Mumble Research Group -  Research Seminars

Joulia Smortchkova (Université Grenoble Alpes ):  First impressions and affect

June 3, 2025, 4-6 PM CET
Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo (Ground Floor), Turin

It has been recently argued that there is an affective aspect to perception. The intuitive claim is that, alongside sensory properties such as shapes, colors, orientations, we also perceptually experience affective valences. The relation between perception and affective valence is debated, however. Is affective valence a phenomenal quality of perceptual experiences? Is it represented in perceptual content on the model of the rich perceptual content view? Or is it rather a distinctive form of perceptual attitude? In my talk I will use the case study of first impressions, the phenomenon of vividly experiencing something for the first time, to suggest that the affective aspect of perception might be multi-level: both as a feature of perceptual experience and as a metacognitive feature of perceptual processing. The multi-level hypothesis can explain cases of affectively conflicting perceptual first impressions as well as how the affective tone of perception changes over time.

Kathrin Koslicki (University of Neuchâtel): TBA

May 6, 2025, 4-6 PM CET
Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo (Ground Floor), Turin

Alon Chasid (Bar-Ilan University): Taking on a fictional doxastic (orectic) role: toward a definition of imagination

April 8, 2025, 4-6 PM CET
Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo (Ground Floor), Turin

Imagination is sometimes claimed to be unconstrained: we are, to a great extent, free to imagine what we want. However, it seems that, within a specific (spontaneous or intended) imaginative project, our imaginings do not arise ‘just like that,’ but are constrained in certain ways. Showing that the constraints (or rules) that apply to imagining arise from the fact that imagining involves the simulation of certain mental roles, I will propose a definition of imagining in terms of such a simulation. More precisely, I will argue that, instead of accounting for mental simulation in terms of (belief-like / desire-like) imagining, imagining can be accounted for—indeed, fully analyzed, and defined—in terms of a certain type of mental simulation.

Chaz Firestone (Johns Hopkins University):   Seeing "How"

April 1, 2025, 4-6 PM CET
Webinar

What is perception? The most intuitive and influential answer to this question has long been the one given by David Marr: To see the world is “to know what is where by looking” — to transform light into representations of objects and their features, located somewhere in space. But is this all that perception delivers? Consider the figure below; certainly you see some colored shapes, as well as where they are located. Yet, beyond this, you may also see how they relate to one another: The green piece can fit into the others, and even create a new object with a shape of its own. In this talk, I present evidence that perception extracts relations between objects in much the same way as it processes the objects themselves, and that these relations are abstract, structured, and surprisingly sophisticated. We’ll explore (and experience) the perception of several sophisticated relations between objects, including combining, supporting, containing, covering, and fastening — as well as relational “illusions” in which objects appear to interact with mysteriously invisible entities. Together, this work suggests that we see not only “what” and “where”, but also “how”.

Gerardo Viera (University of Sheffield): Perception and the Naïve Conception of Time

March 18, 2025, 2-4 pm CET

Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo ground floor, Turin

According to the naïve, or common-sense, conception of time, time has a linear structure. This linear structure can be understood in terms of a combination of three features: The world contains a single unified timeline in which events can be ordered in terms of earlier than, simultaneity, and later than relations. This timeline exhibits various causal, practical, and epistemic asymmetries. And the present moment plays a special role in this timeline as the dividing point between the past and the future. Where does this naïve conception of time come from? According to the dependency thesis, widely endorsed in philosophy and psychology, our understanding of linear time depends on our capacities for episodic memory. As I show, many people endorse the dependency thesis because they think an understanding of linear time requires a prior awareness or experience of linear time, which they argue is only possible through episodic memory. Episodic memory provides us with a distinct awareness of time that is not possible through any other psychological faculty. Call this the distinctiveness thesis. In this talk, I argue that the distinctiveness thesis is false. Perception itself represents time ordered, asymmetric, and distinguishes between the past, present, and future. As a result, if the dependency thesis is true at all, it must be motivated independently of the distinctiveness thesis.

Alfredo Tomasetta (IUSS Pavia): For-me-ness and No-Self . A Critical Appraisal of a Recent Indo-Analytic Argument

March 4, 2025, 4-6 pm CET

Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo ground floor, Turin

According to Chadha (Selfless Minds, Oxford University Press, 2023), the great Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu denied the existence of the self in any form. Yet there seems to be something in our experience that signals that we own our experiences. How can this phenomenology of ownership be explained in the absence of a self? To this objection, Chadha offers an answer on behalf of Vasubandhu: there is no phenomenology of ownership to explain. In arguing for this conclusion, she focuses on the sense of ownership of bodily awareness. Here is her argument in a nutshell: there is a vivid, albeit rare, sense of bodily dis-ownership; the usual absence of this phenomenology is the basis of our routine judgments of bodily ownership; so, there is no sense of bodily ownership, only judgments we make in the absence of the sense of bodily dis-ownership. My claim is that even if we concede this point to Chadha, it does not follow that there is no sense of ownership of our experience. To argue for this thesis, one needs an example of an experience that is not experienced as one's own; but Chadha's argument provides none. So, I think her remarks, while interesting in many ways, are beside the point.  I conclude by suggesting a different and more promising argumentative strategy that Chadha could have used.

Francesco Orilia (University of Macerata): Nothing and Something

December 10, 2024, 2-4 pm CET

Meeting Room (2D263) del Campus Luigi Einaudi (Lungo Dora Siena, 100 - 10124 Torino)

Famously, Leibniz asked why there is something rather than nothing, and Heidegger took over the issue, ending up with the claim that Das Nichts selbst nichtet, which Carnap blamed as meaningless. Alberto Voltolini has argued that an appropriate interpretation, possibly with recourse to Russellian denoting concepts, allows us to see that this charge of meaninglessness is off track. Surely the whole issue needs to be revisited, since the typical readings in terms of standard first- order logic of “there is something” and “there is nothing,” presupposed by Carnap, are problematic. For they are necessarily true and necessarily false, respectively, whereas, intuitively, they are only contingently true and false, respectively. An appeal to Russellian denoting concepts suggests a remedy to this flaw and also a way to make sense of Heidegger’s claim, different from the one proposed by Voltolini.

Laura Caponetto (Cambridge University): On (Sexual) Refusal

November 12, 2024

Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo ground floor, Turin

Refusal, and especially sexual refusal, has been the focus of much philosophical attention over the past few decades. Social philosophers of language have debated over whether and how pornography silences women’s sexual refusals. Legal theorists working on rape law have placed emphasis on the importance of verbal refusal: saying “no” is enough to express lack of consent, and courts should recognize that sex after that point constitutes rape. In feminist lingo, “no means no”. Less attention has been paid to the varieties of things we can do with the word ‘no’. In this talk, I aim to map these varieties. I argue that refusal constitutes a speech act family comprising second-turn illocutions whose definitional normative function is to prevent certain obligations from being either created or waived. I begin by singling out the paradigmatic case of refusal, i.e. ‘permission-denying’ refusal. I then broaden the picture, to consider speech acts that share family resemblances with this paradigmatic case. And then I broaden it further, to look at speech acts that populate the ‘illocutionary neighbourhood’ (so to speak). I conclude by drawing the implications that my theoretical framework has for how we analyze sexual refusal.

