tradition in order to make far ranging claims about the property of existence, its nature is extremely controversial, and its very existence has been widely called into question. This paper aims at getting clear about the nature and reality of the sense of existence by studying a psychiatric condition in which it appears to be disrupted: depersonalisation.

David Yates

LANCOG University of Lisbon

Functionalism and Transparency: Chalmers on Spatial Concepts

23 November 2018, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In a recent paper (‘Three puzzles about spatial experience’), David Chalmers offers three twin-Earth cases designed to show that our ordinary, everyday spatial concepts do not reveal the essential natures of their referents, but refer to them as the normal causes of spatial phenomenology. Chalmers is thus a realizer functionalist about spatial concepts: they refer to their referents as the occupants of roles, where the roles in question are given in phenomenological terms. The non-transparency of spatial concepts is counterintuitive, since it seems that concepts such as sphericality and separation give us at least some epistemic access to the essential natures of the spatial properties they refer to. In this paper I first argue that phenomenal spatial functionalism is untenable. I then distinguish two variants of theoretical spatial functionalism, the view that everyday spatial concepts are defined by a folk physical theory. According to theoretical realizer functionalism, spatial concepts refer to whatever properties occupy the folk physical roles. According to theoretical role functionalism, spatial concepts refer to second-order properties that are individuated by their folk physical roles. On this latter theory, spatial concepts are (at least partially) transparent: spatial properties are conceived in terms of their places in the theoretical structure that individuates them, hence in terms of their essential natures. I argue that Chalmers’ twin-Earth cases are all consistent with theoretical role functionalism, and conclude that there is no compelling twin-Earth argument for the non-transparency of spatial concepts.