TFAP

A Workshop at the University of Tokyo, Komaba

RATIONALITY, REPRESENTATION, AND REALITY

Dec 8-9, 2018

Venue: Komaba II campus, RCAST Building 3, 2nd floor seminar room.
Access map

This two-day workshop will offer a forum for cutting edge presentations on problems in metaphysics and the philosophies of language, mind and action. Attendance does not require any invitation. However, as space will be limited, we would appreciate if you informed the organiser by email (Richard Dietz, richarddietz22@gmail.com), in case you will attend.

Organisers: Richard Dietz (Yamananshi iCLA) and John O'Dea (University of Tokyo)

Funding: JSPS KAKENHI (16K02109: 16K02110: 16H03358)

SPEAKERS
Takeshi Akiba (Chiba U.)
Akiko Frischhut (AIU)
Aviv Hoffmann (Hebrew U. of Jerusalem)
Tora Koyama (Yamaguchi U.)
Kengo Miyazono (Hiroshima U.)
Samuel Mortimer
Graham Peebles (Osaka U.)
Shuhei Shimamura (Nihon U.)
Shun Tsugita (Nagoya U.)
Istvan Zardai (Keio U.)

SCHEDULE

ABSTRACTS

Takeshi Akiba: Truth Theory and Alethic Pluralism
While there are a variety of truthmaker theories, they all have something to do with the notion of truth. But how is this ‘something’ to be understood, and how are these theories related to more traditional theories of truth? In this talk, I address these issues with particular attention to a position called alethic pluralism, according to which there are more than one ways for propositions to be true. More specifically, I would like to critically examine a recent argument (by Jamin Asay) to the effect that alethic pluralism should be rejected on behalf of a general truthmaker theory coupled with primitivism about the concept of truth.

Akiko Frischhut: Nothing Quite Like It: A Deflationist Account of Experiencing Temporal Passage
This talk concerns the question whether we can (perceptually) experience the passage of time. I argue that we do not represent passage and, perhaps more radically, there is no unique ‘what it’s like’ of temporal passage either. Instead we form the erroneous belief that time passes on the basis of our experience of ordinary temporal phenomena, in particular from the experience of succession.

Aviv Hoffmann: A New Theory of Facts as Truth-Makers
I offer a theory according to which facts are mereological fusions of regions of what I call exemplification space, where each point is a world-specific state of affairs. Then, I define propositional facts: facts which correspond to propositions. The definition refers to basic facts and requires closure under defined Boolean operations of negation and conjunction (on facts). Thus characterized, facts are hyperintensional: necessarily equivalent facts need not be identical. Their hyperintensionality is grounded in a defined notion of aboutness. Next, I offer a truth-maker theory which adds a new twist to the view that facts make propositions true: I assign world-specific states of affairs as truth-makers to all possibly true propositions. This strategy avoids the pitfalls that beset a familiar definition of truth-makers. Subsequently, I throw away the world-specific ladder: I define truth-makers that are not world-specific by fusing world-specific truth-makers. Consequently, truth-maker maximalism holds: every truth has a truth-maker.

Tora Koyama: The Domains of Quantification as Truthmakers
Truthmaker theorists have trouble finding truthmakers for negative existential truths, especially if they are committed to the Orthodox truthmaker theory, the conjunction of Truthmaker Maximalism (all truths have truthmakers) and Truthmaker Necessitarianism (truthmakers necessitate their truths). Three strategies are known to avoid it: (i) to posit negative entities such as negative facts, (ii) to restrict Truthmaker Maximalism to non-negative truths, and (iii) to replace Truthmaker Necessitarianism with more moderate one. In this talk, I propose a novel strategy, which maintains both of Truthmaker Maximalism and Truthmaker Necessitarianism without positing any bizarre entities. According to the strategy, the truthmakers for negative existential truths are their domains of quantification. The domains are worth considering as truthmakers for the following reasons. First, quantificational truths are about, and presumably grounded on, their domains. Second, the domains can necessitate their truths. Third, the domains are on a par with tropes and facts as truthmakers with respect to the fact that all of them necessitate their truths in virtue of their nature. I also argue that if the domains of quantifications can be truthmakers as I propose, it is questionable that the truthmaker theory is a genuine alternative to the Quinean criterion of ontological commitment.

