1st
Annual In-House Graduate Conference
Central European University, Budapest
September 19-20, 2008
PROGRAM
PARTICIPANTS
Click on names for talk title and abstract
Robert Arnautu
Marina Bakalova
Viviana Bravescu
Ákos
Brunner
Ana Constaninescu
Mircea Cucu
Ştefan Ionescu
Martin Jankovic
Monica
Jitareanu
Maja Malec
Attila Németh
Milosz Pawlowski
Ákos Polgárdi
Ksenija Puškarić
Andrei Stavila
George Tudorie
Zoltan Wagner
ABSTRACTS
Robert Arnautu
Creating Scientific Concepts: Quantum Information
Quantum information was coined as the
entity that is processed in quantum computers, yet this kind of
information is very different from classical information. On the one
hand, quantum information cannot be stored, and it represents a state
out of an infinite number of states. On the other hand, the
transmission and processing of quantum information are only a
consequence of the specific experimental arrangements, and not of the
manipulation of one and the same characteristic. At the theoretical
level there is an ambiguous unity of the concept while at the practical
level there are as many possibilities to define quantum information as
the number of actual types of experiments. Moreover, the use of term
'quantum information' already represents an interpretation of quantum
mechanics, which translates different concepts and experiments. The aim
of my paper is to investigate the unity of this concept and the process
of its acquiring meaning.
Marina Bakalova
Defining Knowledge in Full
Generality
I argue that the tendency of
epistemologists to focus narrowly upon knowledge-that is misguided. Let me call
this focus “propositionalism”. Since there is no good way to handle
knowledge-how from this perspective, the narrow focus leads to the difficulty
of explaining the common nature of both knowledge-how and knowledge-that. The
only available option for the propositionalist to account for knowledge-how is
by arguing that it is a species of
knowledge-that. Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson present a technically
lucid defence of this claim. I
propose a more general account which stands against the propositionalist view. I argue that propositionalism is intuitively
implausible, and that there is an alternative way to generalize which is
intuitively plausible. I take knowledge-that to be a species of knowledge-how. I
propose a tentative definition of knowledge, introducing equal criteria for
knowledge-how and knowledge-that. This step pays no cost of discarding the rich
problematic which is already in epistemology’s offer.
Viviana Bravescu
On the Standard Meter
In Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke raised an
important question concerning the deeply rooted distinction between a priori
- a posteriori on one hand and necessary - contingent one the other hand.
In its most compact form the question is usually formulated as follows: Are
there contingent a priori truths? My aim in this paper is not, for the
time being, to settle this issue but to show that the famous example of the
standard meter given by Wittgenstein and refashioned by Kripke does not make
the case for the contingent a priori. My main argument goes back to explain
Wittgenstein’s view about the issue in question and by means of it refutes
Kripke’s account showing that the sentence The standard meter from Paris
is one meter long is not a case of contingent a priori truth.
Ákos Brunner
Stoic Ethics in Cicero’s De Finibus
Book III of Cicero’s De finibus is one of
our central sources on Stoic ethics; indeed, it is widely considered as the
most intelligent and instructive source on Stoic ethics we have. To be sure,
there is something of a division between those who read it as containing a
self-standing account of the „foundations” of Stoic ethics, and those who think
that it needs to be supplemented in terms of the appeal to cosmic teleology
that is present in the other –and much more condensed– version of the same type
of account, found in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives. But even the members of
the latter (and larger) camp extensively rely on Cicero’s presentation,
agreeing with the other party that it is a largely reliable testimony on
mainstream and orthodox Stoic theory.
I would like to counter this virtually
unanimous assessment by pointing out the necessity of replacing Cicero’s
account of Stoic ethics into the larger context of the De finibus. De
finibus III is not to be read in isolation, as the Latin paraphrase of some
Stoic treatise, but is part of a larger work, Cicero’s philosophical
essay on what he considers the crux of philosophical ethics. I argue that
Cicero’s understanding of Stoic ethics is greatly influenced by the
philosophical project of Antiochus of Ascalon, who, although he is less known
today, was one of the most acclaimed philosophers of Cicero’s youth, and whose
philosophical project Cicero, despite his Sceptic leanings, obviously found
attractive. Antiochus’ ethical theory is elaborated in De finibus V, and
in book IV Cicero’s criticism of the
Stoic theory is obviously launched from an Antiochean position. As it comes out
in these books, it was an important part of Antiochus’ strategy to downplay the
differences between his own ethical stance –which he identified as the “Old
Academic” tradition– and the Stoics, and to argue that the Stoic theory is
either inconsistent, or it collapses into a version of his “Old Academic”
theory, only masked by an affected terminology characteristic to the Stoics.
