Next 2012/13 Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture

The Forum for Philosophical Research at The School of Politics, IR & Philosophy (SPIRE) and the Research Centre for SPIRE, University of Keele, invites you all to the next 2012/13 Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture:

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11505747

Dr Daniel Whiting (University of Southampton)

6 November 2012, 6-7.30 pm, CBA0.060, Chancellor’s Building, Keele University

 

All Welcome! Wine!

 

Abstract:

Suppose that someone has a ticket in the National Lottery. Suppose also that she believes (fully, flat-out) that her ticket will lose. This belief seems irrational – if the subject really thinks that her ticket is going to lose, why did she buy it in the first place and why does she bother to keep it (though, of course, it would be very silly to throw the ticket away)? It can seem puzzling that such a belief is irrational, since it is highly probable that the ticket will in fact lose, and so that the belief is true. In this paper, I offer a novel account of why so-called lottery beliefs are not rational, one which appeals to the idea that belief is fundamentally governed by a norm of truth.

 

About the Speaker:

Daniel Whiting is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton. He works primarily in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. He has published a number of articles in these areas and is the editor of The Later Wittgenstein on Language.

Expansion of Postgraduate Philosophy

Keele

This year Keele philosophy is welcoming three new PhD students, two new MPhil students and two new MRes students, its largest postgraduate intake by far since it joined SPIRE a decade ago.

The PhD students are: Jonathan Head, who was awarded Keele’s new Graduate Student Teaching Scholarship from the Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation in Berlin/Keele ACORN Fund/Keele HMSS Faculty, and whose topic is “Kant’s Critical Philosophy of Hope and Salvation”; Lavinia Udrea, who was awarded a Keele HMSS Faculty studentship and who will be working on moral philosophy and environmental sustainability; and Philippe Blenkiron, who will work on themes at the intersection of aesthetics and political philosophy.

The MPhil students will be working on the normative relevance of phenomenology (Robert Eggett) and on Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche (Matthew Sharp). The MRes students (Nicholas Heath and John Wootton) will take an advanced course in metaphilosophy (the study of the nature of philosophy).

First 2012/13 Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture

The Forum for Philosophical Research at The School of Politics, IR & Philosophy (SPIRE) and the Research Centre for SPIRE, University of Keele, invites you all to the first 2012/13 Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture:

Source: http://reasonradionetwork.com

Kant on Existential Import

Dr Alberto Vanzo (University of Birmingham)

16 October 2012, 6-7.30 pm, CBA0.060, Chancellor’s Building, Keele University

 

All Welcome! Wine!

 

Abstract:

This talk reconstructs Kant’s view on the existential import of categorical sentences. Kant is widely taken to have endorsed the standard pre-Fregean view that affirmative sentences (the *A* and *I* sentences of the traditional square of opposition) have existential import, whereas negative sentences (*E* and *O*) lack existential import. I challenge this standard interpretation. I argue that Kant ascribes existential import only to affirmative /synthetic/ sentences. The discussion of Kant’s view on existential import yields support to two broader claims. First, since the reason why synthetic sentences have existential import does not fall within the remit of formal logic, Kant’s formal logic is a free logic, that is, a logic free from existential commitments. Second, contrary to common interpretation, Kant is a proto-Meinongian: he admits non-actual objects within his ontological inventory.

 

About the Speaker:

Alberto Vanzo is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Birmingham. After receiving his PhD from the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, he has held postdoctoral or research positions at the universities of Essex, Otago, and Padua. He works on Kant’s philosophy, early modern natural philosophy, and the history and methodology of philosophical historiography.