Timothy O'Connor (Indiana) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies podcast series. Abstract: The correlated terms "emergence" and "reduction" are used in several ways in contemporary discussions ranging from complex systems theory to philosophy of mind, a fact that engenders confusion or talking at cross purposes. I try to bring greater clarity to this discussion by reflecting on John Conway's cellular automaton The Game of Life and simple variations on it. We may think of...
May 07, 2014•54 min
John Dupré (Exeter) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies podcast series Abstract: This talk will explore the implications for a metaphysics of powers of the replacement of a substance ontology with a process ontology. I take a process to be an entity that must be active in some way to exist and I argue that processes are more fundamental than things: things are temporary and partial stabilisations in a flux of process. Can the activities that sustain processes be unders...
May 07, 2014•57 min
Neil Williams (Buffalo University) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies podcast series Abstract; The typical understanding of powers—according to which they have their effects necessarily—has recently come under attack. The threat of imagined counterfactual scenarios (wherein the power is exercised but the characteristic manifestation does not ensue) has led some to question the traditional picture, and prompted others to give it up entirely. But this defection has been...
May 07, 2014•49 min
Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (Lund University) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies podcast series Abstract: In this talk I will elaborate on the naturalist theory of causation that I first presented in ‘Causal Production as Interaction’ (2002). In the course of presenting the view I will elucidate in what sense the account (i) presents causation as a necessary process of production without appeal to ceteris paribus clauses, (ii) explains the connection between causation and ...
May 07, 2014•56 min
Stephen French (Leeds) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies series. Abstract: 'Recent defences of dispositionalism and powers based accounts have appealed to the way properties such as charge and spin are treated in physics. However, I shall argue that on closer analysis, modern physics does not supply the level of support that is typically adduced. Adjusting these accounts to bring them more into line with the way physics treats such properties takes them closer to cer...
Feb 18, 2014•50 min
Alastair Wilson, Birmingham, gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies series Abstract: Jonathan Schaffer has recently defended the doctrine of quidditism against an epistemological challenge, claiming that the challenge amounts to nothing more than ‘external-world scepticism writ small’. I disagree with this assessment. The cases are significantly disanalogous, and quiddistic scepticism is much harder to avoid than external-world scepticism. Ultimately, the epistemological ...
Feb 18, 2014•58 min
Nick Jones, University of Birmingham, gives a talk in which he appeal to an examination of the explanatory role of ordinary macroscopic objects to argue that some of them are metaphysically fundamental.
Feb 18, 2014•46 min
Henry Mendell (California State) gives a talk for the Power Structualism in Ancient Ontologies series Abstract: Historians in the twentieth century argued about whether Aristotle presents a general theory of dynamics in Physics VII 5 or merely presents examples from ordinary experience, which he then applies abstractly to arguments about the unmoved mover and general issues about the balance of elements in the sublunary realm. Recently the pendulum of opinion has swayed towards taking Aristotle'...
Feb 18, 2014•56 min
Don Morison (Rice) gives a talk for the Power Structualism in Ancient Ontology series. Abstract: 'The happiness of the city (the eudaimonia of the polis) is a central concept in Aristotle’s political philosophy. For example, in NE I, 2, Aristotle says that the ultimate end of human action is the good of the city. At the beginning of his discussion of the ideal regime in Politics VII, 1, he says that the happy city is the one that is best and acts nobly”. Chapter 2 of book VII is devoted to the q...
Feb 18, 2014•39 min
Thomas Sattig (Tübingen) gives a talk for the Power Structualism in Ancient Ontologies series. Abstract: 'Pluralists about material objects believe that distinct material objects can coincide at a time—that they can exactly occupy the same spatial region and be constituted by the same matter at that time. Pluralism is often accepted for reasons of common sense. It seems obvious, for example, that there could be a piece of paper and a paper airplane made from the latter, such that the piece of pa...
Feb 18, 2014•48 min
Mark Sinclair (Manchester Metropolitan) gives a talk for the Power Structualism in Ancient Ontologies series In Getting Causes from Powers, Steven Mumford and Rani Lil Anjum have argued that all dispositions are to be thought as tendencies or inclinations; that such tendencies or inclinations have a sui generis modality, irreducible to traditional ideas of necessity or possibility; and that we have direct experience of such inclinations in our subjective experience of agency. In this paper, I cr...
Feb 18, 2014•53 min
Claudine Tiercelin (Collège de France) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies series. Abstract 'I will examine the conditions of possibility and the nature of metaphysical “knowledge”: 1) as compared with other types (mathematical, physical, ethical, philosophical knowledge; 2) from the point of view of its methods (conceptual analysis, thought experiments, empirical intuitions, a posteriori inferences, economy of research); 3) in relation to other traditional models of k...
Feb 18, 2014•1 hr 5 min
Nick Denyer (Cambridge) gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies podcast series Abstract: Stilpo engaged triumphantly in repartee with the great dialectician Diodorus Cronus, with the celebrated courtesan Glycera, with the king Demetrius Poliorcetes, and even with Poseidon and the Mother of the Gods. He also put his talents to use in devising consolatory arguments, to fortify us in the face of exile, bereavement, and unchaste daughters. In this talk, I will attempt to bring...
Feb 13, 2014•45 min
Christopher Gill (Exeter) gives a talk on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and asks How Stoic are They? Abstract: In this paper I address the longstanding question whether the Meditations present orthodox Stoic philosophy or a personal or eclectic selection of themes. In approaching this question I stress the importance of taking into account what seems to be Marcus’ core project in the Meditations (namely, promoting his own ethical self-development) and also of taking full note of the themes which ...
