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In the past (prior to the creation of the Department of Philosophy), Bilkent
was visited by luminaries like the late
Donald
Davidson, Ruth
Barcan Marcus,
Brian
McGuinness, Roger Scruton, and
the late Bernard
Williams. We have greatly benefited from the insights and recommendations of
these distinguished philosophers. Other influential visitors were the late Berent
Enç, the late İlham
Dilman, Güven
Güzeldere, and
Christopher
Gauker.
Continuing in this tradition and in an effort to establish closer ties with universities with superior departments
of philosophy, we are constantly inviting several prominent philosophers to visit
Bilkent. These invitees are active
researchers with excellent publications and are in a position to provide us with
valuable advice. Philosophers in the following list have kindly
accepted our invitation.
Brian Leiter to visit Bilkent in 2009 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Leiter; also see his blog The
Leiter Reports and The
Philosophical Gourmet Report he edits).
Luciano Floridi will visit Bilkent between 12 - 15 March 2009 (see
this page for more
information about Prof. Floridi) and give a talk.
Keith Lehrer visited Bilkent between 1 - 4 June 2008
(see this page for more
information about Prof. Lehrer) and gave the following talk:
Evidentialism and the Parity Paradox
Time &
Place: Mon 2
Jun
2008 at 10:15 in G160
This was within the framework of a seminar entitled KNOWLEDGE, MIND &
MATHEMATICS; cf. Meetings.
Thomas Pogge visited Bilkent between 28 February - 2 March 2008
(see this page for more
information about Prof. Pogge) and gave the following talk:
World Poverty: Explanations and Responsibilities
Time &
Place: Fri 29
Feb
2008 at 14:30 in C-Block Auditorium
Additionally, two mini symposia were held on the works of Prof. Pogge;
cf. Meetings.
Eros Corazza visited Bilkent between 17-22 February 2008 (see
this page for more information about Prof. Corazza) and gave the following
talks:
On Points of View
Time &
Place:
Tue 19
Feb
2008 at 14:40 in G160
Points of view play such an important role in our everyday
life that we often fail to notice their significance. They take center stage,
for instance, when we interpret other people's actions and utterances. Points of
view also help us to explain many context-sensitive features of our utterances,
or so I am going to argue. A point of view will be characterized as an
egocentric perspective from which one engages in an action and entertains a
thought. As such, a point of view can be spelled out using the essential
indexicals 'I', 'here' and 'now' insofar as one would express her own viewpoint
using them (e.g.: one would say "I think that …", "From here I can see that …",
"I just (now) realized that …", "From my perspective …", etc.). It is further
argued that our understanding of some utterances rests on our capacity to grasp
either the point of view from which the utterance is made or the point of
view represented by the utterance insofar as some of them reveal someone else's
viewpoint. The understanding of these utterances rests on the recognition of the
point of view represented.
Situationalism vs. Free Enrichment
Time &
Place:
Thu 21
Feb
2008 at 10:40 in G160
Friends of free enrichment defend the view that when one
uses an allegedly underdetermined sentence pragmatic processes contribute to
enrich what is said and thought. In the following sentences, for instance, the
received view is that the bracketed material is furnished by a process of
(pragmatic) free enrichment:
(1) Jane is ready [for the
exam].
(2) Jeff is too tall [to
be a jockey].
(3) You won't die [from
that cut]
(4) Istanbul is 250 km away
[from here].
(5) Jeff took out the key and
opened the door [with the key].
I shall propose a position, situationalism, which
resists free enrichment both at the level of what is said (proposition
expressed) and of what is thought (mental level). In a nutshell, I shall
defend the view that both the propositions expressed and the thoughts
entertained when uttering/hearing sentences like (1)-(5) are situated. For
this very reason they need not be enriched. Situationalism, though, embraces a
form of relativism insofar as it rejects the traditional (Frege-inspired) view
that propositions/thoughts are true/false eternally. Thus an utterance of
the sentence "Jane is ready" may be true regarding the exam situation and
false regarding, say, a party situation. That is, the minimal proposition
that Jane is ready may true when evaluated vis-à-vis the exam situation
and false when evaluated vis-à-vis the party situation.
