Mind, Meaning and Rationality

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Practical Reasons seminar series

The Mind Meaning and Rationality Research Group is currently running a seminar series on practical rationality. These seminars will take place at Walton Hall. All welcome. Contact: Carolyn Price at c.s.price@open.ac.uk

Three seminars have been organised for the first half of 2009.

13th January 2009

Bart Streumer (Philosophy, University of Reading) will give a talk titled ‘Are normative judgements non-cognitive attitudes?'

Summary
Many philosophers claim, or used to claim, that normative judgements are non-cognitive attitudes. Some of these philosophers now claim that normative judgements are beliefs of which we can give a minimalist account, and some other philosophers claim that normative judgements are beliefs that do not purport to represent the world. In this paper, I argue that these philosophers’ views all face the same objection, and that this objection shows that their views are false. I conclude that normative judgements are beliefs of which we cannot give a minimalist account and that purport to represent the world.

Venue: Walton Hall, Central Meeting Room 7
Time: 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm

10th March 2009

Gerald Lang (Philosophy, University of Leeds) will speak on ‘The status of means-end reasoning’

Summary

Recent philosophical theorising about practical reason has been much preoccupied with the normative status of means-end reasoning. A flavour of the relevant difficulties may be conveyed by the following dilemma. If, on the one hand, we ought to take the means to our ends, whatever those ends are, that appears to usher into existence reasons to pursue our ends - by taking means which secure them - even though those ends may be flagrantly immoral, or imprudent. (This is often called the 'bootstrapping' problem.) On the other hand, we often think that there is a distinct form of irrationality at work in those who fail to take the means to their ends, however valueless their ends may be. In this paper, I will investigate what type of requirement we have, if any, to take the means to our ends, and with whether we can expect a 'one size fits all' solution to this problem.

Venue: Walton Hall, Central Meeting Room 7
Time: 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm

11th May 2009

Sabine Döring (Philosophy, Tübingen University) Title TBC.

Venue: Walton Hall, Library Seminar Room 1
Time: 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm

Tom Pink (Philosophy, KCL) has accepted an invitation to speak in November 2009. Details will be announced closer to the time.

Previous seminars in the series

16th January 2008: Yonatan Shemmer (Philosophy, University of Sheffield) spoke on ‘Self-governance, reason and self-determination'

12th March 2008: Unfortunately, Sabine Döring, our speaker for this seminar, had to withdraw, though she has now accepted a new invitation for May 2009. In the meantime, she has kindly allowed us to post up a copy of her paper ‘ Conflict without contradiction' [PDF file, 336KB] for reference. The paper will appear in Epistemology and Emotions, ed by Georg Brun, Dominique Kuenzle, and Ulvi Dogouglu (London: Ashgate, 2008).

14th May 2008: Christian Piller (Philosophy, University of York) gave a talk, titled 'Valuing Knowledge and the Meno Problem'.

For more information about the research group and its activities, please follow the links on the left of this page, or contact Carolyn Price (c.s.price@open.ac.uk).