This philosophically motivated interpretation, I argue, has left its marks on
Cicero’s presentation of Stoic ethics in book III; by failing to pay sufficient
attention to this influence, and treating the central points of Cicero’s
presentation as direct evidence on orthodox Stoic doctrine, as both parties in
the above-mentioned controversy do, we run the risk of seriously
misrepresenting the Stoics.
Ana Constaninescu
Dreams: How
the Unconscious Sheds Light on the Conscious
In this paper I will try to prove that dreams give
us insight into our experiences, an insight that could help us know ourselves
better and make us more “aware” of ourselves. For many people I think the
concept of a unique, individual self is something quite remote, they don’t
think about who they are so much although they somehow “know” because they do
“act” as a unique individual self every day.
The question is: can the interpretation of dreams make us more conscious
of who we are as Freud thought? It is a difficult task, since dreaming is such
a private and subjective experience, and it is so hard to grasp the common
traits of all peoples’ dreams that some people might doubt these even exist.
What I will do here is outline and refute a theory called “the recycle bin
theory” on dreams, that claims dreams are just noise, a chaotic mixture of
leftover pieces of experience we accumulate during our conscious life. I will
be guided in this endeavor by people that have done heavy research on this
subject, such as Allan Hobson, Celia Green, Owen Flanagan and Collin McGinn.
Mircea Cucu
Some Considerations on Causal Over-determination
There is a common intuition that, even though
the cases of over-determination are not abundant in our world, in exceptional
situations there are over-determined effects. Thus, many notable philosophers
have recurrently cited in their writings a number of causal scenarios as illustrating
genuine cases of causal over-determination; in today's literature, these
scenarios are acknowledged as classical examples of over-determination.
I hold
that the main reason for which one thinks of each of these notorious scenarios
as illustrating the phenomenon of over-determination is that one believes that
these examples share a threshold function-like pattern. In my
presentation, I try to argue that, in fact, the most favored examples do not
follow the threshold function-like pattern; many of them only illustrate cases
of pseudo-over-determination (or partial over-determination). Finally, I
briefly advance an argument aimed to challenge the very concept of
over-determination.
Ştefan Ionescu
Essential vs. Accidental and the Logical Space
of Properties
Various attempts at understanding the
distinction between essential and accidental properties divide the logical
space of properties in different and incompatible ways. For instance, modal
accounts of the distinction (that equate necessary and essential properties,
and contingent and accidental ones, respectively) make the two classes of
properties contradictories, the distinction being both exclusive and
exhaustive. On the other hand, Aristotle's own understanding of the distinction
was not exhaustive (some properties were neither essential, nor accidental;
propria and trivial/ logical properties formed a class of necessary, but not
essential properties), and it is arguable that modern writers such as Kit Fine
follow in his steps. My aim is to compare these different approaches, and
investigate whether the answer to the question, “Is the distinction between
essential and accidental properties exhaustive?” can be useful for an
evaluation of essentialist theories.
Martin Jankovic
Time Consciousness: Its Unity and Continuity
Temporal unity of experience and its continuity
are the most fundamental features of conscious experience. Actually,
experiential unity over time and at a time seems to be a necessary condition
for every experience. But continuity over time leads to a problem of unification
(or synthesis) of successive moments into coherent experience. Such approach to
temporal unity of consciousness is open to “cognitive paradox”, which refers to
conflation of the relation of simultaneity with the relation of succession.
This paradox will be addressed from two points of view with regard to the
nature of unity of experience, the experiential parts view and the no
experiential parts view.
Monica Jitareanu
What We Find when Looking Inward: A Puzzle about the
Transparency of Experience
The paper analyses a certain puzzle about the
argument from transparency. The transparency argument is one of the most famous
arguments in the philosophy of perception; as an argument for the
intentionality of perceptual experience, it is equally an argument against
sense-data. On the other hand, it is sometimes claimed (most surprisingly, by
Michael Tye, one of the advocates of the intentionality of experience) that a
sense-data theorist could endorse transparency. These claims usually hint at G.
E. Moore, who first talked about it and who was also a sense-data theorist.
Thus,
the puzzle is generated by an inconsistent triad:
- Transparency is an argument
for intentionalism.
- Intentionalism is incompatible with either sense-data or
qualia theory.
- Transparency is compatible with sense-data theory.
I-III cannot
all be true.
My analysis focuses on two formulations of transparency. The right
interpretation, I argue, requires going back to Moore’s argument for the
act–object model of introspection. Thus, it emerges that we are dealing with
two arguments from transparency: one is an argument against mind-dependent entities
(qualia and sense-data), the other is an argument for what is known as the
(quasi)relational view of experience, and which is expressed as a thesis about
the phenomenal character of experience. The triad is not inconsistent: I. and
III. are not contradictory claims about one argument, but independent claims
about two different arguments. These arguments express different intuitions
about what is obvious in introspection; these intuitions are identified and
briefly discussed in the last part of the paper.
