Desires don’t have desire-like direction of fit
Bence Nanay (University of Antwerp)

24 June 2022, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Desires are widely, in fact, universally, taken to have, well, desire-like direction of fit. The aim of this paper is to argue that – at least on one important understanding of what direction of fit is – this is not so. I give a two-step argument: The goal state of desires is represented by mental imagery and if the goal state of desires is represented by mental imagery, then desires don’t have world-to-mind (or prescriptive) intrinsic direction of fit. In other words, desires don’t have desire-like direction of fit.

The room has a limited number of seats. Pre-registration is required at <info@lancog.com> until a day before the event.

Monism and Qualitativism
Trevor Teitel (University of Toronto​)

24 June 2022, 11:00 (Lisbon Time – WET) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: This talk is about the relation between two venerable yet revisionary metaphysical doctrines. The monist doctrine says, roughly, that reality is in some sense one. The qualitativist doctrine says, roughly, that reality contains no facts about particular objects, but is rather purely qualitative. In this talk I’ll distinguish various versions of each doctrine, and in each case argue that champions of the monistic doctrine should instead embrace an analogous qualitativist doctrine. I conclude that monists should be qualitativists.

Doing things individually in virtue of doing them together
Thomas Byrne (MIT)

22 June 2022, 11:00 (Lisbon Time – WET) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Just as person A might, e.g., kill person B, so too might A1 and A2 kill B together: if A1 holds B down, while A2 strangles him, then A1 and A2 kill B together. In virtue of them killing B together, it’s also the case that A1 killed B and the case that A2 killed B. Similarly, if A1 lays half the bricks and A2 lays the other half, then A1 and A2 build a wall together; and, in virtue of them building the wall together, it’s also the case that A1 built the wall and A2 built the wall. Those are both examples of A1 and A2 each V-ing in virtue of them V-ing together—and other such examples, abound. I’m interested in the limits of that schema: when is the fact that A1 and A2 (and A3…) , e.g., built the wall together sufficient for it to be the case that A1 built the wall, and when isn’t it?

Three Projects of Social Epistemology
John Greco (Georgetown University)

17 June 2022, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Epistemology engages in at least three projects: The Project of Explanation (What is knowledge?; How is knowledge possible for beings like us?), The Project of Critique (How do we fail epistemically, when we do?), and the Project of Amelioration (How can we improve our epistemic position?). Traditional epistemology has pursued these projects from an individualist perspective — the “we” in our various questions has been understood as “we as individuals.” Social epistemology pursues epistemology’s same projects, but now from a social perspective — the “we” in our various questions can now be understood as a “collective we.” The paper explores social epistemology’s three projects through the lens of social epistemic dependence, or our dependence on other persons and on broader features of the social environment. From this perspective, it is argued, seemingly disparate literatures in social epistemology are in fact fruitfully related.

The room has a limited number of seats. Pre-registration is required at <info@lancog.com> until a day before the event.

The notion of Primitive Ontology (PO) has recently received a great deal of attention in the quantum foundations literature. The PO is the fundamental ontology posited by a certain theory, what is out there in the world which makes the predictions of theory true. Can we make sense of the idea that the PO is indeterminate? And if we do, would this idea be explanatory useful in some way, or would it simply lead us too far from the very reasons we had to posit a PO in the first place? As I will show in this paper, these issues become of crucial importance when it comes to understanding what the ontology of the Mass Density approach to GRW (GRWm) ultimately looks like. Proponents of the PO are never explicit in claiming that the determinacy is a requirement for the notion, yet arguably this is entailed by one of the criteria for a suitable PO, namely its being always well defined in every point in 3D space. I will argue that this requirement is however not satisfied in GRWm. The conclusion I will draw is that the notion of indeterminate PO should be taken seriously, for it is suggested by one the major interpretations of quantum mechanics.

[This event had to be cancelled. It will be re-scheduled in the 2022/23 academic year]

Susanna Lindberg

Leiden University

From Technological humanity to bio-technical existence

7 June 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy) | School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Our time tends to depict itself as an epoch of technological humanity – not only because its environment is increasingly pervaded by technology, but above all because the human being itself is more and more affected by the technological situation. Some even claim that the technical transformations of the human are leading towards its overcoming, so that the obsolete form of humanity slowly gives way to something called posthumanity. But is this perception justified? Hasn’t the human world always been artificial and haven’t human beings always applied self-techniques on themselves? In my paper I refer to philosophers (Martin Heidegger, Helmuth Plessner, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Bernard Stiegler and Giorgio Agamben) who do not think that attention paid to technology will generate a new figure of the human, but that it will unfold human existence itself as originary technicity. This technicity is not another figure of the human, it is humanity as a capacity of figuration. The question is in the spirit of the times, however: How do technics affect human existence? Are contemporary technologies developing towards an overcoming of humanity, like some trans- and posthumanists claim? Instead of providing a simple answer to such a question, I aim to delve into the terms in which the questions are made. What is called “human” when “humanity” cannot be reduced to “mankind” anymore but is thought in continuity with a more general idea of life, instead? And what is called “technics”? We will see that the term “technics” has the most general possible sense covering tools, instruments, machines, technologies, techniques, disciplines, etc. What is called “technics” when it cannot be reduced to the skillful use of instruments or to the overwhelming machine culture that sweeps off everybody, but is intertwined with every aspect of life, so that contemporary existence turns finally out to be a bio-technical existence in the midst of an overwhelming techno-nature?

