9 nov.-20 nov.: Franz Berto; *online* Mercier chair 2020-2021 ISP-UCLouvain
João Daniel Dantas
Dear all,
The Institut supérieur de philosophie of the UCLouvain is very happy to invite everyone interested to the (due to Covid-19) online only Mercier Chair 2020-2021.
https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/isp/evenements/chaire-mercier-2020-2021.html
This year, the chair is occupied by Professor Franz Berto (Arché, University of St Andrews and ILLC, University of Amsterdam) and consists of (abstracts below)
- An inaugural lecture: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84985261497
Monday 9/11, 17h-19h
“‘An established maxim in metaphysics’: Conceivability, Possibility, and Hume’s Other Principle”
- Lesson series: “The topics of thought”: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85984056806
Tuesday 10/11, 10h45-12h45
"Some Problems of Possible Worlds Semantics"
Friday 13/11, 16h15-18h15
"Tractatus 4.024 vs. Tractatus 5.122"
Monday 16/11, 14h00-16h00
"Topics and Possible Worlds: Two-Component Semantics"
Tuesday 17/11, 16h15-18h15
"Topic-Sensitive Intentionality: Knowledge, Belief, Imagination"
Wednesday 18/11, 10h45-12h45
"Indicative Conditionals: Probabilities and Topicality"
Friday 20/11, 16h15-18h15
"Framed Believers: Thinking About Something Else"
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Abstract of inaugural lecture
Can we think about the absolutely impossible – that which obtains in no possible circumstance whatsoever, like a logical inconsistency?
A venerable tradition has it that we can’t. Moritz Schlick, for instance, claimed in Positivismus und Realismus that, while the merely practically impossible is still conceivable, the logically impossible is just unthinkable. An alternative tradition, however, runs through Western thought. In the Science of Logic, for instance, Hegel complained against “one of the fundamental prejudices of logic as hitherto understood”, namely that “the contradictory cannot be imagined or thought”. (Hegel [1831]: 430)
The venerable tradition is eminently represented by Hume’s Other Principle from the Treatise (I, ii, 2): Nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. (I would have liked to call this, ‘Hume’s Principle’, but unfortunately the name was already taken.) Arguments from imaginability to possibility are important in modal epistemology – the branch of epistemology that aims at answering the question: How do we know that something is possible, or necessary, or impossible?
I will argue for the alternative tradition, against the venerable tradition. Several authors have already attacked Hume’s Other Principle. In this lecture, I will join them, hopefully with a fresh strategy: I will present an argument by cases against the Principle, based on different ways of understanding the notion of mental representation.
References
Hegel, G.W.F., 1831, Wissenschaft der Logik, vols. 11 and 12 of Gesammelte Werke, in Verbindung mit der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, hrg. von der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Meiner, 1968ff; English translation, Hegel’s Science of Logic, New York: Humanity Books, 1969.
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Abstract of lecture series
Intentionality is a feature of some mental states: that of being about, that is, directed towards, objects, situations, states of affairs. Propositional or de dicto intentional states are states having propositions as their contents. These are recorded linguistically by verbs taking sentential complements and expressing attitudes towards said contents, such as ‘believes (that)’, ‘knows (that)’, ‘imagines (that)’, ‘supposes (that)’, ‘is informed (that)’. One may use the generic term ‘thought’ as a cover-all for such intentional states.
In these lectures, I will talk about thoughts, so understood, and what they are about: their topics, as I will say. I will present a new framework for the logic of thought – a unified way of replying to the question: given that one thinks (believes, knows, etc.) something, what else must one think (believe, know, etc.), as a matter of logic? Under which logical operations is one’s thought closed?
The foundations of a logic of intentional states must lie in a general theory of propositions. What Qs one must think, as a matter of logical necessity, because one thinks that P, must depend on the contents of P and Q. Two-component semantics is a theory of propositional content, based on the insight that propositions must feature two irreducible components: (1) truth conditions, and (2) topics. Whereas (1) is familiar, (2) will be introduced and explained in some detail.
Two-component semantics is hyperintensional: it individuates contents in a more fine-grained way than standard intensional or possible worlds semantics. But possible worlds semantics has been a 20th Century philosophical success story: it has been used extensively to analyze the aforementioned notions – knowledge, belief, information – and more. These lectures will also discuss, thus, a number of problems for such applications of possible world semantics.
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