Maja Malec
Kit Fine’s
Definitional Conception of Essence
In contemporary analytic
philosophy, essence is usually explained in modal terms. An essential
property of an object is a property that the object must have; and the
word ‘must’ here invokes metaphysical necessity. This explanation was
persuasively criticized by Kit Fine, who pointed out that while essential
properties of an object are those that make it the object that it is, the modal
account also makes those properties essential that the object has as a
necessary result of being that object. According to Fine, these properties
cannot be excluded without invoking the nature of the object in question, which
makes the account circular. In this talk, I will discuss Fine’s definitional account
of essence, according to which the property of an object is its essential
property if it is part of ‘what x is’, as it is elucidated in the
definition of x. I will analyse its adequateness in general and the role
that the modality plays in it in particular.
Attila Neméth
Epicurean
Philosophy of Mind
Some of the fragments of Book 25 of Epicurus' On
Nature have received a great amount of scholarly attention ever since David
Sedley's first analysis of two of the major fragments. These fragments are open
to a wide range of interpretations, primarily because of the condition of the
texts and because of what follows from the fragmentary state of the theory
itself: the missing gaps can be filled out in various ways, especially if they
have to be harmonized with Epicurus' infamous conception of the atomic swerve
not testified in the surviving evidence.
The major debate concerning these
fragments has been whether they attest a reductionist or an anti-reductionist
theory of the mind, which obviously concerns our understanding of Epicurus'
entire philosophy. As appears from the general disagreement over Epicurus'
anti-/reductionism, much of an interpretation turns on the assumptions one
approaches and does a detailed analysis of the texts with. I think it is
impossible not to have some extra-textual assumptions, however, if one applies
modern terminology when analysing ancient texts, one unavoidably runs the risk
of placing too much weight on the philosophical reconstruction of the
fragments, and perhaps insists on squaring an ancient theory with some modern
conception - often done under the flag of the principle of charity -, so as to
make sense of the texts or the theory as a whole. This leads to an unavoidable
forgery of the historical reconstruction on occasions. Obviously the latter
cannot be an empty bag of tenets having no philosophical relevance, however, if
we attempt to analyze ancient texts in terms of their philosophical relevance
applying our modern conceptions we may miss out on the real historical
perspective which simply may not be represented in our modern positions, either
because it is false or at least it is thought to be fallacious these days.
Nonetheless,
I understand that in my paper I will need reduce the technical discussion of
the fragments to the minimum not to make a philosophical audience bored.
Therefore, the main focus of my attention will be to represent what I believe
to have been Epicurus' real position, which seems to be somewhere in between
the two major modern understandings.
Milosz Pawlowski
Fission and Consciousness: In Support of Dualism
After
defining several kinds of continuity of consciousness, I argue that the
possibility of there being a link of continuous consciousness between
experiences of a person at different times is a necessary condition of
personal identity. Next, I present an argument to the conclusion that
Fission cannot preserve continuity of consciousness. This conclusion is
used to argue against Reductionism and in favour of Dualism.
Ákos Polgárdi
On 'übersichtliche Darstellung'
In §122 of the Philosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein writes:
A main source of our failure to understand is that we do
not command an overview [übersehen] of the use of our words. –
Our grammar is lacking in perspicuity [Übersichtlichkeit]. A perspicuous
presentation [übersichtliche Darstellung] facilitates an understanding
which consists precisely in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of
finding and inventing intermediate cases.
The concept of a perspicuous
presentation is of fundamental importance for us. It earmarks our form of
presentation [Darstellungsform], the way we look at things. (Is this a
‘Weltanschauung’?)
I think this section contains three different, although of
course interconnected, claims. First, Wittgenstein appears to identify some
sort of insufficiency in our ‘understanding’, and attributes it to a lack of
perspicuity in grammar that makes it difficult for us to survey ‘the use of our
words’. Second, we are given a kind of functional definition of the notion of ‘übersichtliche
Darstellung’, a supposed remedy for this shortcoming of our understanding.
A definition which, in a characteristically Wittgensteinian manner, doesn’t
provide us with the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to
qualify as an übersichtliche Darstellung, but rather explains the notion
in terms of its use. Finally, we are provided with another piece of information
regarding übersichtliche Darstellung, namely that it is of fundamental
importance to Wittgenstein’s method in the sense that it is characteristic of
the form of presentation he offers.
These three claims confront us with (at
least) two major problems of the later Wittgenstein’s methodology. First, it is
not clear exactly what ‘our failure to understand’ refers to. Second, it is
even further from being clear what an übersichtliche Darstellung would
consist in. The aim of the present paper is to reconstruct and evaluate two
suggestions for answering the second question (bearing in mind that this might
hopefully contribute to answering the first) offered by P. M. S. Hacker and
Gordon Baker.