Denis Buehler (Institut Jean Nicod, ENS): Attention and inquiry

Sept 24 2024

Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo ground floor, Turin

In this paper I argue that attention has a function in our capacity to find relevant perceptual information. I describe the capacity’s role in querying the world about our ongoing epistemic projects.

October 13, 2020

Friederike Moltmann (CNRS): Object-Based Truthmaker Semantics

Abstract: In this talk I will motivate and apply what I call object-based truthmaker semantics, an extension of Kit Fine's recent development of truthmaker semantics, which aims at a more adequate notion of content than possible-worlds semantics. Object-based truthmaker semantics is based on a novel ontology of attitudinal, modal, and intensional objects, whose nature and semantic roles provide new motivations for truthmaker semantics itself.

October 27, 2020

Franz Berto (St. Andrews): Foundations of Two-Component Semantics

Abstract: When do two sentences say the same thing, that is, express the same content? We defend two-component (2C) semantics, the view that propositional contents comprise pairs of irreducibly distinct components: (1) truth conditions, and (2) topic or subject matter. We present an abstract 2C formal semantics, which gives synonymy conditions while being neutral on the exact nature of subject matter. We contrast 2C with one-component semantics: the view that either truth conditions are reducible to subject matter, or vice versa. We discuss 1C-theories that utilize prominent ideas from Lewis, Fine, and Yablo, and argue for the superiority of 2C.

November 10, 2020

Giovanna Colombetti (Exeter): Affective scaffolding: but is it conscious?

Abstract:  In this talk I present some work in progress from my current book project, which is about affective scaffolding. I use this term to refer, specifically, to the activity of manipulating, and more generally interacting with, material objects in order to influence one’s own affective states and those of others. The question I address in this talk is: how conscious is this activity? It seems obvious that affective scaffolding can be deliberate and as such involve conscious intentions to change one’s affective state, or conscious plans for doing so. Not all activities of affective scaffolding are deliberate, though. We often develop habits of affective scaffolding that are not deliberate. The main aim of my talk is to elucidate whether and how these habits are conscious. To this aim, I will first introduce the notion of prereflective awareness (as already discussed in classical phenomenological works), and then reflect on whether and how this notion can help describe habitual affective scaffolding. I will also explain why in my view the notion of “implicit” habits is not sufficient for describing habitual affective scaffolding.

November 24, 2020

Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow): Is Virtual Reality Experience Illusory or Hallucinatory Experience?  

Abstract: Does virtual reality involve illusory or hallucinatory experience of things that are not present, or does it involve veridical experience of virtual objects? Philosophers have defended one or other of these options in recent debate. I answer this question by outlining and extending a new theory of illusion and hallucination developed in Macpherson and Batty (2016) and applying it to virtual reality experience. In so doing, I pay attention to a feature of virtual reality experience unduly neglected in the philosophical literature: how it is actually produced. The result is a new account of the nature of virtual reality experience that shows that it is far more complex than extant accounts envision. Extant accounts have assumed a false dichotomy: that the experience is either wholly illusory or hallucinatory or wholly veridical. I show that it involves multiple veridical, illusory and hallucinatory elements related in a multifaceted fashion. Developing this account of the experience in virtual reality reveals important insights into the nature of indirect perception and reveals new forms of illusion and hallucination that any successful theory of perception and perceptual experience must be able to accommodate.

December 1, 2020

Susanna Schellenberg (Rutgers): Visual Space, Constancy, and Vision Science

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract: This paper discusses parameters for accounting for variance and invariance in perception by distinguishing between external, mind-independent perspectival properties and mind-dependent appearance properties, on the one hand, and between external, mind-independent intrinsic properties and mind-dependent constancy properties. It discusses several ways of accounting for the variant aspect of perception in terms of external mind-independent perspectival properties.

December 22, 2020

Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers): Economics of Imagination: Showing and Telling with Pictures and Words

(Handout of the talk)

(Recording of the talk: part 1 part 2 part 3)

Abstract: Pictures make meaning differently than words, and thereby engage imagination in different ways as well. I explore three key differences between imagistic and linguistic systems – in content, perspective, and force – conspire to shape the economics of imagination: in who pays, in what coin, for what result. There is no global currency of ‘worth’, but there are systematic tradeoffs to be navigated, by both maker and audience.

January 26, 2021

Johanna Seibt (Aarhus): Process ontology for cognition and sociality: some lessons from Robophilosophy

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract: This talk is a contribution to ‘robophilosophy’, a recently introduced (2014) area of applied philosophical research defined as “philosophy of, for, and by social robotics” (www.robophilosophyconference.org). While the ethical problems of AI and social robotics have been foregrounded during the past decade, the field of robophilosophy addresses also the conceptual problems that arise when artificial agents present themselves as social agents. With focus on social robotics in particular, I argue that in the current research situation we first need (philosophical) ontology and then ethics--more precise descriptions of human social interactions with robots will enable us to produce the sort of empirical data that can ground detailed ethical recommendations. I introduce the descriptive framework OASIS (Ontology of Asymmetric Social Interactions) which uses processontological foundations and is based on three constructional ideas: degrees of simulation, levels of sociality, and perspectivalness. As I try to show, OASIS offers simple, yet sufficiently expressive and precise descriptive tools that can facilitate the interdisciplinary integration of Human-Robot Interaction Research.

February 9, 2021

Cain Todd (Lancaster): Imagination, Attention, and Transparency

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract: This paper sketches an account of the phenomenology of sensory imagining, the key to which involves characterising certain ways in which it differs from standard cases of visual perception. I shall argue that the role of attention is crucial to showing how imagining lacks a particular kind of ‘transparency’ that perception typically possesses. I suggest that not only is the view I offer supported by significant empirical evidence, it points to a way of unifying certain rather disparate research areas in the neuroscience of imagining. 

February 23, 2021

Giuseppe Spolaore (Padua): Aspects and categories

(Recording of the talk)

​Abstract: In ordinary language, we often quantify over aspects, like when we say that two objects are similar under some aspects (e.g., size and color) and different under others (e.g., shape and texture). In the talk, which is based on joint work with Matteo Plebani, I outline a theory of aspects and of their linguistic expressions (which we call “categories”) that builds upon Lewis’ conception of subject matters as partitions of the logical space. Aspects and categories have received little attention, if any, in contemporary philosophy of language. I argue that this is an unfortunate overlooking, for aspects and categories (adequately understood) help shade light on a variety of linguistic and cognitive phenomena.

​March 9, 2021

Arnaud Dewalque (Liege): The Transparency of Attitudes: An Experiential Account 

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract. It is sometimes pointed out that one typically comes to distinguish between attitude types (supposing, wishing, hoping, and the like) by directing one’s attention at intentional objects. Call this the Transparency of Attitudes (TA). Assuming this is correct, how is TA possible? This paper aims to create a presumption in favor of an experiential account of attitude-type discrimination. To begin, the following argument by elimination is offered, and briefly discussed: (1) there are only three ways of explaining TA, namely in terms of (i) inference, (ii) rationality, or (iii) awareness; (2) (i) does not work; (3) (ii) does not work; therefore, (4) the only way of explaining TA is in terms of awareness. Drawing on insights from Brentano, I then proceed to sketch an experiential account of attitude awareness. The account has two main elements. First, attitudes are experienced ‘on the side’ (side awareness). Next, they are experienced more or less confusedly (confusedness). Each element is briefly presented and motivated.