On Wednesday 1 June, Paula Reichert (Ludwig Maximilian University) will give a talk titled “Shape Dynamics and the Big Bang” (abstract below).

The series of online seminars is organized in the context of the activities of the LanCog Research Group at the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon, and will focus on the foundations of quantum and spacetime physics.

The meeting will be online on Zoom (17:00-19:00 CEST). If you have not registered yet, you can do so here.

You can address any question to Andrea Oldofredi (aoldofredi@letras.ulisboa.pt).

ABSTRACT:
Shape dynamics is a relational theory of gravity in the spirit of Leibniz and Mach. It was developed as an alternative to Newton’s theory with the aim to eliminate absolute space and time from the description. Today’s shape dynamics serves as an alternative to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, where it tracks 4d diffeomorphism invariance for 3d spatial conformal invariance plus relational time. In the first part of this talk, I will introduce the conceptual and mathematical ideas behind shape dynamics and present the way it has developed historically. In the second part of the talk, I will focus on the way it tackles the Big Bang which, in Einstein’s theory, arises as a singularity of zero scale. This does not necessarily affect the shape (that is, conformal or angular) degrees of freedom which might be evolved through the singularity thus providing an eternal one-past-two-futures evolution of our universe.

A perceptual sense of the future
Frédérique de Vignemont (Institut Jean-Nicod)

03 June 2022, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Car drivers and sportspeople are extremely good at predicting if and when an object may impact them, what is known in the literature as time-to-collision. This anticipatory dimension is revealed in the relatively primitive sense of impending collision that we can sometimes experience, typically just a few seconds before being hit, something like “This is going to crash into me!”. For instance, many times in movies (especially in 3D), video games, and in virtual reality, we have the strong impression – though mistaken – that something is going to hit us even though we know that nothing can reach us, seated in our safe living room. How, then, to best characterize this anticipatory form of awareness? Is there a sense in which one can be said to have a perceptual sense of the close future? Here, I shall reply positively, taking as a starting point the phenomenon of amodal completion. It indeed reveals that one can be perceptually aware of more than the visual inputs that one receives. As with most of the literature on perception, the phenomenon of completion has been studied mainly in static scenes, for shape and object, but I shall argue that a similar phenomenon can occur for dynamic events such as motion. I shall then propose that thanks to amodal completion, one is aware of the whole event of the looming of the object towards one’s body, including its possible end that has not happened yet. As a consequence, our perceptual experience is not only about the present, the looming motion unfolding under our eyes. It is also about the future.

The room has a limited number of seats. Pre-registration is required at <info@lancog.com> until a day before the event.

The Agential Stance
Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham)

31 May 2022, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: When young people seek support from mental healthcare practitioners, the encounters may affect the young people’s sense of self, and in particular undermine their sense of agency. For this study, an interdisciplinary team of academics and young people collaboratively analysed video-recorded encounters between young people and mental healthcare practitioners in emergency services. We identified five communication techniques that practitioners can use to avoid undermining the young person’s sense of agency in the clinical encounter. We conceptualise the use of those techniques as the adoption of an agential stance towards the young person. The agential stance consists of: (1) validating the young person’s experiences; (2) legitimising the young person’s choice to seek help; (3) refraining from objectifying the young person; (4) affirming the young person’s capacity to contribute to positive change; (5) involving the young person in the decision-making process.

The room has a limited number of seats. Pre-registration is required at <info@lancog.com> until a day before the event.

Roberto Nigro

Leuphana University Lüneburg

Genealogy and Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity

31 May 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy) | School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

If one of the tasks of philosophy consists in defining the time in which we live, how can we characterize our present? Perhaps the most appropriate answer to this question is the one situating it in the singular plural event that was 1968: a name and an event that entails a plurality of meanings. 1968 in a broad sense marked our contemporary time indelibly. At issue in some critical positions is sometimes an idea of 1968 as the dawn of neoliberal society. In other (diametrically opposed) accounts a sort of “left wing melancholia” emerges. Firstly, my talk will critically discuss these positions. Then, in a second step, it will examine two genealogical pathways, which may help to define the emergence of neoliberal subjectivity: the first one shows the link between neoliberal subjectivity and the practices of pastoral power elaborated in early Christianity and is indebted to Michel Foucault. The second one examines the development of neoliberalism by dint of conflictual dynamics that took place in the post-68 in the form of a capitalistic reaction to the movements, which struggled against the disciplinary society and the patriarchal capitalism.