The CEU Philosophy Department cordially invites you to a talk (as part of its Departmental Colloquium series) by Milosz Pawlowski (CEU) on The Future of A Parfitian Reductionist Tuesday, 14 Oct 2008, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412 ABSTRACT Derek Parfit is the most influential proponent of the view that persons are logical constructions out of ontologically more basic objects. For Parfit, these are mental events. Parfit's position is intended to be different from Eliminativism about persons. On Parfitian Reductionism, persons are genuine, albeit convention- and thought-dependent, objects. My aim will be to examine an objection to this view, which has it that if such Reductionism is true, it is a mistake to think that we can anticipate "our" futures. I will first show how inconsistencies in Parfit's position are resolved by the account developed by Raymond Martin. On Martin's view, we can anticipate experiences of people who are not identical to us. Yet I will argue that the conventionalist component of Parfitian Reductionism makes it impossible for it to preserve the distinction between genuine and seeming anticipation. This makes genuine anticipation impossible. Since possibility of anticipation is an essential component of the concept of a person, it follows that there are no people if Parfitian Reductionism is true. The view collapses into Eliminativism. Kriszta Biber Department Coordinator Philosophy Department Tel: 36-1-327-3806 Fax: 36-1-327-3072