March 16, 2021

James O'Shea (Dublin): What is (or was) Sellars's Myth of the Given?

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract. The idea of ‘the given’ and its alleged problematic status as most famously articulated by Sellars (1956, 1981) continues to be at the center of heated controversies about foundationalism in epistemology, about ‘conceptualism’ and nonconceptual content in the philosophy of perception, and about the nature of the experiential given in phenomenology and in the cognitive sciences.  I argue that the question of just what the myth of the given is supposed to be in the first place is more complex and multilayered than has typically been supposed in these debates, and that clarification of this prior question turns out to have surprising consequences. Foundationalism was only one of Sellars’s targets; and this was not only in the now familiar sense that the more fundamental issues at stake concern the very ‘objective purport’ or intentionality of our empirical thinking in general. When pushed further still, Sellars’s arguments pertaining to the Myth in fact hinged on his diagnoses of implicit framework-relative or ‘categorial’ ontological presuppositions in givenist views. Furthermore, the key to his critique of the entire ‘framework of givenness’ accordingly turns out to rest on questions and implicit assumptions concerning the in principle revisability of any such presuppositions, whether they be ‘innate’ or acquired, and including Sellars’s own. Another result is that widespread assumptions that Sellars’s famous critique is simply inapplicable or irrelevant to either carefully ‘thin’ nonconceptualist views of the given (such as C. I. Lewis’s), since they are ‘non-epistemic’; or alternatively, to robustly ‘thick’ conceptualist or phenomenological analyses, since they, too, reject ‘sense-data’ and other ‘thin’ conceptions of ‘the given’ – both turn out to be mistaken.

April 6, 2021

Carl Sachs (Marymount University): Intentionality in Light of Cybernetics: A Theme From Sellars’s Philosophy of Mind

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract. One of the more enduring issues in Sellars’s philosophy is the apparent tension between the sui generis character of normativity and the epistemic priority of scientific explanations. Although Sellars is a promising resource for those who want to naturalize normativity, it remains unclear what Sellars’s strategy consists of, or how well it succeeds. One obstacle to appreciating Sellars’s strategy is lack of attention to the conceptual resources he is drawing upon: cognitive behaviorism and cybernetics. Interpreting Sellars’s distinction between ‘signifying’ and ‘picturing’ in terms of behaviorism and cybernetics suggests an account in which rule-governed semantic vocabulary functions to coordinate behavioral outputs across multiply embodied dynamic computational systems. This view has significant advantages over both Fodorian intentional realism and the content/covariance distinction proposed by Hutto and Myin. 

April 20, 2021

Ian Phillips (John Hopkins): Blindsight Is Qualitatively Degraded Conscious Vision

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract. Blindsight is a neuropsychological condition defined by residual visual function following destruction of primary visual cortex. This residual visual function is almost universally held to include capacities for voluntary discrimination in the total absence of awareness. So conceived, blindsight has had an enormous impact on the scientific study of consciousness. It is held to reveal a dramatic disconnect between performance and awareness and used to motivate diverse claims concerning the neural and cognitive basis of consciousness. Here I argue that this orthodox understanding of blindsight is fundamentally mistaken. Drawing on models from signal detection theory in conjunction with a wide range of behavioral and first-person evidence, I contend that blindsight is severely and qualitatively degraded but nonetheless conscious vision, unacknowledged due to conservative

response biases. Psychophysical and functional arguments to the contrary are answered. A powerful positive case for the qualitatively degraded conscious vision hypothesis is then presented, detailing a set of distinctive predictions borne out by the data. Such data are further used to address the question of what it is like to have blindsight, as well as to explain the conservative and selectively unstable response criteria exhibited by blindsight subjects. On the view defended, blindsight does not reveal any dissociation between performance and awareness, nor does it speak to the neural or cognitive requirements for consciousness. A foundation stone of consciousness science requires radical reconsideration.

April 27, 2021

Irene Binini, Wolfgang Huemer, Daniele Molinari (University of Parma): A Game of Perspective. On the Role of Imagination in Thought Experiment

Abstract. Thought experiments are fictional narratives that serve as devices to widen our cognitive horizons both in the sciences and in philosophy. In the present paper we argue that they perform this function by prompting a specific kind of imagination that brings the perspective of another person into view (de illo imagining). The role of thought experiments is not to transmit true propositions to the reader, but to express a specific point of view. After presenting our analysis of thought experiments and of the role that de illo imagination plays in them, we revisit Galileo Galilei’s use of imaginary cases in light of our account. We show that the main aims of Galileo’s thought experiments are to highlight how different points of view affect imagination and to invite readers to actively engage in different perspectives. Readers of thought experiments do not passively absorb information, but critically assess the other’s point of view and contrast it with their own. To perform this task successfully, thought experiments need to be designed in a way that allows the reader to relate to the proposed (fictional) scenario.

May 18, 2021

Manuel García-Carpintero (Barcelona): The Fiction/Non-Fiction Distinction in Films

(Recording of the talk)

​Abstract: The paper rehearses a debate with Stacie Friend on the nature of the fiction/non-fiction divide. It first puts in a sharper focus the dividing issue, arguing that it is ontological in character. It focuses on how the distinction emerges in films, by contrasting fiction films with documentaries. The medium doesn’t affect the main issues, but it raises interesting questions. After highlighting two important points of agreement with Friend, in contrast with some other proponents of a similar view on the present debate like Currie, the paper offers a normative account of the distinction, offering some reasons to prefer it to Friend’s.

May 25, 2021

Charlotte Gauvry (Bonn): Isn’t illusionism the true face of representationalism? On phenomenological evidence

Abstract: For excellent reasons, many argue that representationalism, or more precisely some specific version of representationalism such as self-representationalism, is, to this day, the best explanatory model at our disposal to fully explain phenomenal consciousness. In particular, (self-)representationalism would be able to take into consideration the qualitative and subjective character of consciousness. At the same time, the realists have pointed out a fundamental limitation of (self-) representationalism: (self-) representationalism, which by definition reasons in terms of representation (i.e. potential mis-representations), is disarmed to account for a fundamental aspect of "self-awareness:" its presumed self-evidence. Rather than trying to combine representationalism with realistic intuitions on intimacy, the purpose of my presentation is to question the so-called phenomenological evidence of self-awareness. In particular, I will examine whether the counter-intuitive position called “illusionism” (see e.g. Frankish 2017), which takes that phenomenal consciousness results from an illusion, i.e. that to attribute phenomenal properties to experience is to (mis)-represent the properties of the experience, is not the natural upshot of the very idea of representationalism. In other words, rather than seeing illusionism as the reverse of representationalism, I will tentatively claim that the power of illusionism is to make manifest some of the constitutive assumptions of representationalism.

June 8, 2021

Imogen Dickie (Toronto): Representation of Objects, and the Goal of Ordinary Cognition

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract I’ll consider why we should think that ordinary belief-forming cognition has a goal at all; argue that part of this goal is to establish relations of aboutness with things outside the mind; show how this claim generates an argument for the conclusion that the aboutness of our ordinary thoughts is what I call ‘cognitive focus’; and gesture towards some applications.

