Speaker: Anya Daly

Date, Time: 15/11/2011, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: Direct Ethics argues for an ethics based on the idea that the most primary level of engagement with another is first and foremost internal, that “subjectivity is an intersubjectivity” (Husserl), and this engagement is pre-reflective; correlatively, current ethical accounts constitute a secondary reflective level which depends on the prereflective. I propose the elucidation of a Direct Ethics is able to reconfigure not only the philosophical landscape, but is also able to throw new light on the domain of ethical debates.

My presentation will give a brief survey of the key stages in establishing this position on the basis of Merleau Ponty’s phenomenology, beginning with his account of alterity, central to which is Merleau-Ponty’s notion of reversibility. The question at stake here is whether the reversibility thesis can guarantee a genuine other, affording both real communication and real difference. I will then go on to elaborate in detail the notion of prereflective percipience, the primary level of moral engagement with an Other, that whereby Direct Ethics becomes possible. It is important to distinguish this from UNrelfective engagement (of the type strongly critiqued by Singer) and also reflective engagement which is the mode of normative ethical accounts.

Speaker: Sandy Boucher

Date, Time: 25/10/2011, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: In my thesis I explore and defend of Bas van Fraassen’s metaphilosophical views, in particular his theory of philosophical stances, and apply these ideas to issues in the philosophy of biology. Part I discusses van Fraassen’s stance idea and related issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and metaphilosophy. Part II explores the possibility of interpreting a number of metaphysical and theoretical debates in evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology in terms of the framework spelled out in part I.

Speaker: Jenny Gray

Date, Time: 18/10/2011, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: Few people consider the ethics of zoos as they enter the gates, children in tow. Comfortable in the belief that if zoos were wrong they would be closed, we enjoy the close interaction with magnificent creatures with little thought of the moral implications of zoo operations. Zoos reflect the often contradictory relationships that people have with animals; rejecting blatant welfare atrocities, accepting our right to use animals for our own ends and ignoring the confused and complex moral issues that are part of owning and using animals. By examining zoo operations through the lens of rights, virtue and consequential ethics, a better understanding will emerge of the duties and obligations for those who, like zoos, choose to hold and work with animals.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-University-Philosophy-Community/178992145514134

Speaker: Leonie Martino

Date, Time: 9/08/2011, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: Gaita speaks of human individuality, the inner life, the preciousness of human beings, and their absolute value, in ways that I think deepen our understanding of the value of human beings. My aim in my thesis is to provide a critical analysis of these key concepts. By highlighting inconsistencies, offering clarifications, and raising questions, I hope to contribute to the philosophical ‘conversation’ of these important themes and to offer some insight into Gaita’s work. The paper I will be presenting today is essentially the second chapter of my thesis. It is here that I outline my interpretation of Gaita’s central concern – this being the denial of moral equality of those who have lost everything that gives life meaning – and introduce a problem with his representation of it.

Speaker: Martino Rossi Monti

Date, Time: 14/6/2011, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: What do the flight of a swan and the moves of an athlete have in common? What is the relationship between a smile and an elegant gesture? How can all these things be called graceful? Does one have to be morally good in order to be graceful? Is there a connection between human grace and divine grace? I will try to address these questions by focusing on a tradition of thought in which aesthetic grace and theological grace are deeply intertwined. I believe that some of the most significant modern theories of grace are deeply rooted in this old tradition, which roughly starts with Plotinus and runs through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Speaker: Ross Barham

Date, Time: 7/06/11, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: Kant characterizes the dynamically sublime as arising from the aesthetic judgment of the otherwise fearful mightiness of the natural world as having no dominion over us. As a partial corollary of this characterization, Kant assumes that the dynamically sublime can be appreciated only via visual perception. I shall argue, however, that the nature, principles and testimonials of the non-violent, Japanese martial art, Aikido, suggest that the dynamically sublime is equally amenable to certain modes of kinesthetic appreciation.

Speaker: Anya Daly

Date, Time: 31/05/11, 5:15pm

Location: Old Quad Common Room

Abstract: Merleau-Ponty has provocatively claimed that resolving ‘the problem of the Other’ (the problem of other minds) would lead to an entire reconstruction of western philosophy. Why would this philosopher – renowned for his humility make such a seemingly grandiose claim? He further claims that all the perplexities, most notably solipsism and scepticism, that have occupied philosophers since Plato, have been founded on an error, an error that reached its apogee with Descartes’ dualism.

This error is the denigration and rejection of both perception and the body in epistemic endeavours. The ambitions of philosophers, such as Plato, to found understanding of the world on pure reason has cleaved the world into appearance/ reality, subjective/ objective, interior/ exterior, immanance/ transcendence and self/ other. The phenomenological projects of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty seek to rectify this error by reinstating perception and the body at the heart of the epistemic enterprise.

Just as the problem of the Other, understood as an epistemic problem, requires a compete reconstruction of philosophy, so too, I propose, a parallel claim can be made in regard to ethics. On the basis of MP’s non-dual ontology, the problem of the ethical other needs to be radically rethought.

To defend this claim, I rely on phenomenological analysis, which finds empirical support in recent neuroscience. The work of philosopher/ neuroscientist Shaun Gallagher is significant to my claims. Gallagher has proposed, following Trevarthen, that in ‘Theory of mind” the predominant accounts of Theory theory and Simulation theory belong to a secondary level of Theory of Mind, and he proposes (without rejecting TT & ST) that there is in fact a more primary level which he terms Interactive Theory of Mind. My claim is that the current accounts in Ethics constitute a secondary level, which depends on a more primary level that gives meaning to and motivates their accounts. This primary level, I claim, is implicit in MP’s non-dual ontology. My thesis aims to make this explicit.

Speaker: Damien Rochford (MIT)

Date, Time: 25/05/11, 3:00pm

Location: Old Quad Moot Court.

Abstract: I’m going to argue that the answer to the problem of intentionality (i.e., the
problem of explaining what the deal is with things that are about other things)
has to take a certain form. Roughly speaking, the thesis is that intentional
properties of sub-sentential terms are derivative on the properties of
sentences; it will take a while to make it non-rough.

This matters because, if its right, there’s a sense in which certain questions
— maybe a lot of questions philosophers worry about — don’t have answers. I
will try to sketch how that follows.

Incidentally, this is all basically Quine; my view is just his view minus
behaviourism, and with different emphasis.

Warning: this talk is in the *highly* initial stages. Pro: you’re getting in on
the ground level! You may shape the future of philosophy! Con: the project may
collapse mid-talk.

Speaker: Aaron Guthrie

Date, Time: 10/05/11, 5:15pm

Location: Theatrette 1, Arts West Building (Formerly Economics & Commerce Building). Click here for a map.

Abstract: All emeralds so far examined are green. This gives inductive confirmation for all emeralds being green, yet examined or not. But let us define “grue” as “green iff examined before 2020”. All emeralds thus far examined are also grue, so we have confirmation that all emeralds are grue. Something has gone wrong; this doesn’t seem like a plausible confirmation.

A natural way to proceed is to resist “grue” as being a predicate good for induction; e.g. that it is un-natural, and intuitively complex. This isn’t such an easy move to make, as there is logical symmetry between the predicates; in so far as grue is equivalent to “green iff examined before 2020”, green is equivalent to “grue iff examined before 2020”. But there is non-logical asymmetry; you don’t need to check your watch to know if something is green. This can be used to resist “grue” as being on equal footing to “green”. This talk will aim to bolster our understanding of such asymmetries by discussing asymmetries that hold between different languages.