Katja Diefenbach

European University Viadrina

Unemployed positivity. Deleuze and Agamben as readers of Spinoza

28 March 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

Referring to Bataille’s figure of unemployed negativity, Agamben develops a theory of the autonomy of impotentiality or non-doing. It is based on the idea that the possible is not determined by its actualization, but rather by the capacity of not doing something or of not thinking something, by deactivation or becoming inoperative. By explaining that all potentiality is impotentiality and all capacity essentially passivity, Agamben follows Heidegger’s interpretation of the first sections of the ninth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. In a formidable short-circuit, he relates this interpretation to Spinoza’s notion of potentiality in the Ethics understood, in the same uncanonical way, as self-contentment, Sabbath and inaction. The lecture discusses the extent to which Deleuze’s vitalist reading of Spinoza contradicts Agamben’s perspective point by point and arrives at a different notion of politics and resistance.

A Problem for Greco’s Anti-Reductionism

Nuno Venturinha (IFILNOVA, New University of Lisbon)

24 March 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In his most recent work, culminating in The Transmission of Knowledge, John Greco adopts a new epistemological perspective, arguing that knowledge transmission cannot be viewed as reducible to knowledge generation. The purpose of Greco’s “anti-reductionist theory of knowledge transmission” is not simply to specify that there are two irreducible “ways of coming to know”. Rather, Greco sets out to formulate a unified virtue-theoretic account of generative and transmissive knowledge. But while his framework convincingly addresses the individualism objection often levelled against virtue epistemology, it problematically incorporates a third kind of knowledge, that of “common knowledge” or “hinge knowledge”, which shares the property of irreducibility with generated and transmitted knowledge. In this paper, I will discuss the all-pervasive and inescapable nature of hinge commitments, raising difficulties for the anti-reductionism that characterizes Greco’s “unified epistemology of generated, transmitted, and hinge knowledge”. If the latter is to be understood in terms of procedural knowledge or “tacit knowledge that is constitutive of cognitive virtue”, as Greco suggests, then it seems hard to escape the conclusion that both generated and transmitted knowledge are ultimately reducible to hinge knowledge.

Hélder Telo

University of Beira Interior

Cuidado e Verdade na Ética: Um Diálogo entre Platão, Heidegger e Foucault

21 March 2023, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

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

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

O cuidado e a verdade podem facilmente ser pensados como sendo apenas capítulos especiais e separados da ética. Nesse caso, eles estariam associados a alguns deveres, sobretudo na relação com outros, mas não estariam profundamente interligados e não teriam impacto profundo na compreensão da própria ética. No entanto, são vários os autores que apontam para uma conexão profunda entre a esfera da ética (entendida num sentido ora mais estrito, ora mais lato), o cuidado e a verdade. O objetivo desta apresentação é delimitar um campo de pesquisa desta conexão profunda com especial foco nas discussões de Platão, Heidegger e Foucault. Para isso, começar-se-á por considerar os diferentes modos como estes três autores pensam o cuidado de si e de outros como algo que depende do desenvolvimento da relação com a verdade e, ao mesmo tempo, concebem a relação com a verdade como algo que se constitui ou desenvolve por meio do cuidado. Com base nisso, refletir-se-á então sobre algumas das implicações éticas dessa conexão e como ela pode ocupar um papel central na própria ética.

Graded Properties

Claudio Calosi (University of Geneva) & Robert Michels (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

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

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: The idea that properties can be had partly or to a certain degree is controversial, but also has a considerable pedigree among philosophers and scientists who either embrace or at least hint at an ontology of graded properties. In this paper, we first aim to show that metaphysical sense can be made of this idea by proposing a partial taxonomy of metaphysical accounts of graded properties, focusing on three particular approaches: one which explicates having a property to a degree in terms of having a property with an in-built degree, another based on the idea that instantiation admits of degrees, and a third which derives the degree to which properties are had from the aspects of multi-dimensional properties. Our second aim is to demonstrate that the choice between these account can make a substantial metaphysical difference by way of a number of case studies.

The Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon invites to submit abstracts for contributed talks to be presented at the international conference Open Topics in Philosophy of Physics. The conference will take place from Monday 12 to Wednesday 14 of June 2023 and will discuss a variety of open topics in the foundations, philosophy and metaphysics of physics, with a special focus on quantum mechanics, philosophy of space-time and statistical mechanics.

Invited speakers: Craig Callender (San Diego), Elena Castellani (Florence), Mario Hubert (American University of Cairo), Emilia Margoni (Florence & Geneva), Andrea Oldofredi (Lisbon), Patricia Palacios (Salzburg), Bryan Roberts (LSE), Giovanni Valente (Polytechnic University of Milan), Alastair Wilson (Birmingham), David Yates (Lisbon).

Call for abstracts

Submissions of proposals for contributed talks should address a relevant topic within the foundations, philosophy or metaphysics of physics, broadly conceived. Examples of topics which are of interest for the conference are (but not limited to) the following:

• Foundations and philosophy of quantum mechanics
• Metaphysics of quantum mechanics
• Interpretation and open problems in quantum field theory
• Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
• Time’s arrow and the nature of time in physics
• Philosophy of space-time (general relativity, quantum gravity)

Submissions from PhD students, early postdocs and young researchers are especially welcome. Each contributed talk will be allocated a slot of 30 minutes, including discussion.

Submission procedure

Abstracts of maximum 600 words (including bibliography) should be submitted through the following submission link

• The deadline for submitting the abstracts is April 10th, 2023.
• The notification of acceptance for the selected contributed talks will be communicated by April 30th, 2023.

For any information or further queries about the conference, please contact the organizer (Davide Romano) at the following email address: davide.romano@edu.ulisboa.pt

Updated information about the conference can be found at the following conference website.
PhilEvents webpage

Dirk Michael Hennrich

Praxis-CFUL, University of Lisbon

The Hyperbolic Realm of Violence. Remarks on Benjamin, Fanon, and Arendt Today

14 March 2023, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

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

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Violence, in its many expressions and manifestations, continually cuts through our existence. As social and political beings, the central powers that influence our everyday life are, in Walter Benjamin’s terms, the violence that establishes the law and the violence that preserves the law, which can only be replaced by pure and divine anarchic violence. Frantz Fanon, in the wake of colonial violence and strongly influenced by Georges Sorel, sees the need for radical violence in the decolonial process. The relationship of colonial violence with decolonial violence must be reciprocal until victory, yet the war continues after the liberation of other future-generating forms in the people and for the people and, so to speak, as the ongoing struggle for utopia. Hannah Arendt, on the other hand, explores her concept of violence not in opposition to law but in relation to power, as a response to the student movements of the 1960s. Incredible parallels can be drawn to the present, such as the response to structural and systemic violence in universities and the response to the predatory violence of states and industrial conglomerates against the Earth’s biosphere. The present attempt consists of a further approach in which the various forms of violence are divided into: i) one that unifies, ii) one that separates, and iii) one that exaggerates, that transgresses the measure, which, as Benjamin showed, intervenes and disintegrates social and moral relations. Using ancient Greek terms, a distinction is made between symbolic violence, diabolical violence and hyperbolic violence, with the aim of bestowing hyperbolic violence the seal of the present. The questions to be resolved are numerous, but first it will be important to distinguish and describe the three aforementioned forms of violence to understand how the dominant one of our present can be recognised and countered in the process of a certain decolonisation of thought.

LanCog Logic Seminar Series

Friday, March 10, 10:00—12:00 (UTC)

The University of Lisbon

Faculty of Letters, room B112.G (Library wing)

Francesca Boccuni

University San Raffaele, Milan

The Logical Ontology of Abstractionism

Neologicism aims at founding arithmetic on full second-order logic and Hume’s Principle, which states that the number of the Fs is identical with the number of the Gs if, and only if, there are as many Fs as Gs, and vice versa. Nevertheless, Neologicism faces the problem of the logical ontology ([5]), according to which the underlying second-order logic is ontologically committal. In this paper, such a problem will be tackled by substituting second-order logic by Boolos’ plural logic ([2, 3]), augmented by the Plural Frege Quantifier Fmodelled on [1]. The resulting theory (PHP) interprets second-order Peano arithmetic PA2. Its ontological innocence will be evaluated. In this respect, PHP provides an alternative that solves the problem of the logical ontology pervading Neologicism.