October 12, 2021

Dustin Stokes (Utah): Perceptual Expertise and Creativity

(Recording of the talk) 

Abstract: Minimally, creativity involves psychological novelty—novelty in thought or action, relative to the agent’s past thought or action—where the agent is non-trivially responsible for the relevant achievement. Achieving creativity, thus understood, requires skill and imagination. Of the first, some creative acts/processes involve the execution of highly domain specific skills. Second, often one must employ imagination of some kind, combining new ideas, applying concepts in innovative ways, taking a new angle or perspective on a familiar problem. This takes cognitive energy: it places substantial demand on working memory. This paper attempts to shed new light on these features of creativity by focusing on empirical literature on perceptual expertise. That literature employs behavioural, neural, and physiological methods to study elite-level performance of experts in a wide array of domains—radiology, forensics, ornithology, sport, to name just a few. I argue that the best explanation of this range of study and data is that perceptual expertise sometimes involves genuine sensory perceptual improvement, where those perceptual changes depend upon the concept-rich cognitive learning specific to that domain. The expert radiologist does not just make better judgments about the contents of the radiogram, she better sees the radiogram. Perceptual expertise is genuine perceptual expertise. If successful, this explanation can contribute to a naturalistic explanation of creativity. Some creative individuals are perceptual experts within their relevant domains. This perceptual advantage implies an advantage in available cognitive resources, and this latter claim is further evidenced by studies on visual short term memory and task-evoked pupillary response. If the expert painter or elite athlete actually perceives better in her context of expertise (as a result of her previous training), this offloads some of the needed cognitive work to her visual systems, and thereby frees up cognitive load (reducing demands on working memory) to try something new, imagine a new angle, innovate, create.

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October 19 2021

Dimitria Electra Gatzia (Akron & Czech Academy of Sciences): Reliable Color Misrepresentation and Color Vision

(Recording of the talk) 

Abstract: Tracking theories of mental representation posit a privileged relation between color representations and the color properties of objects. Tracking theories of mental representation have been used to motivate color realism as they posit that the function of color vision is to represent the colors of objects. It has been argued that tracking theories have a major flaw, namely they cannot account for reliable misrepresentation. It has further been suggested that reliable color misrepresentation is a live possibility. In this chapter, I argue that the current evidence indicates that our color representations reliably misrepresent. This conclusion undermines tracking theories and the color realist theories they purport to motivate. 

November 9 2021

Edward A. Vessel (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics): From 'What We See' to 'What We Like': An Interactionist Account of Aesthetic Appeal

(Recording of the talk) 

​Abstract: What is beauty? Is it an objective property of a stimulus, like shape, or a subjective feeling, like sadness? Using a combination of behavioral techniques and brain imaging, my work has sought to probe how the brain transforms a representation of 'what we see' into one of 'what we like.' Behaviorally, we find that people don't always agree on what images they find aesthetically appealing -- "shared taste" is particularly low for artifacts of human culture such as artwork and architecture, whereas people do tend to agree more in their judgments of landscapes and faces. Our studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have pointed to the default-mode network (DMN), a set of brain regions that are thought to mediate aspects of internally directed, self-referential thinking, as being engaged by aesthetically moving artworks, and as containing a representation of appeal that generalizes across several visual aesthetic domains. In addition, a recent study using landscape videos found that regions of visual cortex that represent the visual features of what we see (scene layout, motion) are not directly modulated by aesthetic appeal. Rather, we found modulations in adjacent regions, which we propose reflect a local transformation from a feature-based representation to a representation of "elemental affect," computed through mechanisms that detect deviations from an observer's expectations. These findings point to an "interactionist" view: aesthetic appeal is neither solely in a stimulus nor in the mind, but is rather in the interaction of a stimulus with the observer's previous experiences, knowledge, beliefs, and associations. Additionally, while natural aesthetic domains such as landscapes may rely primarily on localized comparisons between ongoing stimulation and well-formed representations of the natural world, artifactual aesthetic domains such as artwork appear to rely to a much greater extent on top-down processes such as assessments of self-relevance or resolution of ambiguity.

Chiara Brozzo (University of Barcelona): On the proper aesthetic appreciation of nature in design

(Recording of the talk) 

​Abstract: In this paper, I argue for a version of cognitivism, according to which a certain kind of knowledge is necessary for the proper aesthetic appreciation of nature. My argument concerns nature as incorporated in certain instances of design, such as perfumes and fashion designers’ clothes. My target will be a version of anti-cognitivism according to which awareness of appearances is all we need to properly aesthetically appreciate nature. Against this, I argue that the proper aesthetic appreciation of nature in the instances of design I consider requires both awareness of appearances and knowledge of the natural kinds of some of their components (e.g., rose, feather or mussel shell). I will furthermore argue that knowledge of whether certain seemingly natural items incorporated in design are actually natural, as opposed to non-natural, is also necessary. My argument hinges on the idea that the aesthetic appreciation of the instances of design I consider would be largely incomplete, or otherwise defective, if it did not take into account these kinds of knowledge.

January 25 2022

Amy Kind (Claremont McKenna College): Fiction and the Cultivation of Imagination​

(Recording of the talk)

​Abstract. In the same way that some people are better jugglers than others, some people are better imaginers than others. But while it might be obvious what someone can do if they want to improve their juggling skills, it’s less obvious what someone can do to improve their imaginative skills. This chapter explores this issue and argues that engagement with fiction can play a key role in the development of one’s imaginative skills. The chapter proceeds in three parts. First, using work by Martha Nussbaum as a launching pad, I develop arguments to show how literature helps to cultivate our capacities for one type of imagination in particular, namely, empathetic imagination. Second, I consider the empirical case for these claims. Third, I show how we can extend the argument connecting fiction and empathetic imagination to imagination more broadly. Not only can fiction provide us with practice with respect to empathetic imagination, but it can also provide us with practice with respect to other kinds of imagination as well.

February 1 2022

Farid Masrour (University of Wisconsin, Madison): Grasping Spatial Properties: Advertisement for a Structuralist Program 

(Recording of the talk)

It is common to hold that perceptual experience grounds our grasp of sensible properties by putting us in a position to know some essential truths about them. I start by discussing why this thesis is attractive and then argue that explaining it in the case of spatial properties poses a challenge for most contemporary accounts of perceptual experience. Neither standard externalist nor standard internalist accounts can easily explain how experience grounds the grasp of spatial properties. After explaining this challenge, I offer a structuralist solution to it. The solution, put roughly, is that we perceive spatial properties by perceiving objects as occupying structural roles that characterize the essence of these properties. I offer a general recipe for developing a structuralist account of spatial experience, show how it explains our experiential grasp of spatial properties, and how it can be grounded in perceptual psychology.

February 15 2022

John Kulvicki (Dartmouth College): Précis of Modeling the Meaning of Pictures

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​February 22 2022

Nicoletta Ghigi (University of Perugia): Perception between Impression & Imagination. The Husserlian Phenomenology Of Perception

(Recording of the talk)

​The concept of perception is at the base of Husserl's phenomenology. The purpose of this work is to highlight some fundamental aspects of this important act.

First, we will show that perception begins with a stimulus that comes from the thing. We will clarify that this activity of the thing offers to consciousness the presentation of a precise content: the essence of the thing itself. The consciousness, in turn, "impressed" by such a content, reacts by registering it (first perception) and thus creating a flow of lived experiences (Erlebnisse). To this act of presentation by the thing follows an act of presentification by the consciosness. Through the imagination, the imaginative-consciusness (Bildbewusstsein) fills the adumbraments (Abschattungen), which the presentation itself brings with it. Finally, through the act of retention, perception reaches its perfection in this presentification through the imaginative act.

