2nd
Annual In-House Graduate Conference
Central
European University, Budapest
Otcober 2-3, 2009
PROGRAM
PARTICIPANTS
Click
on names for talk title and abstract
Keynote Speaker:
Howard Robinson
Robert Arnautu
Maria
Asavei
Marina
Bakalova
Ákos
Brunner
Tomasz
Budek
Ana
Constaninescu
Mircea
Cucu
Rastislav
Dinic
Monica
Jitareanu
Mojca
Kuplen
Cecilia
Lippai
Chrysovalantis
Margaritidis
Urša Mavric
Ksenija
Puškarić
Maria
Trofimova
George Tudorie
ABSTRACTS
Keynote
Speaker: Howard Robinson
Qualia,
Qualities and Our Conception of the Physical World: The True Strength
of the Knowledge Argument
The
knowledge argument is standardly taken as proving - if good - that
there is a tiny corner of the universe, namely certain mental states,
with which physicalism cannot cope. I contend that what the argument
shows is that standard physicalism cannot accommodate the qualitative
nature of reality, not just qualia in consciousness. (This realization
emerged during classes on the philosophy of mind that Hanoch and I gave
together.) But without qualitative content our conception of the
physical is formal and abstract. Without the special nature of qualia,
there could be no conception of the physical at all.
Robert
Arnautu
Descartes on
Technology: From Art to Science
The
prevalent
contemporary conception of technology states that devices are
scientifically
made tools, neutral from any moral point of view. This is a consequence
of
Cartesian revolution. From Aristotle to Solomon de Caus the
construction of
mechanisms is a form of techne,
i.e. of art in a broad sense. The
mechanism is a way to perfect a teleological nature by artistic means
of
artisans. But Descartes accepts only local causes in nature that can be
described by mathematical means. As a consequence, the construction of
mechanisms becomes a scientific process, the assemblage of minute local
causes.
Thus, technology is nothing else but applied science. In my
presentation I
shall develop the two opposite views, acknowledging in the end the fact
that in
construction of technical devices more than pure science is implied.
Maria
Asavei
How Could Political
Art
Satisfy the Claims of
Aesthetic Beauty?
Obviously, political artworks don’t
start from the purist premises of beauty, or from the premise that they
should
be perceived and evaluated as “aesthetic pleasing
forms”. This is one of the
reasons why many art theorists incriminate political art production,
calling it
“the servant of ideology at the expense of beauty”.
According to the main
cliché of the institutionalized discourse of art and beauty,
political art is
seen as didactic, dry, self-congratulating, pathetic, dangerous,
art-hood-destroyer, and too transparent to be interesting. Thus,
“beauty” is at
odds with cultural critique. There is also the largely accepted idea
according
to which art is necessarily associated with something meant to be
beautiful, or
at least with something that we watch just in order to enjoy ourselves,
but not
in order to get involved with.
On the other hand we have the other,
“it
does
not matter” view
– namely, the one represented by art theorists and
practitioners who claim that beauty does not matter for political and
activist
art. They find beauty too pretentious and
“useless”. In their opinion, beauty
is meant only for being looked at and admired; it cannot really change
something in the world, not even in the mind of the beholder. Starting
with the
Avant-Garde’s suspicion regarding the concept of
“beauty” and finishing with
Danto’s dictum “Beauty is dead!”, most
contemporary art production does not try
to be beautiful anymore. My point in this talk is not to take sides but
to
reconsider the question of “beauty” and its status
in political art production,
distribution and reception.
Marina
Bakalova
Perception
as Success from Ability
In his paper
“Disjunctivism and Skepticism” Alan
Millar offers a model for understanding (or conceptually grasping)
McDowell’s
epistemological disjunctivism. The latter theory amounts to the idea
that an agent’s
experience provides different evidence in the case of perception than
in the
cases of illusion and hallucination. McDowell tries to explain the
alleged difference
by claiming that veridical experience “takes in” an
object, while non-veridical
experience takes in just appearances. Millar
rightly notices that the indicated difference in experiential intake
does not
plausibly amount to evidential difference. He suggests that in order to
appreciate the epistemological contrast of the disjunctive states we
better abandon
the evidentialist model, and focus instead on the role of perceptual
abilities
in shaping the agent’s experience. Millar argues that
discriminative and
recognitional abilities are the ones that do the job of linking
perceptual experience
immediately and non-inferentially to external objects.
