June 21-23, 2012
Senate House, University of London
http://www.uea.ac.uk/phi/research/conferences/philinsights
Since its inception, modern philosophy has had to compete with science. This competition has given rise to the question of what distinctive contribution philosophy can make to human knowledge. The conference will examine the genesis, nature and status of philosophical insights. It will bring together leading exponents of (post-)analytic, experimental and naturalistic philosophy, to develop and explore fresh answers, and address the issue of what kinds of contribution philosophy has made and can make to human knowledge – in particular in those areas in which it appears to compete with science.
Confirmed Speakers
David Papineau (King's College London): "The Importance of Armchair Analysis"
Tim Crane (Cambridge): “Philosophical Insights from History”
Jennifer Nagel (Toronto): "Armchair-friendly experiments"
Hilary Kornblith (Amherst): “Naturalistic Defenses of Intuition”
Jonathan Weinberg (Arizona): "Humans as Instruments: Or, The Inevitability of Experimental Philosophy"
Eugen Fischer (UEA): " Philosophical Intuitions, Heuristics, and Metaphors "
Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh): "Toward an Experimental Philosophy of Language"
John Collins (UEA): "An Appropriate Naturalisation of the Philosophy of Language"
James Ladyman (Bristol): "Is the Concept of Ontological Dependence a Distinctively Metaphysical One about which Only Philosophical Insight Can Deliver Knowledge?"
Download the Provisional Programme (20KB) with abstracts of invited talks.
Aims
The conference will bring together philosophers who have participated, on different sides, in three related key debates.
1. Some distinguished philosophers (incl. David Papineau and Timothy Williamson) have attempted to formulate realistic self-images for post-analytic mainstream philosophy. In particular, they seek to show how ‘armchair philosophy’ which makes substantive use of thought experiments can contribute as autonomous discipline to empirical knowledge.
2. The movement of ‘experimental philosophy’ has engendered a lively debate about the nature, genesis and evidentiary value of philosophical intuitions, which have been regarded as a central source of philosophical insight, both in classical analytic and in contemporary philosophy.
3. Philosophers of various naturalist persuasions have questioned the autonomy of philosophy and sought to make substantive use of results from empirical disciplines in addressing philosophical questions. E.g., some sought a properly ‘naturalized’ metaphysics, which takes physics rather than intuition as its guide, and much recent work in the philosophy of concepts calls upon developmental psychology to shed light on the philosophically fraught concepts of number and natural kind.
Proceeding mainly from case-studies on particular philosophical practices, intuitions and relevant empirical research, contributors will contribute to these inter-connected debates and develop and explore partially complementary, partially competing answers to the guiding questions:
· Are there genuinely philosophical insights?
· How are they gained?
· What kind of knowledge do they yield?
· How do they compare with apparently similar kinds of scientific insights?
· How do they complement such insights?
Call for Papers
The organisers invite papers that contribute to the debates indicated with a view to answering some of these questions. Preference is given to papers that proceed from case-studies on particular philosophical practices, intuitions and relevant empirical research. Papers should be suitable for 40-minute presentation and subsequent publication. The Mind Association Occasional Series, published by OUP, has first refusal on the planned conference volume. For further information please contact Eugen Fischer.
Complete draft papers should be submitted along with 500-word abstracts, by April 1st, 2012, to Eugen Fischer. Decisions by April 20th, 2012.