References

[1] Antonelli, A. (2010), ‘Numerical Abstraction via the Frege Quantifier’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 51(2): 161–179.

[2] Boolos, G. (1998a), ‘To be is to be the Value of a Variable (or the Values of Some Variables)’, in [4]: 54–72.

[3] Boolos, G. (1998b), ‘Nominalist Platonism’, in [4]: 73–87.

[4] Boolos, G. (1998c), Logic, Logic, and Logic, J. Burgess & R. Jeffrey (eds.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[5] Hale, B. & Wright, C. (2001), The Reason’s Proper Study: Essays towards a Neo-Fregean Philosophy of Mathematics, Oxford University Press.

How to Build Things With Atoms

Claudio Calosi

University of Geneva

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

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Atomism is the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of atoms. Typically, this thesis is characterized by an axiom stating that everything has atomic parts. The present paper argues that the success of this standard characterization crucially depends on how the notion of sum and composition are defined. In particular, it puts forward a novel definition of mereological sum that: (i) is not equivalent to extant definitions in the literature, provided no strong decomposition principle is assumed, (ii) can be used to claim that the standard characterization of atomism fails in that having atomic parts is not sufficient to be the sum of atoms,  (iii) delivers a purely mereological distinction between structured and unstructured wholes, and (iv) is sensitive to the (alleged) hierarchical nature of composition.

Fernanda Henriques

University of Évora

A invisibilidade das mulheres: desafios epistemológicos e éticos

7 March 2023, 17h00 (Lisbon Time —, rtc. GMT+0)

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

School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon

Abstract

A reflexão articular-se-á em torno da ideia de que há uma invisibilidade estrutural no aparecer de ser mulher, por um lado, e, por outro, de que tal situação exige uma resposta epistemológica e ética. Nesse sentido, haverá na exposição um duplo movimento: (1) o da configuração da própria questão da invisibilidade e das suas implicações no saber de si das mulheres, por um lado, identificando diferentes dimensões da designada invisibilidade estrutural —a maneira como vemos o que vemos, o défice informacional de género, etc.— e, por outro, questionando as implicações que tal situação tem no empoderamento das mulheres; e (2) o da busca de um comportamento de resistência a que a figura da rememoração dá forma, explorando a perspetiva da hermenêutica fenomenológica de Paul Ricoeur para mostrar que é legítimo e possível narrar o nosso passado de outras maneiras e que fazê-lo é um imperativo de justiça.

Mechanistic Computation and its Problems: An Abstract Solution

Luke Kersten

LanCog, University of Lisbon

3 March 2023, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: The mechanistic account of computation (or MAC) maintains that computational implementation is best explicated within a mechanistic framework. A physical system is said to implement a computation only if it processes medium-independent vehicles in virtue of being a functional mechanism. Recently, a number of objections have been raised to MAC, including the “decomposition”, “abstraction”, “generality”, and “hierarchy” problems. These challenges threaten to undermine MAC’s status as a workable theory of implementation. The aim of this paper is to shore up MAC’s conceptual foundations by responding to each. After unpacking the four problems, I outline a recent proposal from Kuokkanen (2022a) which argues that MAC can be rescued by employing a distinction between “vertical” and “horizontal” abstraction. I argue that, while promising, Kuokkanen’s proposal comes at too high a price, requiring MAC to sacrifice its claims on “extensional adequacy”. In response, I outline what I call the “computation-as-abstracta” view. I suggest that thinking of computation as a form of abstracta not only helps to dissolve the four problems but also provides a way of retaining extensional adequacy in the process. I conclude by taking up two further problems recently articulated by Shagrir (2022) and Kuokkanen (2022b).