March 22 2022

​Dawn Wilson (University of Hull): ​Reflecting, Registering, Recording and Representing: From Light Image to Photographic Picture

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract. Photography is highly valued as a recording medium. Traditionally it has been claimed that photography is fundamentally a causal recording process, and that every photograph is the causal imprint of the world in front of the camera. In this paper I seek to challenge that traditional view. I claim that it is based on a ‘single-stage’ misconception of the process that defines photographs as mind-independent images and leaves no room for photographic depiction. I explain my objections to that view and propose an alternative, ‘multi-stage’ account of the process, in which I argue that causal registration of light is not equivalent to recording and reproducing an image. The proposed account can explain how photography functions as an exemplary recording medium, without supposing that every photograph is a mind-independent causal imprint of the world. Intervention or non-intervention by photographers is a more complex matter than the traditional view allows. Using the framework of the multi-stage account, I describe three different ways that photographic pictures can be produced.

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April 5 2022

​Fabrice Teroni (Université de Genève): Affective Selves, Streams of Consciousness and Mental Time Travels

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract. Philosophers interested in our sense of diachronic identity have typically emphasized that it relies on some form of psychological continuity. Traditionally, they have insisted on the continuity constituted by memory and, more generally, Mental Time Travel (MTT). More recently, the continuity characteristic of the stream of consciousness has also been emphasized. Focussing on these two kinds of continuity may foster an inaccurate picture of our sense of diachronic identity, however. Some data indeed suggest that what is most important to this sense are rather long-standing character and personality traits. In this talk, my aim is to build bridges between recent approaches that emphasize the role of character and personality traits and more traditional accounts that give pride of place to MTT and/or the stream of consciousness. I first present data suggesting that memory is less important for our sense of personal identity than the preservation of character and personality traits. Next, I lay out an account of these traits according to which they are multitrack dispositions whose central manifestations are emotions – for that reason, moral and personality traits are constituents of the affective self. If this is along the right track, emotions have an important influence on our sense of diachronic identity. But how do emotions relate to the two kinds of continuity introduced above? I explore how emotions impact the stream of consciousness. I argue that the processual nature of emotions supports the conclusion that they are crucial contributors to the sense of identity characteristic of the stream of consciousness. Then, I examine how emotions relate to the sense of identity generated by MTT. Considering the role of emotions at the time of encoding and at the time of remembering, I conclude that emotions are central determinants of the sense of continuity generated by MTT.

April 26 2022

​Fiona Macpherson (University of Glasgow): The phenomenal character of visual imagery and visual perceptual experience

(Recording of the talk)

Is the difference between visual perceptual experience and visual imagery one of kind or one of degree? I present some reasons to think that the difference between visual perceptual experience and visual imagery is not one of kind. I present some reasons to think that the difference in degree is even less than standardly conceived. I present some reasons to think that some cases can’t be classified as perceptual or imagistic in a non-arbitrary fashion. They have some features of paradigmatic perception and some of paradigmatic imagery. En route we’ll see that spelling out the different features of perceptual experience and imagery is difficult and complex.

May 10 2022

​Jonathan Cohen (University of California, San Diego): Coherence and coherence establishment: Lessons from eliciture

(joint work with Andrew Kehler)

Current accounts construe discourse coherence establishment --- and, therefore, discourse level coherence-based enrichment --- as resulting from a bottom-up search for ways in which elements of contents expressed might be coherently related to one another, and mandatorily triggered by a requirement to bind components into wholes. But such accounts leave us without an obvious explanation for analogous coherence relations operating on constituents within sentences (we label enrichments resulting from such intrasentential coherence relations 'eliciture'). One problem is that intrasentential coherence establishment (unlike intersentential coherence establishment) is not required for felicity: hence, one cannot see coherence-based enrichments uniformly as the mandatory downstream consequence of a trigger. A second problem is that, because elicitures can arise from complex interactions between any combination of a sentence's constituents, an account rooted in a search for possible coherence relations between expressed contents would have to compare the contents expressed by every pair of constituents, then every triple, and so on. This is clearly not computationally tractable. These and related considerations suggest a quite different picture of the inferences arising from coherence establishment -- one on which such inferences are not results of triggered searches, but the inevitable upshots from entertaining combinations of linguistically expressed contents, analogous to our recognition of causal and other relations obtaining between components of the non-linguistically presented world. We'll develop this picture by starting with eliciture, then show how it can be extended to intersentential coherence establishment, and finally draw out consequences resulting from this reconceptualization. Among other benefits, we'll contend that our account provides explanations for features (such as the preference for causal interpretations) that have required special principles in the more traditional accounts developed with only intersentential coherence in mind.

​

May 17 2022

Peter Pagin (Stockholm University): ​Indexicals, time, and compositionality

Kaplan’s official argument in “Demonstratives” for Temporalism, the view that some English sentences express propositions that can vary in truth value across time, is the so-called Operator Argument: temporal operators, such as “sometimes”, would be vacuous without such propositions. Equally important is the argument from compositionality. Without temporal propositions, the sentences: (1) It is raining where John is (2) It is raining where John is now would express the same proposition. But they embed differently: 

(3) Sometimes, it is raining where John is (4) Sometimes it is raining where John is now (3) and (4) express distinct propositions, so if they both are of the form “Sometimes, p”, and if (1) and (2) express the same proposition, we have a violation of compositionality. In this talk it is shown that with Switcher Semantics, which allows for a generalized form of compositionality, we can have the result that (1) and (2) agree in content when unembedded (assertoric content) but differ in content when embedded under temporal operators (ingredient sense). We can also show that Switcher Semantics, over Kaplan’s models, preserves the validities in the Logic of Demonstratives. All in all, the arguments for Temporalism are substantially undermined.

May 31 2022

Fiora Salis (University of York): Episodic Memory and Imagery: From Philosophy to Neuroscience and Back

(joint work with Andrej Bicanski)

How do episodic memory and episodic imagination differ from each other? In this talk we will address this question by looking at philosophical arguments, the literature in neuropsychology, single cell data and the BB model of spatial navigation. Our working hypothesis is that episodic memory and episodic imagination act on the same type of neural representations but involve distinct process monitoring mechanisms. This, in turn, will provide support to the philosophical idea that the difference between episodic memory and episodic imagination lies in their different functional roles.

​

June 7 2022

Clare Batty (University of Kentucky): Scent and the Space Between Us

Philosophers have largely ignored diachronic olfactory experience in favor of conceiving of it synchronically.  Although by no means uncontroversial, the motivation for this restriction stems from the observation that, conceived of synchronically, olfactory experience lacks something that visual experience enjoys—a certain kind of spatial differentiation, largely characterized in the literature in terms of the individuation of objects by their spatial properties.  Recently, Aasen (2018) has argued that the claim that synchronic olfactory experience lacks perceptual organization does not amount to the claim that it is aspatial—or, as some have suggested, even minimally spatial.  Aasen's main target is my own view (2010a, 2010b, 2010c).  In this paper, I explore her argument.  I argue that there is much more agreement and convergence between us than she recognizes and that, in turn, this demonstrates the utility of the empirically-inspired model on which my own theorizing has drawn—namely, Wilson and Stevenson's (2006, 2007) object recognition model of olfaction.

