Spring 2016
February 11 – Kate Withy, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University
“The Self-Concealing of Being”
Martin Heidegger says a lot of mysterious things about being – and in particular about being’s mysteriousness. Readers of his work tend to stick with Heidegger’s own vocabulary, saying that being is intrinsically self-concealing, but they do not generally try to say what this really means or why it should be so. I will remedy this by explaining what it means to say that being conceals itself, and I will offer a reason for thinking that being does indeed conceal itself.
February 25 – L. A. Paul, Professor of Philosophy at UNC-Chapel Hill
Paper Title: “Preference Capture”
Big life decisions are naturally framed using the first personal point of view, where we mentally model or imaginatively project different future lived experiences. Such decisions are often understood as depending on judgments about what these subjective futures will be like for us and for those around us. I will explore the way that making transformative decisions from this perspective can put us in the position of regarding our future selves as irrational, or at least, as epistemically and psychologically alien to our current perspective.
March 3 – Marc Lange, Theda Perdue Distinguished Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill
Paper Title: “What is Explanation in Mathematics?”
There has long appeared to be a distinction in mathematical practice between proofs that explain why some theorem holds and proofs that merely prove some theorem without giving any reason why it holds. No one really understands the grounds of this (apparent) distinction! I will offer some examples and try to make some progress toward understanding it. No background (mathematical, philosophical, or otherwise) will be presupposed; the talk will give us an opportunity to brainstorm together. Topics that will arise include unification in mathematics, simplicity, mathematically natural properties, and mathematical coincidences.
March 24 – Kwong-Loi Shun, Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley
Paper Title: “Ethics without Forgiveness”
In the Confucian ethical tradition, there is no concept of forgiveness, understood as a process of overcoming resentment or other forms of first personal anger through active efforts directed to altering the way one views and feels about the offender, the agent of wrongful injury of which one is the victim. What is it like to have an ethical view that does not work with a concept of forgiveness, and what are the grounds for such an ethical view?
The paper begins by arguing against ethical views that idealize forgiveness in the sense of regarding the readiness to forgive, in general or only under certain conditions, as a virtue. It then presents an ethical view that does not idealize forgiveness and that is grounded in certain ideas central to Confucian thought. On this ethical view, the virtuous person is above resentment and has no need to forgive; for someone less than virtuous and subject to sentiments of resentment, such sentiments are more appropriately addressed through a process of psychological inner-management than through forgiveness. While the main body of the discussion will be based primarily on philosophical considerations, the paper will conclude with a discussion of the Confucian roots of its main ideas.
April 7 – T.M. Scanlon, Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University
Paper Title: “Tolerance and Immigration”
Professor T. M. Scanlon is the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is one of the most important contemporary philosophers working in the areas of moral and political philosophy. In additional to the contractualist moral theory expounded in his major work, What We Owe to Each Other, Professor Scanlon is also well-known for his work in a wide range of topics including freedom of expression, the nature of rights, conceptions of welfare, theories of justice, tolerance, contract, responsibility and realism about reasons. Professor Scanlon has lectured at many universities all over the world. He delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 2010. In 1993 he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (popularly known as “the Genius Grant”).
April 19 – Robert Audi, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy, Notre Dame University
“Toward a Theory of Deep Disagreement: Structure, Elements, and Paths to Resolution”
Disagreement is not necessarily a bad thing, but in the contemporary world it is frequently bitter and too often has bad consequences. Political and religious disagreements—though not the only important kinds—are pervasive and often violent. The kind of disagreement we most often find is more than a manifestation of pluralism. Some of the deep disagreements found in the contemporary world often bespeak not just difference in outlook and commitment but also fragmentation. What might philosophical reflection contribute to finding a way to reduce disagreement where it threatens civic harmony? This paper attempts to make such a contribution, particularly for cases in which disagreement concerns religion in relation to law-making. It does this by clarifying the nature of disagreement itself, identifying the main elements determining depth of disagreement, presenting a sharable moral framework as potential common ground in disagreements, and articulating a principle of tolerance for cases in which disagreement cannot be resolved.