[koglist] invitation to a talk by Miljana Milojević on `What are colours if not surface spectral reflectances?` - 17 April, 4.00 PM

The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk by Miljana Milojević (University of Belgrade) on `What are colours if not surface spectral reflectances?` Tuesday, 17 April 2012, 4.00 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412 ABSTRACT Naturalistic theories of content determination have to answer the question what constitutes representational content of mental states about secondary and tertiary qualities, such as being red or being pleasent. There are three typical views about the nature of non-primary qualities: they are objective physical properties, subjective mental properties, or dispositions of physical objects to produce appropriate mental states. Although there are three possible anwers, objectivism about secondary qualities was seen as only viable option for a naturalistically inclined philosopher. In spite of this commonly held opinion, it is possible to give a dispositionalist account about non-primary qualities which is compatible with naturalistic theories of content. This kind of dispositionalism has the advantage over objectivism as it resolves some of the difficulties objectivists face; it rejects dubious disjunctive properties as objects of representations, objectivists were forced to endorse, and replaces them with particular dispositions, and it gives a unified account about the nature of secondary and tertiary qualities, which were handled separately by objectivists about secondary qualities. Unfortunately, endorsement of dispositionalism opens yet new problems such as: the impossibility of misrepresentation, and the inclusion of normativity in otherwise naturalized theory of representational content. These seemingly difficult obstacles can nevertheless be surpassed by teleological amandment to dispositionalist account, or so I will argue, which simultaneously solves both problems – it naturalises assumed notion of normativity and defines response-dependent dispositions in such a way that binds them more tightly to the world and so surmounts the problem of misrepresentation. Kriszta Biber Department Coordinator Philosophy Department Tel: 36-1-327-3806 Fax: 36-1-327-3072 E-mail: biberk(a)ceu.hu