I explore Millar’s idea
further
in an attempt to defend the view that veridical experience is
object-related
and not just appearance-related. I assume that there are two types of
abilities
that could be responsible for shaping perceptual experience: O-type
ability,
which relates the agent to external objects, and OA-type ability which
relates the
agent to subjective appearances. Also, I distinguish between
“having” ability (which
is a matter of reliability), and “exercising”
ability (which entails actual success
in every particular instance). Assuming that S is a normal perceiver in
the
world of physical objects, I argue that both S and a well trained
brain-in-a-vat
(which includes a visual system) have
both O-type ability, and OA type-ability. Only S is in a position to
exercise her O-ability, and the BIV is
not. I take it that on certain occasions, the BIV exercises its
OA-ability. Further
on, I refer to Ernest Sosa’s criterion of success from
ability, and I try to
show that there is a substantial asymmetry in the way the O-type
abilities satisfy
the criterion, and the way the OA-type abilities do so.
Ákos
Brunner
Is Stoic Ethics
Autonomous?
How
do the Greek
philosophers (from about the time of Plato onwards) conceive of the
relation
between the two major fields of philosophical enquiry, metaphysics and
ethics? At
first glance it might seem tempting to discard this question as
uselessly
general. Surprisingly, however, in her influential book The
Morality of Happiness
(1993) Julia Annas argues to the effect
that this question has a single straightforward answer: ancient ethical
thought
is largely independent
of the rest of
philosophical theorising, such that this excludes e.g. metaphysics as a
significant factor in ethical reasoning proper.
In examining this general thesis
I argue, first, that it actually implies two claims that Annas fails to
properly
distinguish from each other. The first of these claims is less
controversial:
ancient ethical theories share a general conceptual framework
(understood as a
set of common concerns, notions and background assumptions) which does
not significantly
rely on any formerly established non-ethical (metaphysical) assumptions
(“autonomy in
form”). The second
(and much
stronger) claim is that ethical reasoning within
this common conceptual framework cannot significantly involve
non-ethical
(metaphysical) premises (“autonomy in content”).
Second, I turn to the case
study which carries the main burden of Annas’ argument for
the latter claim:
her interpretation of the Stoic ethical theory. This interpretation, I
argue,
crucially builds on an analogy drawn between the Stoic theory and
Kant’s moral
philosophy; but this analogy is misleading because it neglects aspects
of
Kant’s ethical thought that come out rather clearly in
Kant’s Groundwork
for the Metaphysics of Morals.
Tomasz
Budek
Multi-objectuality
of
Perception
According
to the Multi-Objectuality of Perception thesis, our sensory contact
with the
world can concern objects which are identified at different links in
causal
chains that result in or underlie our sensory experiences. Since, for
instance,
one can hear both the sound and hear the object which produced it,
there seems
to be no controversy about the thesis in this most general form.
However, a version
of the thesis with which I will be concerned, according to which our
perceptions of such different objects are instances of immediate
perception,
has been rejected by most philosophers.
In the talk I will discuss a
supposed instance of multi-objectual perception and argue that there
are some
features present in perceiving different objects that the theories of
perception endorsed recently by most philosophers cannot account for.
Next, I
discuss two major strategies one can adopt to deal with the problem:
one can either
accept the multi-objectuality thesis but deny that the case discussed
is an
instance of multi-objectual perception, or one can deny the thesis
itself. I
argue that the first strategy cannot succeed and next try to find
plausible
ways one can pursue the latter strategy.