​June 14 2022

Antonio Capuano (Auburn University ): Names and Analyticity

My aim in this paper is to connect naming and analyticity and to argue that, like "Hesperus is Hesperus", "Hesperus is Phosphorus" is analytic. In the paper, I also discuss several other unexpected cases of analytic truth like "Aristotle existed".  

Sep 6 2022

Takuya Niikawa (University of Kobe): Perception, Imagination, and Hallucination: From a Naive Realist Perspective

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract: Naive realists argue that when a subject successfully perceives an environmental object, the phenomenology of the perceptual experience is in part constituted by the environmental object and its sensible properties. Simply put, the phenomenology of perception is explained in terms of the relationship between a perceiver and perceived objects. Although it is widely accepted that naive realism can provide a good account of the cognitive and epistemic roles of veridical perceptual experiences, its opponents object that it cannot adequately explain (1) why hallucination can be subjectively indiscriminable from veridical perception and (2) why sensory imagination is experientially similar to sensory perception. In this talk, I will develop the imagination view of hallucination presented by Keith Allen, which states that hallucination is a degenerate kind of imagination and will argue that the combination of naive realism and imagination view of hallucination can provide a coherent and systematic

understanding of visual sensory phenomena (including perception, imagination and hallucination) in a way that can answer the above two questions.​

Nov 29 2022

Emanuele Dozzi (University of Udine): What was Sherlock Holmes Made out of? An Amorphist Account of Fictional Characters

(Recording of the talk)

Our basic intuitions about fictional objects are apparently inconsistent. In everyday talk,  we say things like “Sherlock Holmes does not exist”, “Sherlock Holmes is a detective” or “Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes” but such claims cannot possibly be all literally true. In my talk, I propose the sketch of a possible artefactualist account of fictional objects based on Evnine’s theory of artifacts named amorphism, a recent reformulation of hylomorphism, and show how such an account could harmonize our common-sense beliefs about ficta. In order to do so, I consider how our basic intuitions about ficta, literally taken, constitute an inconsistent set of beliefs and hence, how a certain degree of reformulation is needed to make sense of them. I opt for keeping the “authorial intuition” in its literal sense and therefore give the other intuitions an alternative reading. Consequently, I consider ontological dependence and how identity criteria can be seen as expressing the dependence of the entities for which the criterion is formulated from the entities in terms of which the identity conditions are expressed. I then expose the main features of Evnine’s amorphism and propose a criterion of identity for fictional objects seen as essentially the result of a certain creative act. In so doing, I try to shed light on the nature of the creative process that leads to the creation of a fictional object, and I propose a way of interpreting the remaining intuitions accordingly. Finally, I consider some further issues about ficta that need to be addressed in order to advance toward a more comprehensive account of fictional objects.

​Dec 6 2022

Laura Gow (University of Liverpool): Necessarily Veridical Hallucinations

(Recording of the talk)

Philosophers of perception have a notoriously difficult time trying to account for hallucinatory experiences. One surprisingly quite popular move, and one which cross-cuts the representationalism/ relationalism divide, is to say that hallucinations involve an awareness of uninstantiated properties. In this paper I provide a new argument against this view. Not only are its proponents forced to classify many hallucinations as veridical, such experiences turn out to be necessarily veridical.  

Jan 17 2023

Stefano Predelli (University of Nottingham): True Scare Quotes: A Conversational Analysis

(Recording of the talk)

Abstract: I study (a certain sense of) scare quotation from the viewpoint of the theory of conversation. I informally sketch an extension of the classic Stalnaker-based approach to conversational exchanges and I eventually gesture towards promising further applications of my framework.

Feb 14 2023

Emanuele Arielli (IUAV): “Acting-in”: Agency in Images and Imagining Agency

(Recording of the talk)​

Abstract: Technological developments seem to have created types of depiction, like virtual and immersive environments or video games, that seem to undermine our conception of what an image is. When we are immersed in them, we do not tend to see them as pictorial phenomena, although they actually are. In my talk, drawing from some contemporary discussions on this issue (Pinotti, 2017; Klevjer 2017; Gumprecht 2004; Wiesing 2005; Noë 2012), I will argue that the crucial factor contributing to this effect of presence is not primarily linked to sensorial immersivity, nor to illusory realism, nor to some mixing of images and reality, but to the observer’s possibility of action in the depicted environment (cfr. Lopes 2001). To clarify this point, I will distinguish between two separate levels in which we can interact with images: acting on images (that is, on their surface and material support) and acting in images, the latter drawing an analogy with Wollheim’s notion of “seeing-in” images (1968). Acting on images includes drawing, sketching, restoring a painting, digitally manipulating it, composing a puzzle or a mosaic, etc. Acting in images describes a process in which we imaginatively operate in the first person within the environment and with the objects that the images depict. Albeit it seems that we can only act on images and not with their content (because what is depicted is absent), virtual interactivity in modern technology seems to make “acting in” possible. To this regard, it will be argued that “acting in” requires the possibility to operate in a simulated environment, however it will also be stressed that this is not specifically restricted to modern technologies, since any simulative “make-believe” activity (Gombrich 1951, Walton 1990) conducted with images is an instance of this.

Some features of “actin-in” images will be shown and discussed. Evidence in cognitive science allows showing that imaginary “action within images” determines a strengthening of the feeling of physical and temporal presence, illustrating how the distinction between objects, with whom we usually “operate”, and depictions, which we simply “look at”, gets blurred even if not erased. Emerging from these examples are issues relevant for aesthetic theory, in particular the tradition discussing the aesthetics of interaction, and the idea that “acting in” images can be described as “performed perception” (Dalsgaard et al. 2008; Petersen et al. 2004) and that agency can have aesthetic value (Nguyen 2020), where active exploration and intervention take the places instead of passive contemplation.

Mar 28 2023

Agustin Rayo (MIT): Transcendence and Emptiness

Abstract: I argue that the notion of a logical truth can be naturally extended to the notion of a transcendent truth. (Roughly, a sentence is transcendentally true if its truth at a world can be established by one's metatheory without relying on information about that world.) Whether or not the transcendental truths go beyond the logical truths depends on subtle questions concerning the relationship between our language and the world it represents. I develop a picture on which arithmetical truths count as transcendentally true and use it to defuse a stubborn problem in the philosophy of mathematics.

Apr 18 2023

Elisa Paganini (University of Milan): Fiction as non-assertive communication

Abstract: I propose to consider fiction as a communicative act in which conformity to truth (a fundamental commitment of assertion) is suspended. The general idea, which will be further developed, is that fictional authors transmit content to their audience without being bound to truth.  This proposal will be compared to the main theories of fiction in the literature, including not only the pretense theory (Searle, van Inwagen, Lewis, Thomasson), but also the more recent debate between intentionalists (Currie, Davies, Stock), weak intentionalists (García-Carpintero, Abell) and hypothetical or anti-intentionalists (Levinson, Walton) on imagined content. It will also be shown how this proposal can account for alleged assertions within fiction and for communicated content.

May 16 2023

Paloma Atencia (UNED): How To Understand Fiction in Photography?

