Popper Seminar

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    Patricia Rich (Bayreuth): “Knowledge in Real-World Contexts: Not Glamorous, but Indispensable”

Patricia Rich (Bayreuth): “Knowledge in Real-World Contexts: Not Glamorous, but Indispensable”

15 March 2022|

 

 
Patricia Rich (Bayreuth): “Knowledge in Real-World Contexts: Not Glamorous, but Indispensable”

During the past few decades, many epistemologists have argued for and contributed to a paradigm shift which repositions knowledge as the central concept in epistemology and the fundamental explanatory and normative force. For example, knowledge has been argued to provide the normative standard for assertion and action, […]

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    Jessica Keiser (Leeds): “Linguistic Conventions and Language Change”

Jessica Keiser (Leeds): “Linguistic Conventions and Language Change”

8 February 2022|

 

 
Jessica Keiser (Leeds): “Linguistic Conventions and Language Change”

I argue that data about language change casts doubt on the following two theses of the Lewisian metasemantic picture: that the essential function of language is communication, and that people share a language in virtue of a common interest (namely, to achieve that particular function). I propose a novel metasemantic […]

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    Giacomo Giannini (LSE): “Relational Troubles: Structuralist Worries for an epistemology of powers-based modality.”

Giacomo Giannini (LSE): “Relational Troubles: Structuralist Worries for an epistemology of powers-based modality.”

9 November 2021|

 

 

Giacomo Giannini (LSE): “Relational Troubles: Structuralist Worries for an epistemology of powers-based modality.”

Dispositionalism is the theory of modality that grounds all modal truths in powers: all metaphysically possible and necessary truths are to be explained by pointing at some actual power, or absence thereof.

One of the most enticing and often cited reasons to endorse dispositionalism is that […]

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Susanna Siegel (Harvard): “The phenomenal public”

26 October 2021|

 

 

Susanna Siegel (Harvard): “The phenomenal public”

What modes of mentality can be used to grasp the idea of the ‘body politic’? A standard view is that within a polity, it is not possible to perceive the public – instead one has to imagine it. I argue that this view is wrong in letter but may be correct in […]

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Alexander Bird (Cambridge): “Against Empiricism”

30 March 2021|

 

Alexander Bird (Cambridge): “Against Empiricism”

Most philosophers of science are realists. Most philosophers of science are, at least implicitly, empiricists. But, I argue, it is not reasonable to be both an empiricist and a realist, because empiricism is motivated by epistemological internalism and realism requires the rejection of internalism. Nor is instrumentalism a reasonable position. So an empiricist […]

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    Kate Vredenburgh (LSE): “Causal explanation and revealed preferences”

Kate Vredenburgh (LSE): “Causal explanation and revealed preferences”

16 March 2021|

 

Kate Vredenburgh (LSE): “Causal explanation and revealed preferences”

Revealed preference approaches to modeling choice in the social sciences face seemingly devastating predictive, explanatory, and normative objections. In this talk, I will focus on predictive and explanatory objections, and offer two defenses. First, I argue that when revealed preferences are multiple realizable, revealed preferences can causally explain behavior well. […]

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Ella Whiteley (LSE): “Harmful Salience Structures”

2 March 2021|

 

Ella Whiteley (LSE): “Harmful Salience Structures”

Physical and psychological violence, to false beliefs and credibility deficits, have already been identified as potentially harming an individual or group, but facts about salience have not seemed particularly relevant to harm. In this talk, I argue that certain salience structures can indeed be harmful. One can harm an individual or group […]

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    Ulrich Meyer (Colgate): “Topology and Action at a Distance”

Ulrich Meyer (Colgate): “Topology and Action at a Distance”

16 February 2021|

 

Ulrich Meyer (Colgate): “Topology and Action at a Distance”

This paper presents a novel argument against the possibility of action at a distance, with realism about space-time topology as its main premise.

 

Ulrich Meyer is a Professor or Philosophy at Colgate University. His research interests include metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science and the philosophy of time.

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    Michael Diamond-Hunter (LSE): “The limits of accuracy for retrospective descriptions of racial groups”

Michael Diamond-Hunter (LSE): “The limits of accuracy for retrospective descriptions of racial groups”

17 November 2020|

 

 

Michael Diamond-Hunter (LSE): “The limits of accuracy for retrospective descriptions of racial groups”

In this paper, I will provide a discussion and solution for a phenomenon that has been left untouched by contemporary philosophical accounts of race: the understanding of groups in history. This paper is centrally concerned with retrospective description: the usage of contemporary racial terms as […]

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Marius Backmann (LSE): “Time for Freedom”

27 October 2020|

 
Marius Backmann (LSE): “Time for Freedom”
Views on free will are classically classified along their compatibility with determinism. Accounts that require a power to do otherwise require the existence of alternative future possibilities, which are taken to be incompatible with determinism. I argue that determinism does not automatically imply that the future is not settled, and neither does […]

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