Ana
Constaninescu
Altered States of
Consciousness as a Way of
Reenacting Experiences and States of Mind
In this paper I will discuss the value of
altered states of consciousness as a way of reenacting certain
experiences or
states of mind. While last year I was discussing dreams, this year the
main
focus of my paper will be on psychedelic states and states obtained
through a
special breathing technique. I will mainly discuss a book by
psychiatrist
Stanislav Grof called “The Holotropic Mind”. The
purpose of this paper is to
discuss two main questions: are altered states a way of reenacting
certain experiences
and states of mind and if so why is this valuable.
Mircea
Cucu
Criteria of Event Identity
Different
concepts of event tend to suggest
different criteria for event individualization. It seems that what
identity
criterion one adopts for events is highly dependent on what view of
events one
is committed to. Of particular importance for such a criterion is
whether
events are taken to have metaphysical structure. Davidson’s
view is
paradigmatic for the individuation of monolithic events. On the other
side, Kim
is an important reference for his view on structured events. I shall
try to
point out some difficulties encountered by each of these theories of
events.
Instead, starting from the common idea that an event is a change in
properties,
I shall come with a conception that takes events to be temporal
structures of
states. Naturally, if I am right, the identity of an event depends also
on the
temporal profile of transition through the intermediary states.
Rastislav
Dinic
Epistemic
Proceduralism:
Objections and Suggestions
I
will present David Estlund's epistemic proceduralist justification of
democratic authority and objections put to it by Elizabeth Anderson and
Thomas Christiano, and discuss the way these could be met and resolved.
Monica
Jitareanu
Receiving the Form
without the Matter:
Intentionalist Interpretations of Aristotle’s Theory of
Perception
Many
philosophers think that Aristotle’s theory
of perception can be an inspiration for contemporary intentionalist
theories of
perceptual experience. The reason philosophers have been so
enthusiastic about
it is that it may indicate ways of developing the view that perceptual
experience is essentially about an external object. The problem faced
by
intentionalist theories of perception is whether sense can be made of
the idea
that experience can make its object available “without
possessing the quality
of that object in a literal material manner, as would a simple
pictorial
representation”, as Howard Robinson put it; “that
is, represent its content
transparently, not constituting the kind of ‘veil of
perception’ that the
empiricists’ contents are supposed to constitute.”
(H. M. Robinson, Perception.
Routledge, 1994)
In this paper I consider several interpretations
of the Aristotelian
doctrine of receiving the form without the matter and possibilities for
developing intentionalist theories of perceptual experience.
Mojca
Kuplen
Can Kant's Theory
Challenge Contemporary Art: The Case of Ugliness
Every
theory of art and aesthetics is only as good as the solution it gives
to the challenges of contemporary art. I will discuss two such
challenges that every aesthetic theory of art must confront in order to
explain contemporary art production:
(i)
That the value of contemporary art does not lie in perceptual (formal)
properties of a work of art but in the cognitive elements
(ideas,
concepts, meanings) that lie beyond the sensory surface of an object.
If aesthetic value of an object depends on its formal qualities (such
as spatial and temporal arrangment of an object), then how can such
theory explain works of art whose essence lies in non-formal qualities?
(ii)
The fascination of contemporary art with ugliness; if according to an
aesthetic theory the value of an object is determined by its positive
aesthetic quality of beauty, then any work of art which prompts the
negative aesthetic quality of ugliness is indication of aesthetical
badness or unsuccessfulness.
I
will argue that reconciliation of aesthetic formalism with an account
of aesthetic ideas in Kant's aesthetic theory can satisfactory solve
both of the challenges.
Cecilia
Lippai
Generative
Phenomenology as a Method?
Phenomenology,
at least in its original Husserlian form, is usually associated with
transcendental subjectivism and thought to be necessarily foundational.
I would like to show how
these judgments need to be revised or nuanced,
by revisiting three dimensions that can be identified in Husserlian
phenomenology: two well-known (static and genetic) and one almost
completely disregarded (generative). My question is whether the
phenomenological methods of these different approaches are
intrinsically dependent upon particular metaphysical or epistemological
claims, or could they be successfully employed without subscribing to
Husserl’s more general stance.
Chrysovalantis
Margaritidis
Intuitions
and Galen Strawson's 'Basic Argument'
TBA.