(Recording of the talk)​

Abstract: Philosophical work about fiction in photography has been restricted to the discussion of whether photographs can or cannot represent fictional entities (Scruton 1981, Carroll 1996, Currie 2008, Cavedon-Taylor 2010, Atencia-Linares 2012). However, there is a different sense of fiction which captures the way in which critical practices sort representational works as fictional or non-fictional. This way of understanding fiction has been frequently theorized with respect to literature or film, but there is virtually no philosophical work on this dimension of fiction applied to photography. This paper will focus on this latter sense of fiction. The preliminary aim of this paper is to answer these two questions: (1) Does the distinction between fiction and non-fiction apply to photographic works in any informative sense? And if it does (2) do these categories behave in a similar way in photography as they do in other media such as, say, literature or film? Following the Genre Theory of Fiction, I propose that fiction is indeed an active genre in photography. This means that fiction is not only a label that captures a specific set of photographic works, but classification under this notion illuminates our correct appreciation of them in a way that is consistent with critical practices specific of that medium. I suggest that, in photography, the categories of fiction and nonfiction display peculiarities which makes it more accurate to talk about factual and non-factual photography. Factual photography, is a proper appreciative category,encompassing a variety of relatively homogenous subgenres. Fictional photography, by contrast, is a more restricted but distinctive genre among other non-factual genres. Non-factual photography, however, is not a proper appreciative category or genre, but just an umbrella term that we can use to designate a set of heterogeneous genres. The peculiarities of factual and non-factual photography, I will further conjecture may be related to the nature of the photographic medium. Finally, I offer additional arguments to show that the Genre Theory of Fiction provides us with a better way to explain the case of fictional photography than competing theories of fiction. 

Jun 20 2023

Sala Incontri 1, Palazzo Nuovo ground floor, Turin

Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum (University of Vienna): Response-dependence and Meaning

Abstract: A verbal expression is meaningful iff it means something to somebody. Having the meaning it has is therefore a property of that verbal expression, and since it involves ‘somebody’, I take its meaning to be a response-dependent property of that verbal expression. However, the term ‘response-dependent property’ has been used as an umbrella for a range of quite different properties. So, I start by giving a more fine-grained account of the metaphysics and ontology underlying different kinds of property. I will show that there are at least three metaphysically different sorts of property that have all been considered ‘response- dependent’. I call one ‘response-dispositional’, the second ‘response- dependent’, and the third ‘judgment-dependent’. For the sake of illustration, I show how the distinction corroborates Nathaniel Goldberg’s analysis of two accounts of meaning in Davidson’s work. I then argue that a response- dependent (in the more fine-grained sense of the word) account of meaning explains best what sort of property the meaning of a verbal expression is.​

Oct 3 2023

Frederick Kroon (University of Auckland): Moloch’s Revenge 

Abstract: Kripke long ago noted that the view that in the Hebrew Bible ‘Moloch’ is a proper name for a pagan deity fond of child sacrifice is arguably based on a linguistic confusion; many authorities think that ‘moloch’ simply means sacrifice. In ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Moloch and Mr. Snazzo (or the Parmenides’ Riddle Once Again)’ (Philosophies 2023), Alberto Voltolini provides a 2-pronged argument in favour of ontologically endorsing what he calls “loyal non-existent items” such as Emma Bovary, while rejecting non-items like Moloch. One prong of the argument for such a “soft Parmenideanism” is theoretical: there is good philosophical reason to adopt the view. The other prong is empirical: Voltolini reports on empirical work by himself and colleagues that suggests that the way ordinary speakers treat the (non)existential status of broadly fictional beings like Emma Bovary and oddities like Moloch lines up with soft Parmenideanism. In this talk I raise some questions about the empirical results and the underlying methodology.

Nov 21 2023

Mariela Destéfano (University of Buenos Aires): Idiosyncratic inner speech

Abstract. In the Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science inner speech is usually understood as a cognitive capacity that stands in a representational relation with our thinking capacities. Most of the current philosophical discussions about inner speech emphasize its semantic and phonological contents and focus in its role in working memory, control inhibition, logical reasoning, conscious thinking, theory of mind, among others (Badeley 1986; Petrolini et al. 2020; Bemúdez 2018; Gathercole et al, 2004; Fernyhough 2008). Nevertheless, neither of these philosophical approaches has explored the role of inner speech in the subjective character of the self. In this talk I will advance a different approach to inner speech according to which this internal language is not conceived as a representational tool for our thoughts but, instead, it would be an internal tool that expresses our egocentric experience of the world. More particularly, I will argue that inner speech involves idiosyncratic contents that depart from the standard meanings of the public words. Vygotsky (1934) already identified the predominance of sense over meaning in inner speech, in which personal and private meanings achieve more prominence than conventional and public ones (Alderson-Day and Fenyhough 2015). In this talk I will defend that the idiosyncratic aspect of inner self-talking is committed with the idea that most of inner speech episodes are built up by concrete, context-dependent and non-combinatorial information.

Jan 20 2024 [online]

Steven Gross (Johns Hopkins University) : Iconicity, 2nd-Order Isomorphism, and Perceptual Categorization

How does perception differ from cognition? Two recently-published, major works--Block 2023 and Burge 2023--argue that one crucial difference concerns representational format. According to Block, perception, but not cognition, is constitutively iconic; Burge concurs at least for naturally-occuring perceivers. What is meant by 'iconicity'? Block and Burge agree also in rejecting "picture principle" conceptions of iconicity, like Fodor's, in favor of some version of Shepard's "2nd-order isomorphism" view. But they develop the idea in different ways. As a result, they defend the unobvious, if not problematic, iconicity of higher-level perceptual attributions--e.g., perceptual categorizations--in different ways. This talk will bring out those differences and critically explore the respective commitments Block and Burge must take on if they are to maintain their positions.

Feb 20 2024

Nele Van de Mosselaer (Tilburg)

Taking ‘Silly Questions’ Seriously: Unconventional Fiction in Videogames 

Abstract: When a story ends with the words "… and nobody lived to tell the tale", how is it possible for a reader to be reading this tale? When a glitch occurs in a videogame and accidentally causes the in-game cowboy characters to fly like birds, is a player supposed to imagine the gameworld being inhabited by flying cowboys? Within philosophy of fiction, such questions have been called silly questions: they are questions about fictional worlds that have no answers within these worlds. Elaborating on them is deemed inappropriate and pointless when interpreting works of fiction (cf. Walton 1990, 237; Currie 2010, 59). In this presentation, however, I argue that silly questions are useful tools for gaining greater understanding about our imaginative experiences of fiction. I will focus on silly questions about videogames, which have not yet attracted the philosophical scrutiny they warrant. My aim is to show how silly questions about interactive fiction experiences can be used to re-assess the authority of fiction creators, to analyse the fictional relevance of mistakes in fiction, and to investigate the limits of fictional worlds.

