5^th PLM MASTERCLASS

with Elisabeth Pacherie

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon

Room B 112.D

November 23 and 24, 2023

Program

Thursday, Nov 23

14h00 -15h45:  Elisabeth Pacherie (Jean Nicod)

Varieties of goal-directedness in intentional action

16h00 -17h10:  Eline Kuipers (Bochum)

 Enhancing Pacherie’s theory of intentional bodily action through a sensorimotor space

Friday, Nov 24

10h00 -11h10:  Daphne Moss (Pompeu Fabra)

Agentive phenomenology and the disappearing agent

11h20 -12h30:  Cato Benschop (Utrecht)

Disorder of agency, or disordered because of agency?

The Life Project Account of Eating Disorders

14h00 -15h10:  Miguel Núñez de Prado (Utrecht) & Manuel Almagro-Holgado (Valencia)

Mindshaping Dispositionalism to Defend Doxasticism About Delusions

15h20 -16h30:  Caroline Stankozi (Bochum)

A predecessor to goal-directed intentions: need-directed bio-intentions

Impostor Concepts and Hermeneutical Injustice

Laura Delgado (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

17 November 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Hermeneutical injustice, as introduced by Miranda Fricker (2007), occurs when subjects are unable to make some significant experiences intelligible to themselves and to others owing to their being hermeneutically marginalized. Hermeneutical injustice has been widely characterized by Fricker and others as arising because there is a ‘lacuna’ or a ‘gap’ in the collective hermeneutical resources such that the terms or concepts needed to make some experience intelligible and communicable are lacking. This situation constitutes an injustice because this gap or lacuna is due to the fact that these subjects are unfairly denied sufficient participation in the creation or development of concepts or other tools of social interpretation and this exclusion or limitation is caused by some identity prejudice. In this paper we highlight a species of hermeneutical injustice that arises both because there is a conceptual lacuna with regard to certain experiences in the collective interpretative resources and, importantly, also because there is a powerful authoritative concept in place that does render the experience intelligible, albeit incorrectly. We call this an ‘impostor concept’ because it takes a place where a better, more adequate concept should be, and because it deceivingly provides intelligibility to the target experiences; whereas in reality it conceals them, effectively obstructing the possibility of arriving to better interpretations. We analyse the workings of impostor concepts and argue that their use constitute cases of hermeneutical injustice. We compare this with other similar cases discussed in the literature, aiming to widening our understanding of hermeneutical injustice. (Joint work with Claudia Picazo.)

Andrea Oldofredi’s (LanCog) paper “Orthodox or dissident? The evolution of Bohm’s ontological reflections in the 1950s” was selected to be highlighted on the website of the European Physical Journal.

You can find the piece here.

The Instance Theory of Location

Fabrice Correia (University of Geneva)

10 November 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: The concept of location—of something being located at, or occupying, a place or a region—has been an important topic of philosophical investigations in the past fifteen years or so. Despite all the attention that has been paid to the concept, we still do not have a satisfactory general theory of location. By “general theory”, I mean a theory that both (i) does justice to the fact that location goes way beyond location at a spatial or temporal or spatiotemporal region and (ii) does not rule out phenomena whose possibility is a matter of substantial philosophical dispute. My aim is to put forward a general theory of location that fares better than those that have been developed so far. The key ideas of the theory are as follows: (i) there are two kinds of occupants, direct occupants and indirect occupants; (ii) every indirect occupant has at least one instance, which is a direct occupant; and (iii) indirect occupants occupy regions by having instances occupying these regions.

Conceptual Engineering in Inferentialist Terms

Metodiy Apostolov (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

27 October 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In a recent paper Jorem and Löhr (2022) criticize Herman Cappelen’s Austerity Framework (2018) for not providing a good rationale for doing conceptual engineering. They go on to suggest that Inferentialist semantics as developed by Sellars (1954) and Brandom (1994) provides a good rationale for the practice, therefore conceptual engineering is in the business of improving our inferential devices. I will examine the criticism and its extent over strict representationalist theories of conceptual engineering. I will argue that even if the inferentialist take on conceptual content provides a good rationale for engaging in the practice, this does not constitute a sufficient reason to pick it over other alternatives, e.g. functionalist accounts. Finally, I will discuss some advantages of the broad inferentialist approach to conceptual engineering and use it to propose an alternative reading of a particular case of metalinguistic disputes, i.e., metalinguistic negotiation.

