Tokyo Forum For Analytic Philosophy

Program

Friday 11 Apr 2025
Josh Armstrong

TBA

Speaker: Josh Armstrong
From: UCLA
URL: https://www.josharmstrongphilosophy.net/
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 25 Apr 2025
Margot Strohminger

TBA

Speaker: Margot Strohminger
From: Australian Catholic University
URL: https://webpublic.acu.edu.au/staffdirectory/?margot-strohminger=
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 2 May 2025
Eva Weber-Guskar

Thinking about Emotional AI: Personal Bonds with Social Chatbots?

Speaker: Eva Weber-Guskar
From: Ruhr-University Bochum
URL: https://www.pe.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/philosophie/i/phil-ethik-emotion/index.html.en
Abstract: “Emotional AI” refers to systems that can detect or stimulate emotions in people, or visually or vocally simulate emotions. This technology is increasingly being combined with linguistic AI, which we know as ChatGPT, LaMDA and similar “large language models”, so that powerful social chatbots like Replika are emerging. While ChatGPT is designed only as an organizational assistant, the function of social chatbots is to engage in personal conversations and stimulate social feelings. More and more people report that they have relationships with such digital counterparts. How can we grasp what is really going on in these cases and what should we think of this new phenomenon from an ethical perspective? Are these kinds of systems and their use problematic, reprehensible, or a welcome addition to our lives? In the lecture, I will present different possible types of relationships and discuss them in terms of their potential and challenges.

 
 
Friday 16 May 2025
Ben Winokur

TBA

Speaker: Ben Winokur
From: University of Macau
URL: http://benwinokur.com/
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 23 May 2025
Zed Adams

Art is not a game

Speaker: Zed Adams
From: The New School for Social Research, New York City
URL: https://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/zed-adams/
Abstract: Interpretations of artworks seem governed by two requirements: on the one hand, we want our interpretations to be correct; on the other hand, in arriving at our interpretations, we prohibit ourselves from relying upon the testimony of others. These requirements can seem to be in tension: if we really aim at correctness, why prohibit ourselves from relying on others? Thi Nguyen proposes to resolve this apparent tension by arguing that art interpretation has a similar structure to playing a game, in which we impose artificial restrictions on the pursuit of goals in order to make the pursuit of those goals enjoyable for its own sake. When we interpret art, we aim at correctness (just as we sometimes aim to knock down a set of ten pins with a heavy ball), but we also impose an artificial restriction of not relying on others (just as in trying to knock down the pins we restrict ourselves from coming closer than 60 feet from them). This gives us an autotelic activity that we enjoy participating in for its own sake, whether it’s interpreting art or bowling (Nguyen 2020). In this talk, I criticize Nguyen’s proposed resolution of the apparent tension between these two requirements and offer my own alternative account. On my account, unlike Nguyen’s, the prohibition on testimony isn’t an artificial imposition–it’s a consequence of the very nature of aesthetic judgments. The interpretation of art is, for this very reason, not a game.

 
 
Friday 6 Jun 2025
Tatyana Kostochka

TBA

Speaker: Tatyana Kostochka
From: Ashoka University
URL: https://www.ashoka.edu.in/profile/tatyana-kostochka/
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 27 Jun 2025
Bronwyn Finnigan

TBA

Speaker: Bronwyn Finnigan
From: Australian National University
URL: http://bronwynfinnigan.com
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 11 Jul 2025
Fabian Wendt

TBA

Speaker: Fabian Wendt
From: Kellogs Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Virginia Tech University
URL: https://www.fabianwendt.com/
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 10 Oct 2025
Igal Kvart

TBA

Speaker: Igal Kvart
From: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
URL: https://en.philosophy.huji.ac.il/people/igal-kvart
Abstract: TBA

 
 
Friday 7 Nov 2025
Thomas Hofweber

TGBA

Speaker: Thomas Hofweber
From: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
URL: https://www.thomashofweber.com/
Abstract: TBA