Ksenija Puškarić
A Defense of the Argument from Religious Experience
Some people have
experienced a presence of a supreme, holy, good, and loving being, which gave
them so great certainty in the existence of God as to overwhelm any argument
which could question the belief that God exists. Is there any rational for such
a strong conviction? Can religious experience (RE) provide justification for
the belief in the existence of God? I argue that it can. In this paper I have
tried to pin down the rational side of the evidential force of the religious
experience. The kinds of experience
that I am going to discuss here are those in which an object, taken by the
subject to be God, appears to be holy, infinite, good, etc., although no typically
sensory attributes can be attached to the object. In his famous book,
Perceiving God, Alston calls such religious experiences mystical. Common examples of it are feeling the
presence of God, His love, His glory, etc. I will argue that such non-sensory
REs cannot be so easily explained away as being illusionary or hallucinatory. I
will try to show that the phenomenology of non-sensory REs, or mystical
experiences (ME), strongly indicates that such experiences cannot occur unless
the object, taken to be God, is actually present.
Andrei Stavila
Political Neutrality and Epistemic Abstinence: A Rawlsian Plea for Our Political Institutions’ Shallow Foundations
The task of the political philosopher is to offer a theory of justice
for the whole society. But this seems a hard thing to do, since individuals
with divergent comprehensive worldviews hold different things as being “true”.
The question then is: what is the basis of our political institutions and
of governmental policies? In the literature, different authors put forth diverse
answers. Some think that our institutions and policies should be based on
their “truth” (Joseph Raz); others believe that the only foundation we need
is a mere “overlapping consensus” (John Rawls), or an attitude of “epistemic
abstinence” advanced by the state (Thomas Nagel). Still others consider that,
with few exceptions (i.e., individual rights and liberties guaranteed by
the Constitution), any decision that has been democratically determined has
the strongest authority (Thomas Christiano).
This paper starts with the Rawlsian premise according
to which the state is a common venture meant to advance equally the interests
of all parties involved. I will try to show that, if we accept this definition,
then the only solution we can admit is a type of the doctrine of epistemic
abstinence. A test case (concerning the debate whether we should teach both
creationism and evolutionism in schools) will show that other alternatives
fail to treat equally the interests of all the parties involved. Again, the
example of the state’s treatment of sexual minorities will show that sometimes
political action might not be based only on its truth, but also on an overlapping
consensus (about the way a human being should be treated). I call my proposal
the soft epistemic abstinence theory. At the end of my talk, two possible
counterarguments will be met and answered.
TOP
George Tudorie
Understanding Minds: The Case of Schizophrenia
Mental illness has always attracted a good deal of
theoretical interest, but thinking about such conditions is notoriously
problematic. In the early 1990s Chris Frith has proposed a unitary
account of schizophrenic symptoms that connected these symptoms to a
dysfunction in the capacity to think about minds. Frith’s
proposal triggered a good deal of research seeking to evaluate the role
of a breakdown in the capacity to understand minds in schizophrenia.
Recently, Frith and Corcoran have suggested linking access to
one’s own mental states to the performance on attributions
of such states to others. They suggested that their theory bears
resemblance with simulation accounts of mindreading.
In this paper I propose to evaluate this
suggestion. I begin by sketching a map of the controversies about
mindreading. The field is moving away from the bipolar theory-theory /
simulation theory debate, important authors seeming now favorable to
hybrid accounts. (E.g. Nichols and Stich – Mindreading; Goldman -
Simulating Minds). Since controversies survive, I continue by proposing
a number of desiderata for a theory of mindreading. Among these
desiderata there is the requirement that an acceptable theory should
explain not only typical patterns of performance in mindreading, but
also patterns of breakdown. This requirement connects the construction
of a theory of mindreading with the data and models available from the
study of psychopathology.
At this point, I will consider the following
questions: (i) Is schizophrenia a relevant illness? (ii) Are Frith and
Corcoran right to suggest a connection between first- and third person
mindreading dysfunctions? (iii) Does the research inspired by Frith
support a simulation theory of mindreading? Eventually, in trying to
answer such narrow-scope questions we should be able to understand
better deeper problems, such as what psychopathology can illuminate
about our minds.
Zoltan Wagner
Freedom as Self-Transcendence
There are two very different theories of compatibilist
freedom. Sometimes compatibilists claim that freedom amounts to
self-expression, that is, one is free if one is able to express his deepest or
real self with his actions. However, there are cases in which it is doubtful
that being determined by our real self makes us free. Rather, in some cases
freedom requires that we are able to transcend this very real self.
Self-Transcendence has both a metaphysical and an ethical aspect. The
metaphysical aspect is that self-transcendence depends on being determined by
the objectively good. The ethical aspect is that we have certain obligations
that involve self-transcendence. In my talk I will analyze the relationship
between these two aspects of freedom as self-transcendence.
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