Note! Only those teaching and residing in the US are eligible. A pity, as I’m sure that many would be interested in this prestigious summer school with E. J. Lowe, Graham Oddie, and Alyssa Ney. The director is John Heil.

METAPHYSICS AND MIND

NEH Summer Seminar
10 June-12 July 2013
Washington University in St Louis

Sixteen participants will be chosen from among eligible applicants interested in metaphysical issues that arise in the philosophy of mind. Early sessions of the seminar will be devoted to discussion of fundamental metaphysical themes including the nature of properties, causality, laws of nature, powers, and qualities. Later sessions will be devoted to discussion of metaphysical themes of special interest to participants.

The Seminar will include appearances by E. J. Lowe (Durham), Graham Oddie (Colorado), and Alyssa Ney (Rochester), who will discuss their work in the broader metaphysical context. Ample time will be allowed for participants to pursue individual projects on Seminar-related topics.

Seminar stipend: $3,900.

Application deadline: 4 March 2013

For more information, please visit the seminar website:

http://artsci.wustl.edu/~neh13/

In a few days I’m setting off to Utrecht in the Netherlands for the Indeterminism Ltd Kickoff Workshop, January 12-13. This is the first event of Thomas Müller’s ERC funded research project on free will, determinism, and related issues. I’m pleased to be one of the invited speakers at the workshop, where I will talk about substance causation, with special attention to E. J. Lowe’s work on the topic.

A list of speakers and their topics is available on the workshop website. The speakers are Hans Briegel, Martin van Hees, Annemarie Kalis, Anna Marmodoro, Alexander Reutlinger, Markus Schlosser, Charlotte Werndl, and me. I have not worked much in this area, but I’m quite interested in the metaphysical background of libertarian accounts of free will, which is one of the key themes of the research project. I’ve been reading Lowe’s Personal Agency (2008, OUP), which I find agreeable in parts, but I’m still making up my mind on some of these issues. A lot in Lowe’s project hangs on the feasibility of substance causation, and his idea that all causation is substance causation in particular. In my talk I’ll explore this idea, and especially the problem of how we can get knowledge of substance causation. My initial impression is that substance causation may only be intelligible if we accept Lowe’s non-Cartesian substance dualism as well. The abstract of my talk is below.

Tuomas Tahko – On the Very Idea of Substance Causation
The idea of substance causation is central to libertarian accounts of free will in particular, as the possibility of substance causation is required for agent-causal accounts, which are perhaps the most promising choice for libertarians. In this paper I will assess some arguments against the possibility of substance causation and also attempt to clarify E. J. Lowe’s idea that all causation is substance causation – without committing myself to this view. My goal is to determine how Lowe can or should reply to usual arguments against substance causation, and to see what kind of prospects agent-causal accounts have based on all this.

A bit of a short notice, but if you’re anywhere near Utrecht in two weeks’ time, on 24 November, make a note of this talk by E. J. Lowe. I’ve been reading Lowe’s Personal Agency, and his views on substance causation are particularly interesting. I’m thinking of looking into substance causation myself in the talk that I will give in Utrecth in January, at the Indeterminism Ltd kickoff workshop.

The first ZENO lecture of the academic year 2011-12 will be given by

Jonathan Lowe (Durham).

The topic of his lecture will be

Substance Causation, Powers, and Human Agency.

The lecture will take place on

Thursday, 24 November 2011, 16:00 – 18:00

in the

Aula, Academiegebouw, Domplein 29, Utrecht.

For details see here:

http://zenolectures.phil.uu.nl/?p=271

Attendance is free and no registration is required.

Abstract:

The powers of individual substances may, I believe, be distinguished in at least the following two ways. First, some of these powers are causal powers, while others are non-causal powers. Second, some of these powers are active powers, while others are passive powers. But all powers, as we shall see, are individuated by their manifestation types, that is, by the characteristic types of activity that constitute their exercise. A causal power is one whose exercise consists in the bearer of the power acting on one or more substances to bring about a change in them. A passive power is one whose exercise is always caused by one or more substances acting upon the bearer of the power. This classification of powers leaves open the possibility of there being a type of power that is at once active and non-causal: a power whose exercise is (1) not caused by any substance acting upon its bearer and (2) does not consist in its bearer bringing about a change in any substance. Such a power may be called a spontaneous power. It seems clear that such powers do exist in nature, the power of a radium atom to undergo radioactive decay being an example. This fact shows that there need be nothing anti-naturalistic, or incompatible with current physical science, in supposing that the human will, as it is exercised in episodes of voluntary action, is another such power. In saying that the will is a non-causal power, it is not being implied that the will is causally inefficacious, only that its exercise does not consist in the agent’s bringing about any sort of effect. Agent causalists who suppose that agents cause their own volitions by exercising agent-causal powers are, I believe, mistaken in this regard and mistaken too if they think that their view explains the special sense in which free agents have control over their voluntary actions. What, in my view, distinguishes the will from any other kind of spontaneous power is (1) that it is a two-way power — a power either to will or not to will a particular course of action — and (2) that it can be exercised rationally, that is, ‘in the light of reason’. The possession of such a power would, I believe, give human agents all the control that they could need or want over their voluntary actions. And very arguably, as we shall see, we cannot — on pain of undermining our entitlement to regard ourselves as rational beings — deny that we have such a power.