Howard Michael Robinson visited Bilkent between 14-17 November 2007 (see
this page for more
information about Prof. Robinson) and gave the following talk:
A Defence of a Traditional Approach to Sensory Content
Time & Place:
Thu
15
Nov
2007 at 17:00 in G160
It seems to be generally agreed that we perceive sensible qualities –-
in the case of vision, these are colours and shapes –- and it also seems to be
generally agreed that the total experience of perceiving is, in some sense,
richer than this. We do not see only a kaleidoscope of colour patches. Why not
simply say, therefore, that we perceive qualities and other things –- at least
physical objects, for example –- alongside or in addition to them?
By contrast, there is a deep-seated empiricist instinct to defend the view
that in order to see objects and anything beyond qualities one need only
perceive the qualities and take them in certain way. Whatever else is
perceived is not perceived in quite the same direct and fundamental way as the
qualities. This is illustrated by a comparison or analogy. Just as a painting
can convey an ontologically rich view of the world whilst being only patches
of colour seen in a certain way, the same trick can be performed for vision
itself. But, as we shall see, the empiricist intuition is not just motivated
by the analogy with pictures
This paper is an investigation and, I think it is fair to say, a defence of
the empiricist intuition. My defence begins from David Hume's account of how
our conception of the world is built up from our experience of sensible
qualities in "On scepticism with regard to the senses". It is important to
notice, however, that this account has no essential connection with scepticism,
or with phenomenalism. These follow only because of his sceptical approaches
to causation and explanation, backed up by a restrictive empiricist account of
meaning, with which I am not concerned.
Dale Jacquette visited Bilkent between 22-25 April 2007
(see this
page for more information about Prof. Jacquette) and gave the following talk:
Logic and Metaphysics of Negative States of Affairs
Time & Place:
Tue 24
Apr
2007 at 13:40 in EA409
Sarah Broadie visited Bilkent between 24-29 March 2007 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Broadie) and gave the following
talks:
Can We Make Sense of the Idea of 'Fate'?
Time & Place:
Mon 26 Mar 2007 at
13:40 in G160
Virtue as a 'Median' State According to Aristotle: Is the Idea
of Any Use?
Time & Place:
Wed 28 Mar 2007 at 13:40 in G160
Kinch Hoekstra visited Bilkent between 10-17 December 2006 (see
this
page for more information about Dr. Hoekstra) and gave the following two talks:
The Argument for Political Obligation in Thomas Hobbes
Time & Place:
Mon 11 Dec 2006 at
15:40 in G160
In this paper I shall trace the steps in Hobbes's argument for
political obligation, showing that it hinges on his conception of consent. Hobbes provides unusual arguments about the nature of consent, and his
idiosyncratic conception of consent and his argument for the validity of
coerced consent will be laid out and evaluated. This will be compared
to, among other things, the argument from hypothetical consent found in
Rawls's theory.
The Hobbesian State of Nature
Time & Place:
Tue 12 Dec 2006 at
15:40 in G160
The Hobbesian state of nature has been influential as a portrait of human
beings without covenants and without social groupings, who because of their
equality end up locked in a war of each individual against every other. I will
discuss antecedents for Hobbes's argument and offer an interpretation of the
purpose of his argument. Elements of the influential view that has been
associated with Hobbes since the seventeenth century will be called into
question as I discuss the role of covenants, groups, and equality in the state
of nature. The central text discussed will be chapter 13 of Leviathan,
but reference will be made to a range of Hobbes's other works.
Gerald J. Massey visited Bilkent (for a second time) between 5 November - 18 December
2006 (see
this page for more information about
Prof. Massey) and gave the following talk:
An Interpretation of Descartes' Tests for Mind
Time & Place:
Mon 20 Nov 2006 at
17:40 in G160
Descartes formulated two tests
for mind, a language test and an action test, the interpretation of which
challenges the skills of the best historians and philosophers. I formulate
eight conditions that an adequate account of these tests must meet, and I then
advance an account that satisfies them. This interpretation of the two tests
will be shown to shed new light on Descartes’ views about mind. Finally, the
relevance of these views to modern work in philosophical ethology will be
briefly discussed.