Feb 13, 2014•57 min
Steve Makin, (Sheffield) gives a talk for the Power Structualism in Ancient Ontologies podcast series Abstract: Aristotle emphasises the role of habituation in our acquiring moral virtues, as well as other abilities. I discuss an independently engaging problem concerning the acquisition of abilities through practice, formulated in the context of Aristotle’s account of virtue development. The problem consists in a tension between two plausible claims, one [A] concerning what is required for an ag...
Feb 13, 2014•48 min
Richard Sorabji gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontolgies podcast series
Feb 13, 2014•43 min
Stephen Butterfill gives a talk on philosophy and collective agency and other people's minds When friends walk together, they typically exercise collective agency. By contrast, two strangers walking side by side exercise parallel but merely individual agency. This and other contrasts invite the question, What distinguishes collective agency from parallel but merely individual agency? To answer this question, philosophers standardly appeal to a special kind of intention or structure of intention,...
Feb 12, 2014•58 min
Mika Perala gives a talk on Aristotle's philosophy Aristotle states in the De Memoria et Reminiscentia that we have memories of individuals such as Koriscus. In line with this, he assumes in many contexts (e.g. logical and ethical) that we can make singular propositions on the basis of such perceptual states. However, commentators have been puzzled about whether singular propositions (and thoughts) can be given an adequate account in Aristotle’s psychological theory. The purpose of this paper is...
Feb 12, 2014•41 min
Louise Fiona Richardson gives a talk on philosophy and perception It is beyond dispute that the senses interact. In this paper I will consider the way in which such interaction constrains thought about the senses, and in particular, thought about how they are distinguished from one another. I will consider two views of what it is to have a sense. On the first view, senses are systems. On the second, they are capacities. I will argue that on each view, the occurrence of different forms of multimo...
Feb 12, 2014•47 min
Jerome Dokic gives a talk on common sense and philosophy One of the functions of the common sense in Aristotle’s theory of perception is apparently to monitor the activity of our sensory modalities, and to make us aware that we see, hear, touch, taste, etc. However, the status of the common sense as a “second-order” perception, and its relationship to “first-order” perception (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, etc.) remains to be clarified. On the one hand, numerous examples (involving percept...
Feb 12, 2014•51 min
Howard Robinson gives a talk on philosophy and the role of the intellect Abstract: First, I will consider Jaworski’s interesting recent attempt to defend hylomorphism, understood as the irreducible and the causal efficacy of structure. I shall reject this as unsuccessful, then try to see where this leaves us. I shall develop what I’ll dub the ‘radically dualist’ option, according to which the fundamental physical level and the mind are the only fundamental levels. This will involve looking at di...
Feb 12, 2014•44 min
Anna Marmodoro gives a talk on Aristotle and his philosophy Aristotle draws a distinction between qualities that are perceptible via a single sense only, the special sensibles, and qualities that are perceptible by more than one sense at once, the common sensibles. What are the ontology and the epistemology of the common sensibles, in light of Aristotle’s assumption that each sense organ is sensitive to only its own special sensibles? Does the problem of common sensibles give us reasons for givi...
Feb 12, 2014•52 min
Rory Madden, Lecturer in Philosophy at University College London, gives a talk about animate organisms for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies Project. Rory argues - against prevailing opinion in the contemporary personal identity debate - that intuitive verdicts about cerebrum-transplant and brain-in-a-vat cases are consistent with the thesis that we are fundamentally biological organisms of a certain kind.
Aug 23, 2013•1 hr 1 min
Peter Simons, Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin, gives a talk as part of the series 'Metaphysics of Powers, Causation and Persons'. A process ontology (Heraclitus, Whitehead, Rescher) takes spatiotemporally extended events and processes as primary entities, enduring things as secondary. A factored ontology (Empedocles, Aristotle, Ingarden) investigates the non-entities in virtue of which there is categorial diversity in the world. Their combination purports to be a grounded univer...
Aug 23, 2013•1 hr 12 min
Mechanisms are at centre-stage right now in philosophy of science, especially in discussions of causal explanation and causal inference. For instance Jon Williamson and Frederica Russo argue that experimental and correlational evidence is not enough, evidence for the generating mechanism is required as well for solid causal inference. Nancy Cartwright endorses their view in this talk.
Aug 23, 2013•46 min
John Heil, Professor of Philosophy, Washington University in St Louis, gives a talk on Cartesian Transubstantiation. According to the received view of the metaphysics of the Eucharist endorsed by the Catholic Church after the thirteenth century, sacramental bread and wine are 'converted' into Christ's body and blood (this is transubstantiation), but the accidents of the bread and wine remain on the altar inhering in no substance. Such a view is difficult to square with Aristotelian physics, but ...
Aug 23, 2013•53 min
Professor Jim Hankinson, University of Texas at Austin, gives a talk for the Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies project.
Aug 23, 2013•59 min
Jeff Brower, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University, gives a talk explaining the key differences between Aristotelian and more contemporary theories of relations.
Aug 23, 2013•46 min
A talk from Galen Strawson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas. Structure considered just as such is an abstract, purely logico-mathematically characterisable phenomenon. It appears to follow that if a structure is concretely realised then it must be concretely realised by something that isn't itself just a matter of structure. So there must be more to concrete reality than structure. It's arguable, however, that a thing's structural nature must completely fix its non-structural nature...
Aug 23, 2013•47 min
John Sellars, Wolfson College, Oxford, gives a talk as part of the series "Marcus Aurelius: Philosophical, Historical, and Literary Perspectives".
Aug 23, 2013•45 min
