Forskningsaktuelt

This lecture looks at how contemporary scholarship attempts to deconstruct the East-West dichotomy in (scholarship on) the ancient Greek novel as ideologically biased – and how this attempt at deconstruction can be perceived as ideological itself.

Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College, is visiting the Science Studies Colloquium Series. Pigliucci has a doctorate in genetics from the University of Ferrara, Italy, a PhD in biology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in philosophy of science from the University of Tennessee. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

The seminar is open for everyone!

Abstract:

Since Kripke, philosophers have distinguished a priori true statements from necessarily true ones. A statement is a priori true if its truth can be established before experience, and necessarily true if it could not have been false according to logical or metaphysical laws. This distinction can be captured formally using two-dimensional semantics.

There is a natural way to extend the notions of apriority and necessity so they can also apply to questions. Questions either can or cannot be resolved before experience, and either are or are not about necessary facts. Intuitively, the question ‘am I here now?’ is a priori and contingent, while the question ‘who am I?’ is a posteriori and necessary. Classical two-dimensionalism has no account of question meanings, so it has to be combined with a framework for question semantics in order to capture these observations.

In this talk I will discuss several options, and work out a two-dimensional variant of inquisitive semantics in detail. In this framework, definitions of apriority and necessity can be formulated in terms of information. These definitions apply to questions and statements uniformly.

Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College, is visiting the Science Studies Colloquium Series at a special event in collaboration with Centre for Advanced Study at Litteraturhuset. Pigliucci has a doctorate in genetics from the University of Ferrara, Italy, a PhD in biology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in philosophy of science from the University of Tennessee. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

The seminar is free and open for everyone!

Magister Aksel Øijord ved Institutt for filosofi, ide- og kunsthistorie og klassiske språk vil forsvare sin avhandling for graden dr.philos.: Om fargenes ontologi.

Oversettelse er en viktig del av det norskspråklige filosofiske livet. Seminaret er aktuelt for deg som selv har oversatt filosofi til norsk eller som har interesse for dette.

More info will come soon.

Alexander Rosenberg is visiting the Science Studies Colloquium Series. Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University. He has been a visiting professor and fellow of the at the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, as well as the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Oxford University and a visiting fellow of the Philosophy Department at the Research School of Social Science, of the Australian National University. In 2016 he was the Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. Rosenberg has held fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1993 Rosenberg received the Lakatos Award in the philosophy of science. In 2006-2007 he held a fellowship at the National Humanities Center. He was also the Phi Beta Kappa-Romanell Lecturer for 2006-2007.

The seminar is open for everyone!

'Research is an investment in our future’ according to the European Research Council. 'That’s only true if you know what to do with the research', says Professor Nancy Cartwright, who will give the first CPS annual lecture on 2. December.

Suzi Adams is visiting the Science Studies Colloquium Series.