Stathis Psillos visited Bilkent between 14-18 November 2006
(see this
page for more information about Assoc. Prof. Psillos) and gave the following talk:
The A Priori: Between Conventions and Implicit Definitions
Time & Place:
Wed 15
Nov 2006 at 17:40 in G160
This paper aims to articulate in a relatively precise way the core views of a
philosophical tradition that has tried to defend some notion of relativized
synthetic a priori against both the Kantian absolute conception of it and the
empiricist denial of it. It focuses its attention on the claim that the a priori
marks a mode of being entitled to rationally and justifiably hold a belief
independently of experience. It separates the Kantian criteria of necessity and
universality and argues that a theory of conventions along the lines of Poincare
holds the key to understanding the sense in which some principles are
independent of experience (and constitutive of it), though they might well have
some fundamentum in re, as Arthur Pap put it. What emerges is a notion of
constitutive (a priori) principles which are strictly (unconditionally)
universal and relatively necessary. The natural way to develop this theory of
constitutive-conventional a priori is by means of an account of implicit
definitions and their role in imposing a priori restrictions on what the world
is like and in creating the meaning of certain concepts (Sellars; Pap). The
paper moves on to a discussion of Carnap's way to formulate implicit definitions
(and to mark the space for the a priori within a theory) by means of the
so-called Carnap-sentences (which say that if the Ramsey-sentence of a theory is
true, then the theory is true). Though ingenious, this way faces an unexpected
difficulty which comes from the fact that without some restrictions being
imposed on the domain of discourse of a Ramsey-sentence, the claim that a theory
is true has no substantive excess content over the claim that its
Ramsey-sentence is empirically adequate.
Saul Smilansky visited Bilkent between 10-14 April 2006 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Smilansky) and gave the following
talks:
Contributivism: A Proposal
Time & Place:
Tue
11
Apr
2006 at 15:40 in
EA502
What is morality about? What is it to be moral? Why should we care about
being moral? Such questions have been with us for a long time, as have the
traditional answers. I aim to present an alternative to the traditional views.
I call this new normative perspective Ethical Contributivism.
Contributivism takes the view that morality is not primarily about maximizing
overall utility, or keeping up one’s side of mutually beneficial bargains, or
not diverging from a rational list of commandments, or other such traditional
suggestions, but about attending to the impact of your life on other
persons, taking care not to be a force for bad and attempting to be a
force for good. For, broadly, your impact on other persons forms into your
moral presence in the world, which is essential in determining your moral
value.
The Paradox of Moral Complaint
Time & Place:
Thu
13
Apr
2006 at 15:40 in
EA409
When may someone complain, morally? And what, if any, is the relationship
between legitimate moral complaint and one’s own behavior? I point out a
perplexity about a certain class of moral complaints. Two very different
conceptions of moral complaint seem to be operating, and they often have
contrary implications. Moreover, both seem intuitively compelling. This is
theoretically and practically troubling, but has not been sufficiently
noticed. The “Paradox of Moral Complaint” seems to point to an inherent
difficulty in our reflective moral intuitions. Given the legislative nature of
moral agency, the plausible limitations upon reasonable moral complaint seem
to contradict the inviolability of central moral constraints and the
complaints they allow. In the sort of cases under discussion, morality seems
at once both to insist upon the possibility of moral complaint, and to deny
it.
Gerald Allan Cohen visited Bilkent between 13-16 March 2006 (see this
page for more information about Prof. Cohen) and gave the following
talk:
Rescuing Justice from Constructivism
Time & Place:
Tue
14
Mar
2006 at 15:40 in
EA409
According to constructivism, and across its several variants (Rawls,
Scanlon, Gauthier, etc.), principles of justice are those which epistemically
and/or morally privileged choosers would select in answer to the question,
"What are the right principles for the regulation of social life?" I make one
simple point against constructivism, so conceived, and I examine its
implications. That simple point is that the answer to the stated question,
while depending in part on beliefs about justice, depends also on matters of
fact and feasibility that do not bear on the nature of justice, and on values
other than justice. The constructivist identification of principles of justice
with the right answer to the stated question is therefore unsustainable.