Sam Mortimer: The Construction of Meaning
Conversational repair is the linguistic phenomenon of patching up communications by clarifications and corrections. It has received extensive study in linguistics over the last few years, but its philosophical implications—especially for the notion of speaker meaning—have been largely ignored. This talk aims to fill the gap. I will argue that meaning is constructed by speech, including by acts of repair; and the construction of meaning constitutes a kind of freedom, which can be eroded by certain societal norms and practices.

Kengo Miyazono: Husserlian Modal Epistemology of Consciousness
Sometimes philosophers (and even psychologists and neuroscientists) endorse modal claims about consciousness itself (rather than modal truths about, say, the relation between consciousness and brain states). But how do we know modal truths about consciousness? One of the most sophisticated answer to this question was provided by Husserl, in particular in his discussion of what he calls “eidetic variation”. I endorse Husserl’s idea that we know modal truths about consciousness by observing variations, but reject his claim that the variations are given in a priori usage of imagination. The variations, I will argue, are given in a posteriori observation of abnormal psychological states instead.

Graham Peebles: A Seemingly Ineluctable Fallacy Regarding Perception and Thought
There is a seemingly ineluctable fallacy that has pervaded the discussion of the mind and consciousness (at least) since Russell’s introduction of the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. It is the fallacy of drawing from the different epistemological properties of perception and thought a different metaphysics of perception and thought. This fallacy is most obviously demonstrated in the theory of sense-data. But despite the almost unanimous rejection of sense-data and its associated version of the fallacy, the general version keeps reappearing in different guises. The fallacy is so seemingly ineluctable because it is so closely associated with the vice-like intuitive grip that the comparison between seeing that p and judging that p exerts on the imagination. But this comparison could only validly be said to introduce or support some version of the mind-body problem if underwritten by the fallacious inference of a different metaphysics of perception and thought. Without this, the appearance of a problem cannot be supported. This conclusion is not new. It has been argued by Dennett, Armstrong, and others. But examining the underlying fallacy shows us how to correctly respond to Chalmers’ recent posing the of the “meta-problem” of consciousness.

Shuhei Shimamura: The Transparency of Our Own Desires
In this paper, I offer an account of our introspective capacity to self-ascribe desires solely on the basis of our outward-looking capacity to desire what we desire. Since Gareth Evans argued that we self-ascribe a belief simply by taking the believed thing to be the case, such a “transparency” account of introspection has drawn a lot of attention in literature. One central question is, however, to what extent a transparency account can be generalized to explain self-ascriptions of other attitudes than belief. This paper tackles this general question by focusing on desire. While similar attempts have recently been conducted by several authors, they tend to compromise some of the original explanatory merits of the transparency account as a result of missing what I take to be its essential insight—that is, we self-ascribe an attitude φ simply by exercising the outward-looking capacity to φ. This insight leads us to a transparency account of desire self-ascription that is a close analogue of Evans’: We self-ascribe our desire by taking the desired thing to be an aim.

Shun Tsugita: Reinforcement and the Content of Motivational States
Recent works concerning naturalistic semantics tend to be modest in that they only give naturalistic account of the most basic representational capacities. This talk tries to give a modest naturalistic account of motivational (desire-like) states. The content of desires are their fulfillment conditions. Considering the basic motives such as thirst, the fulfilment conditions of motivational states seem to be those where they “normally” disappear. One way of explicating the relevant notion of normality is by virtue of reinforcement. But it faces the common circularity objection such that reinforcers are what is wanted. This talk replies to the objection to illuminate the metaphysical basis of motivational states.

Istvan Zardai: Actions, Rational, Irrational, Arational
A large number of philosophers working on actions, mind and ethics have accepted since Donald Davidson's 'Agency' that all actions are intentional under at least one of their descriptions. All such actions are rational in the sense that the agent performs them for a reason. They make sense to the agent and we can understand why the agent does them. I argue against this claim, and explore views, inspired by Aristotle's and Aquinas's positions, which deny that all action is intentional under at least one of its descriptions. Engaging with the work of Rosalind Hursthouse, Richard Teichman, John Hyman, and Hong Yu Wong, I argue that there are both intentional and unintentional actions, as well as non-intentional actions. Furthermore, actions can be unintentional and also voluntary or involuntary. And there is also a category of non-voluntary, arational actions. Many automatic movements belong into this last category. Hence, what counts as action is much broader than what we do for a reason, and as such, what is rational.