Derek Matravers (Open University): Reconstructing the Philosophy of Fiction as The Philosophy of Narrative

Abstract: Philosophers of fiction have underestimated the difference between encountering the world face-to-face, and encountering the world (the actual world, possible, or impossible world) via a representation. This paper will sort out the difference and give an account of what it is to engage the world via a representation: in essence, adopting the account from psychology of the construction of a ‘situation model’. Various purported problems (the (so-called) paradox of fiction, the paradox of tragedy, and the ‘sympathy with the devil’ problem) are shown to be part of this account – that is, simply part of engaging with the world via a representation and nothing in particular to do with fiction. The paper will conclude by saying something about the situation model. It will argue that, in the context of engaging with a representation, the distinction between propositions we believe and those we do not believe is of secondary importance; that the distinction between a fictional representation and a non-fictional representation is a distinct issue from engaging with a representation and easily solved (and that, as a consequence, the Gricean model of fiction is untenable); and that whatever role for imagination we assign is largely stipulative. The picture that emerges is close to that argued for by Voltolini (in ‘’Beliefs, Make-Beliefs, and Making Believe that Beliefs are not Make-Beliefs’) but, I would argue, simpler and with greater explanatory power.

Apr 9 2024

Mira Magdalena Sickinger (University of Vienna): The Joke-Coop. Pragmatic issues of jokes and joking

Abstract: This paper investigates the pragmatic issue of communicative cooperation in jokes and joking. Here, jokes refer to short fictional humorous narratives and joking refers to the communicative/performative situation in which these narratives are told by someone to an audience. I assume that the joke has to be understood in its communicative performance. The investigation will first introduce a conception of the distinct properties inherent to the narrative joke’s form and its performance. On the basis of these parameters I will present four steps of argumentation: (i) examination whether Grice’s idealised maxims for cooperative linguistic communication (1975) apply to joking, or whether one or more of these maxims are being violated within joking; the latter being claimed by Attardo (1990); (ii) analysis of Raskin’s alternative mode of humorous communication (1985); (iii) critique of Raskin’s and Attardo’s understanding of the participants’ communicative and interpretative behaviour; (iv) exposition of an account that stresses pragmatic distinctions between jokes and joking and argues for the possibility of cooperative humorous communication.

Apr 23 2024 [online]

Daniel Weiskopf (Georgia State University): Collective Conceptual Change and the Epidemiology of Signification

Abstract. “Conceptual engineering” has attracted intense interest in recent years. The project of CE is usually pitched in ameliorative terms: it involves finding and fixing defects in our language. Paired with this goal, however, there is skepticism about whether it is achievable. I present one form of this implementation challenge and argue that it arises from taking a depsychologized perspective. On a “concepts first” approach, mental representations rather than language are the targets of intervention in CE. Borrowing a metaphor from Dan Sperber, we can think of intentional collective conceptual change as a kind of applied cognitive epidemiology. I develop a model of how variants of concepts might spread throughout a population and argue that it can meet the implementation challenge. I illustrate the success of this model by analyzing the ways that early AIDS activists successfully changed the concepts of the disease that were held by the medical establishment, government bureaucrats, and the media. This involved using a variety of public representations spread through an equally diverse set of epistemic channels. Activism, rather than engineering, can (at least sometimes) successfully change a group’s concepts for the better.

May 7 2024

Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia): Orientation in Moral Thinking

Abstract. This paper argues for the significance of ‘orientation’ and ‘re-orientation’ as central metaphors of moral agency. By refocusing on orientation rather than vision, this study evidences the novelty of Murdoch’s model of agency and the full import of her critique of the narrow account of moral agency. It also puts in a different perspective her dialectical relation to Kant and his composite legacy in analytic ethics. Like Kant, Murdoch defends a conception of practical reason as oriented toward the good by practical attitudes. Unlike Kant’s dialogical model of orientation, however, Murdoch’s individualist model emphasizes the privacy of the path toward the good where others are the object of a clear vision rather than equal partners engaged in relations of mutual recognition. Undertaking a comparative analysis of these models, this paper highlights unexplored complexities of the corresponding views of moral growth and progress. The first cluster of issues concern the impact of moral progress on agential unity, whether moral progress is disruptive or cumulative. A second set concerns its political effects. Murdoch remarks that “If morality is essentially connected with change and progress, we cannot be as democratic as we would like to think”, because individuals improve in radically different ways. Her attack on publicity raises the question of the place and value of moral equality. A distinctive achievement of Kant’s dialogical metaphor of orientation is that it responds to both these issues (regarding the agential and political dimensions of moral progress), on the basis of the same rationale, i.e., referring to the ‘public’ structure of practical reason.

May 14 2024

Achille Varzi (Columbia University): On the Perception of Abs nces

Abstract. Can we truly perceive an absence? Sartre tells us that when he arrived late for his appointment at the café, he saw the absence of his friend Pierre. Is that really what he saw? Where was it, exactly? Why didn’t Sartre see the absence of other people who were not there? Why did other people who were there not see the absence of Pierre? How could Sartre have seen a genuine absence if perception is based on causation and causation, in turn, can only originate from what is present? The perception of absences gives rise to a host of conundrums and is constantly on the verge of conceptual confusion. Here I focus on the need to be clear about four sorts of distinctions: (i) perceiving an absence vs. perceiving something that is absent; (ii) perceiving an absence vs. an absence of perceiving; (iii) perceiving an absence vs. perceiving something as an absence; and (iv) perceiving an absence vs. perceiving that something is absent. I will conclude with some general morals. 

May 28 2024

Jessica Pepp (University of Uppsala): What is a (Kaplanian) Semantics of Use?

​Abstract. In his (as yet) unpublished classic, “The Meaning of Ouch and Oops: Explorations in the theory of Meaning as Use”, David Kaplan argues that a certain understanding of the Wittgensteinian slogan, “Meaning is use”, is true and is compatible with Kaplan’s formal, model-theoretical approach to natural language semantics. The resulting vision of semantics is what Kaplan calls a “Semantics of Use”. The aim of this talk is twofold. First, I try to spell out what this new vision of semantics is and how it contrasts with the more traditional approach Kaplan calls “Semantics of Meaning”. Second, I highlight an aspect of the new vision that is difficult to interpret and seems to raise deep questions about the aims of semantic theory. This is Kaplan’s idea that a Semantics of Use is given “from above”: a Semantics of Use aims to describe the object language, but not (in general) to translate the object language into the metalanguage. I briefly explore a couple of different ways of making out the idea of doing semantics “from above” and show how they point toward different understandings of a Kaplanian Semantics of Use.

Jun 18 2024

Jason Geiger (University of Oxford): Haptic, Projective, and Ampliative Imagining

Abstract. The recognition that ‘typical touch experiences seem essentially to unfold over time, requiring us to connect different movements together in the formation of complex tactual representations’ (Fulkerson, 2013) provides a valuable starting point for understanding the role of haptic imagining. It has long been recognised that sculpture is particularly effective at soliciting tactile responses. It goes without saying that these responses are predominantly imaginative rather than actual: in the vast majority of cases, we do not physically touch the surface of a sculpture, and to do so would often run counter to or interrupt our imaginative engagement. It therefore seems plausible to suggest that artworks that invite projective and ampliative responses in the viewer, also engage the haptic imagination. The link here, if there is one, is provided by the temporal and dynamic character of these forms of imaginative activity, which are open and exploratory whilst remaining answerable to the work. Through close examination of a range of relevant examples, I show that the resulting account of imaginative engagement is not restricted to representational art forms such as figurative painting and sculpture but that – suitably adapted – it can also be extended to include fully abstract sculptural objects, and that here, too, what I term haptic imagining has a vital role to play insofar as it is responsive to an overtly temporal structure that is internal to the work itself.