Gerald J. Massey visited Bilkent between 6-25 November 2005 (see
this page for
more information about Prof. Massey) and gave the following talks:
Problems, Promises, and Challenges of Zoological Philosophy
Time & Place:
Tue
22
Nov
2005
at 10:40 in
EA409
American Foreign Policy Under the Administration of George W. Bush: A
Philosophical Perspective
Time & Place:
Thu
17
Nov
2005
at 14:40 in
A130
A New Approach to the Logic of Discovery
Time & Place:
Tue
15
Nov
2005
at 10:40 in
EA409
Quine's Indeterminacy-of-Translation Thesis: Its Meaning and
Implications
Time & Place:
Fri
11
Nov
2005
at 10:40 in
EA409
Jonathan Dancy visited Bilkent between 26-29 September 2005 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Dancy) and gave the following
talk:
Non-naturalism and Normativity
Time & Place:
Tue
27
Sep
2005 at 13:40 in
EA409
Jonathan Wolff visited Bilkent between 17-22 April, 2005 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Wolff) and gave the following talks:
Risk, Fear, Blame, Shame and Railway Safety
Time & Place:
Tue
19
Apr
2005 at 13:40 in
EA409
Understanding Disadvantage
Time & Place:
Thu
21
Apr
2005 at 13:40 in EA409
Roy Sorensen and Julia Driver visited Bilkent between 14-17
March 2005 (see this
page for more information about Prof. Sorensen and this
page for Prof. Driver) and gave the following talks:
Spinning Shadows (by Roy Sorensen)
Time & Place:
Tue
15
Mar
2004 at
13:40 in
EA409
If a spinning sphere casts a shadow, does the shadow also
spin? This riddle is the point of departure for an investigation into the
nature of shadow movement. A general theory of motion will encompass all
moving things, not just physical objects. Ultimately, I argue that round
shadows do indeed spin. Shadows are followers of the objects that cast them.
Parts of the shadow correspond to parts of the leader, so motion of the
caster's parts accounts for motions of the shadow's parts. I conclude with a
discussion of how the dynamic aspects of shadows impose subtle constraints on
other puzzles about shadows.
Dream Immorality (by Julia Driver)
Time & Place:
Wed
16
Mar
2004 at
13:40 in
EA409
Stephen Mumford visited Bilkent between 30 October - 3 November 2004 (see this
page for more information about Prof. Mumford) and gave the following
talks:
Powers,
Dispositions, Properties
Time & Place:
Mon 1 Nov 2004 at 14:40 in FA120
Negative
Truth and Falsehood
Time & Place:
Tue 2 Nov 2004 at 13:40 in EA409
Tim Williamson visited Bilkent between 23-26 March 2004 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Williamson) and gave the following
talk:
What
are Philosophical Intuitions?
Time & Place:
Fri 26 Mar 2004 at 14:00 in
FFB05
1. What are called 'intuitions' in philosophy are just applications of
our ordinary capacities for judgement. We
think of them as intuitions when a special kind of scepticism about those capacities is salient. 2. Like scepticism about
perception, scepticism about judgement pressures
us into conceiving our evidence as facts about our internal psychological
states: here, facts about our conscious
inclinations to make judgements about some topic rather than facts
about the topic itself. But the pressure should be resisted, for it rests on
bad epistemology: specifically, on an
impossible ideal of unproblematically identifiable evidence. 3.
Our resistance to scepticism about judgement is not simply epistemic
conservativism, for we resist it on behalf
of others as well as ourselves. A reason is needed for thinking that beliefs
tend to be true. 4. Evolutionary explanations of the tendency assume what they
should explain. Explanations that appeal
to constraints on the determination of reference are more promising.
Davidson’s truth-maximizing principle of charity is examined but rejected.
5. An alternative principle is defended on
which the nature of reference is to maximize knowledge rather
than truth. It is related to an externalist conception of mind on which
knowing is the central mental state. 6.
The knowledge-maximizing principle of charity explains why scenarios
for scepticism about judgement do not warrant such scepticism, although it
does not explain how we know in any
particular case. We should face the fact that evidence is always liable
to be contested in philosophy, and stop using talk of intuition to disguise
this unpleasant truth from ourselves.
Tim Crane visited Bilkent between 9-11 February 2004 (see
this
page for more information about Prof. Crane) and gave the following
talk:
Subjective
Truth
Time & Place: Mon 9 Feb
2004 at 14:00 in EA409
Bertrand Russell once observed that 'it is
plain that the sighted know things which the blind do not. But a blind
man could know the whole of physics'. From this, plus some other
assumptions, it can be concluded that there is knowledge of certain
facts which is not available to physics. This argument was made famous
by Frank Jackson in 1982 and named the 'knowledge argument'. What is the
significance of this argument? Does the knowledge argument threaten
Physicalism, the thesis that in some sense everything is physical? Some
philosophers have argued that it does not, and claim that the knowledge
argument is fallacious. In this lecture I will show why there is no
fallacy in the argument, but also why it does not threaten physicalism.
The argument is instead a sound argument for the conclusion that there
are subjective truths or facts, and this conclusion is one which every
metaphysical viewpoint should accept.
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