This interesting conference at Bilkent University, Turkey, is organized by István Aranyosi, whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet at several conferences. The list of keynote speakers is impressive, and I especially like the fact that only 8-10 papers are to be selected — this should mean that each submitted paper will receive sufficient attention, and the general quality will no doubt be very high. I don’t really work in philosophy of mind, but I do have a number of ideas in the drawer…

Conference Announcement and 1st CALL FOR PAPERS

Minds, Bodies, and Problems — A philosophy of mind conference

hosted by Bilkent University, Ankara, 7-8 June, 2012.

High-quality submissions are invited on the many aspects of the mind-body problem.

Some suggested topics include: naturalistic/physicalistic reduction of intentionality and/or phenomenal consciousness, the potential constitutive role of the body in mental states, the extended mind hypothesis, the potential conceptual role of the Peripheral Nervous System in the characterization of mental states/processes, body and mental causation, body/brain and free will, consciousness related topics in neuro- and bio-ethics, potential novel philosophical implications of focusing on less studied sense modalities: olfaction, proprioception, interoception, kinesthesia, etc.

Self-standing papers are preferred rather than papers responding to/commenting on another paper or book. Each talk will be 45 minutes long, including Q&A.

Keynote speakers:

Prof. Murat Aydede (University of British Columbia)

Prof. David Chalmers (Australian National University/New York University)

Prof. Tim Crane (Cambridge University)

Prof. Katalin Farkas (Central European University)

Prof. Shaun Gallagher (U. of Memphis/U. of Hertfordshire)

Interested speakers should submit an extended abstract (500-1000 words) by uploading it to the system to be found on the website of the conference:

http://minds.bilkent.edu.tr/

Submissions will be blindly refereed by a group of people comprising some of the keynote speakers, some of the faculty members of the Department of Philosophy at Bilkent University, and some members of the Turkish philosophical community.

We will select 8-10 speakers based on the submitted abstracts, and every effort is made to publish the final versions of the papers in an edited volume. The criteria of selection are both the perceived quality of the papers and the maximization of the conference’s overall diversity as far as the topics are concerned.

Abstract submission deadline: 15 January, 2012.

Expected date of a decision: 1 March, 2012.

Registration details:

Selected speakers will be asked to pay a conference fee of 160 EUR, which will cover the following:

- Three nights’ accommodation (6, 7, 8 June, 2012) in on-campus guest apartments.

- Lunches and dinners on 7 and 8 June, 2012.

- Breakfast on 8 June, 2012.

- Coffee, tea, and refreshments during the two conference days.

There will also be a two-day post-conference trip (9-10 June, 2012) to Cappadocia, which interested participants will have to pay for separately at a concession rate (approximately 100 EUR) which will cover transportation, tour guide, 4-star hotel accommodation, breakfast, dinner, and two lunches. For information on Cappadocia, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

The conference fee will also cover a fourth night at Bilkent upon return from Cappadocia, for of those who opt for joining us on that trip.

Payment details will be available to selected speakers by the time the final decision on the program will have been made.

The conference is open to the public, but the University is not able to arrange for accommodation and meals for non-speaker participants.

Two more reminders of the call for papers will be sent out: on 30 November, 2011, and on 30 December, 2011.

————

Organization

Organizing department/institution: Department of Philosophy/Bilkent University

Organizer: Dr. István Aranyosi (Bilkent University)

Program Committee:

Prof. Varol Akman (Bilkent University)

Dr. Sandy Berkovski (Bilkent University)

Dr. Hilmi Demir (Bilkent University)

Dr. Kourken Michaelian (Bilkent University)

Assoc. Prof. Erdinç Sayan (Middle East Technical University)

Dr. Simon Wigley (Bilkent University)

Dr. Bill Wringe (Bilkent University)