Urša
Mavric
Secession: A
Solution in
Search of a Problem?
Political
philosophy for long neglected the issue of secession and with only rare
exceptions
started paying attention to it after the massive reorganizations of
state borders,
i.e. with the dissolutions of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
Normative theories took
three main positions: (1) secession should be seen as a right of every
nation;
(2) it should be seen as a plebiscitary right; (3) it should be
considered as a
remedial right only. I seek to show that, first, the »to each
nation a state«
position is implausible and thus should be rejected; and secondly, that
both
the plebiscitary theories and the remedial right only theories seem to
be
equally plausible, but apply in different circumstances. The
plebiscitary
theory applies in cases where there are no deep grievances on the side
of the
seceding group and procedural mechanisms are in place. On the other
hand,
secession as a remedial right is justified when a group has been
subdued to
gross human rights violations, where autonomy agreements have been
breached or
where a group has permanently and consistently been excluded from
participating
in political life. But this seems paradoxical. Where secession would be
needed
the most to solve the bad situation a group is in, the conditions that
need to
be met are very stringent, and where the group seeking secession is in
a
relatively good position the conditions are rather relaxed. Thus,
secession
appears to be a solution in search of a problem: the more urgent the
problem,
the less available secession is as a solution.
Ksenija
Puškarić
The Cartesian
Idea Of God As The Infinite
Descartes conceived God as infinite – limitless in all
respects.
In the Third Meditation he argues that only God could be the source of
such an idea.
However, Descartes’ critics
objected that it is
possible to generate the idea of actual infinity
by negating limits to
every
imperfection, or by amplifying it from finite perfections. The burden
is on
Descartes to explain why the idea of God could not be invented, either
via
negation or via amplification. I will discuss whether his reply is
successful.
A further question that presents a
problem for
Descartes’ conception of God emerges from two apparently
inconsistent
claims.
Descartes
admits that human
intellect cannot grasp the infinite, but he also affirms that he has a
“true
and complete idea of the infinite”. The question I will
discuss is whether both
claims can be reconciled.
Maria
Trofimova
Meaning of
Prepredicative
Experience
In this
talk I will analyze Husserl’s theory of
meaning in his latest work ‘Experience and
Judgment.’ My aim is to show the
significance of studies of prepredicative experience insofar they
provide the
foundation for the process of concepts and judgements’
formation.
I will show
that every passive reception of sense-data already involves an active
bestowal
of meaning and constitution of an object-substrate. These operations
are
performed by a motivated consciousness that experiences a genuine
interest in
its object. I will explicate how an object is prepredicatively
constituted step
by step, first through being contemplated as a flux of now-points with
its
ever-changing protentional and retentional horizons, and then through
being
apprehended along with its determinations.
Another task of my talk is to show
that investigation into prepredicative experience is one of the crucial
points
where phenomenology should value its possible cooperation with
cognitive
science, especially with such aspects of the latter as neuropsychology
and
psychopathology in their experimental parts.
George
Tudorie
Is there a case for
collective intentionality in infancy?
In a number of
recent papers, Tomasello and colleagues (notably Ulf Liszkowski) argue
for explanations of infant behavior (e.g. communicative pointing) that
appeal to an incipient ability of babies to coordinate action with
other agents. This ability is then accounted for in terms of collective
intentionality. Collective intentionality however is a somewhat
mysterious concept. Searle proposed that the collective aspect is sui generis;
intending collectively is a special kind of intending. Others, like
Michael Bratman, suggested that it is the content of collective
intentions that makes for their capacity to extend to others’
actions. Intending collectively is then not a special kind of
intending, but intending to achieve goals in a special manner. Bratman
also proposed a series of criteria for collective intentions that were
operationalized by Tomasello’s group in their attempt to
uncover
such intentions at preverbal ages. I will argue that this attempt
fails, since Bratman’s criteria translate poorly in the
context
of infant research, and also because these criteria are used in a
framework informed by a largely Searlian emphasis on the special
character of acting collectively.
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