THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM
Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös University
Address: Múzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest
24 October (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Zsolt Kapelner
Institute of Philosophy, Eötvös University, Budapest
A more radical translation
___________________________________
Abstracts and printable program (poster) are available from the web
site of the Forum: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf (Please feel free to post
the program in your institution!)
The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty
members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture,
coffee break, 60 minute discussion.
The organizer of the Forum: László E. Szabó
(leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu)
--
L a s z l o E. S z a b o
Professor of Philosophy
DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY
EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST
http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo
The Department of Philosophy & the Provost Office at CEU
cordially invite you to a public lecture by
ALAN RYAN
Princeton University
on
MISTAKES IN POLITICS
at 17:30 on Thursday, October 25, 2012
CEU-Auditorium, 1051 Bp., Nádor u. 9.
There is a large, and to many people alarming, body of literature on
the erroneous views of the ordinary voter; not only do most voters hold
many views that are strikingly at odds with the facts, they resist
information that tends to overturn these views, and where they do not,
they re-adopt their false views more or less quickly. This poses an
obvious problem for democratic politics: if politicians are responsive
to the (erroneous) views of the electorate, will they not be forced to
pursue irrational and counter-productive policies, both domestically or
internationally; they are not responsive to the views of the electorate,
do they not lack democratic credibility? Many writers believe that there
are structural features of – modern rather than ‘Athenian’ – democracy
that dissolve this problem, and the democracy functions ‘in spite of
itself.’ The lecture will argue that this is unduly optimistic, and that
there is too much room for the interested manufacture of erroneous
opinions by elites, whether benign, malign, or simply trying to maintain
their economic advantages, to give us many grounds for cheerfulness
about contemporary democratic politics.
Alan Ryan was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and taught politics
at New College, and as a visiting professor at Hunter College, CUNY, The
University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Texas at Austin and
UC Santa Cruz. From 1988 to 1996 he was Professor of Politics at
Princeton, and one of the founding faculty of the UCHV. After completing
thirteen years as head of New College, Oxford, he returned to Princeton
in 2009 and now serves as the Director of the undergraduate program on
Values in Public Life.
Kind regards,
Zsuzsanna Bajó
Assistant
Office of Provost & the Pro-Rector for Hungarian and EU Affairs
Central European University
H-1051 Budapest, Nador u. 9.
Tel.: (+ 36 1) 327 3000/2188
Fax: (+ 36 1) 327 3007 ( tel:%28%2B%2036%201%29%20327%203007 )
E-mail: bajozs(a)ceu.hu ( mailto:bajozs@ceu.hu )
Web: www.ceu.hu
PLEASE NOTE: Our seminar room has a limited capacity. Please arrive early to ensure you get a seat. The talk will begin promptly at 5.
The next talk in the CDC Seminar series will be given by:
Liz Robinson, The University of Warwick
Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2012, 5 PM
Location: Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
To Believe or Disbelieve what we’re Told? Understanding about Transfer of Knowledge
Abstract: I shall contrast two different bases for judging whether or not an apparently well-intentioned informant’s testimony is likely to be reliable. In the first, the informant serves as a proxy for the self, gaining the knowledge that we would gain if we had that same experience. For example, our informant looks out the window and tells us that the taxi has arrived. Assuming the informant is well-intentioned, it is reasonable to believe that the taxi has indeed arrived. Under circumstances such as these we can make an accurate evaluation of the truth of what we are told, but we gain only specific knowledge. For gaining generalizable and culture-specific knowledge such as names or function of objects, we need to determine whether our informant has characteristics indicative of being generally knowledgeable, such as having a history of accuracy. Our prediction of trustworthiness will be rough and ready, and could just be based on rules of thumb rather than understanding of knowledge transfer. I shall summarize experiments examining children’s understanding that a person with a history of inaccuracy will not necessarily be unreliable in the future (their errors might be due to circumstances that no longer hold), while a person with a history of accuracy will not necessarily be reliable (they might have had external help that is no longer available). Taking such circumstances into account demands understanding of knowledge transfer.
Cognitive Science Events at CEU: http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events
_______________________________________________
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Dear Colleagues,
this is a reminder, that for the Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive
Development 2013 (BCCCD13) we are accepting poster abstracts until
tonight, October 15, until midnight CET (GMT+1).
You can submit a 250 word abstract here: http://asszisztencia.hu/bcccd/index.php?menu=7
Please visit our website to learn more about our invited speakers and
preliminary program, as well as for registration and hotel information.
http://www.asszisztencia.hu/bcccd/
We hope to see you in Budapest in January!