Testimony and Expressive Behaviour

Matthew Parrott (University of Oxford)

20 October 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: People often directly tell us about their thoughts, feelings, and desires. This common practice has led some philosophers to claim that testimony can be a fundamental way of knowing about others’ minds. In this talk, I shall argue that this claim is plausible only if we assume a certain conception of testimony, one which aligns it very closely with perception. By contrast, I shall argue that if we were to adopt a different conception of testimony, such as Richard Moran’s ‘assurance view’, then our acquiring testimonial knowledge of someone else’s mind would epistemically depend upon our having non-testimonial knowledge of their mental states. More specifically, I shall claim that this latter knowledge is based on a person’s expressive behaviours. Although one might naturally think this is either perceptual or inferential, in the final part of this talk, I develop an alternative framework for explaining how expressive behaviours ground our ordinary knowledge of others’ minds.

Can AI Help Humeans? The Laws of Nature Debate in Light of Automated Scientific Discovery

Robert Michels (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

13 October 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: According to the standard Humean theory of the laws of nature, Lewis’s Best System Analysis, laws of nature have this status at least partly as the result of an optimal trade-off between scientific values such as simplicity and descriptive strength. This idea has recently come under pressure, since — as authors like Roberts and Woodward have pointed out — there might, pace what Humeans like to suggest, be no such trade-off in the way laws of nature are identified in the natural sciences. Recent developments in the field of automated scientific discovery, in particular regarding symbolic regression, promise to provide Humeans with an answer to this challenge and, as we will argue, might even allow them to in turn put pressure on rival theories of the laws of nature: Symbolic regression gives us a method for (re-)discovering laws which closely matches the Humean picture of what makes a law of nature a law of nature and in particular crucially involves a trade-off between simplicity and descriptive strength. In this paper, we discuss whether Humeans can indeed rely on symbolic regression to bolster their theory of laws of nature. (This is joint work with Niels Linnemann [University of Geneva].)

On Being in Two Places at Once

Gabriel Uzquiano (University of South California)

6 October 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: We will discuss the question of whether a material object may be in two places at once. More precisely, the question is whether one and the same material object may have more than one exact location. This is not all that plausible when it comes to spatial location. Many dismiss the hypothesis that a material object may have more than one exact spatial location at a given time as plainly incoherent. However, the stakes are higher when it comes to temporal location. For one way to interpret the thesis that material objects endure through time is as the hypothesis that material objects are exactly located at every time at which they exist. The purpose of this talk is to argue for the coherence of multilocation.

Deprivation and Historical Closeness: A Reply

Diogo Santos (LanCog, Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon)

29 September 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: The aim of the paper is to address three recent objections made by Yi (2022) against our strategy of using what we’ve called “Historical Condition” in our analysis of what it is required to be deprived of some value due to a late birth or early death in Miguel & Santos (2020). Yi claims that the Historical Condition (i) is unduly restrictive, for according to it many cases that deprivationists believe are deprivations due to early deaths aren’t; (ii) it makes a problematic prediction, since even our preferred example doesn’t appear to count as a deprivation of value due to a late birth and (iii) it’s theoretically untenable, since it implies a problematic principle. In the paper I show that these objections are misguided for they appear to rely on a misinterpretation of the Historical Condition and the dialectical role it plays in the discussion.

The LanCog group at the University of Lisbon and the Philosophy of Physics group at Warsaw University of Technology are happy to announce the launch of the online Lisbon-Warsaw reading group in the philosophy of physics.

The reading group will meet on Zoom monthly to discuss newly published papers or work-in-progress drafts on timely and relevant topics. The meetings will consist of an extended Q&A session with the authors. The goal is to provide the participants with an occasion to actively engage with state-of-the-art research in the philosophy and foundations of physics.

In the first meeting, Flavio del Santo (University of Geneva) will join us to discuss his paper “Potentiality realism: A realistic and indeterministic physics based on propensities.” The meeting will be on 11 October (17:00-19:00 CEST).

To participate and receive a copy of the paper, please register here.

You can address any query to Antonio Vassallo (antonio.vassallo@pw.edu.pl)

The organizers,

Andrea Oldofredi

Davide Romano

Antonio Vassallo