Best,
The BCCCD13 organizing committee
The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
John Christman (Penn State University)
on
`Caring for Autonomy: Becoming Self-Governing With Others` Help`
Tuesday, 16 October, 2012, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
Working Abstract
Respecting the autonomy of agents grounds various obligations to others such as non-interference, deference to her authority over self-regarding decisions, limitations on paternalism, and so on. According to a broadly liberal moral sensibility, respecting others? in this way implies accepting (in some sense) the values they autonomously hold even if they are judged problematic, immoral, self-destructive, or otherwise non-ideal. However, in discussions of such respect, it is generally assumed that persons expressing that respect (or not) have no direct bearing on whether the subject of that respect is herself autonomous. But in many situations, persons interact in a way that helps establish or re-establish the autonomy of one or both of these agents themselves.
For example, the would-be paternalist may be a committed aid worker whose professional obligation is to facilitate the process of re-establishing autonomy for vulnerable victims of trauma. In such scenarios, the usual lines between hard and soft paternalism, as well as the standard liberal rejection of the former, do not apply. Still, it would be wrong for the aid worker to simply impose her views of a decent life on the struggling person. How, then, do we reformulate restrictions on paternalism and other such normative strictures grounded in respect for autonomy in scenarios where the relationship between client and aid worker is itself a crucial part of the process that results in the self-governing agency of the client?
This paper explores these issues and argues that such (very typical) scenarios indicate that conceptions of autonomy must view the self as diachronic as well as socially constituted but also must be sensitive to the ways autonomy can be (re-)established only with others? help. In particular, the obligation to remain relatively neutral toward the content of others? values in showing respect for their autonomy (the broad liberal sensibility) must be reformulated to take into account the way interpersonal dynamics themselves help establish the autonomy with which persons hold the values that they hold. These observations are applied to cases of aid and care where such questions are central.
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM
Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös University
Address: Múzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest
17 October (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Gábor Hofer-Szabó
Institute of Philosophy, Research Center for the Humanities
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Trying to understand a new no-go result: the PBR theorem
___________________________________
Abstracts and printable program (poster) are available from the web
site of the Forum: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf (Please feel free to post
the program in your institution!)
The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty
members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture,
coffee break, 60 minute discussion.
The organizer of the Forum: László E. Szabó
(leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu)
--
L a s z l o E. S z a b o
Professor of Philosophy
DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY
EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST
http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo
The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
John Christman (Penn State University)
on
`Caring for Autonomy: Becoming Self-Governing With Others` Help`
Tuesday, 16 October, 2012, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
Working Abstract
Respecting the autonomy of agents grounds various obligations to others such as non-interference, deference to her authority over self-regarding decisions, limitations on paternalism, and so on. According to a broadly liberal moral sensibility, respecting others? in this way implies accepting (in some sense) the values they autonomously hold even if they are judged problematic, immoral, self-destructive, or otherwise non-ideal. However, in discussions of such respect, it is generally assumed that persons expressing that respect (or not) have no direct bearing on whether the subject of that respect is herself autonomous. But in many situations, persons interact in a way that helps establish or re-establish the autonomy of one or both of these agents themselves.
For example, the would-be paternalist may be a committed aid worker whose professional obligation is to facilitate the process of re-establishing autonomy for vulnerable victims of trauma. In such scenarios, the usual lines between hard and soft paternalism, as well as the standard liberal rejection of the former, do not apply. Still, it would be wrong for the aid worker to simply impose her views of a decent life on the struggling person. How, then, do we reformulate restrictions on paternalism and other such normative strictures grounded in respect for autonomy in scenarios where the relationship between client and aid worker is itself a crucial part of the process that results in the self-governing agency of the client?
This paper explores these issues and argues that such (very typical) scenarios indicate that conceptions of autonomy must view the self as diachronic as well as socially constituted but also must be sensitive to the ways autonomy can be (re-)established only with others? help. In particular, the obligation to remain relatively neutral toward the content of others? values in showing respect for their autonomy (the broad liberal sensibility) must be reformulated to take into account the way interpersonal dynamics themselves help establish the autonomy with which persons hold the values that they hold. These observations are applied to cases of aid and care where such questions are central.
The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
Tim Bayne (University of Oxford)
on
"Belief and its bedfellows"
Tuesday, 9 October, 2012, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
This paper attempts to draw some lessons about the nature of belief
from considerations concerning beliefs’ ‘bedfellows’: states that are
not paradigmatic beliefs but are belief-like in certain important
respects. I examine the merits of various proposals about how to
categorize such states, before turning to the question of what such
states might be able to teach us concerning the nature of belief, the
propositional attitudes, and mental states more generally.