On Scariness

null, Justin Khoo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

The Analytic Philosophy Department, University of Warsaw invites you to a talk by Justin Khoo (MIT) entitled "On Scariness". The talk is on Thursday, OCTOBER 13, 15:00 CET (online), and is part of the department's biweekly seminar. Below you can find the abstract of the talk. The meeting will take place on Google Meet: meet.google.com/vxc-ybcy-ejv.

All welcome!

ABSTRACT:

"Scary" belongs to a class of predicates that I call reactive -- they express ways we can find things ("horrifying", "beautiful", "tasty", "lovely", "pretty", "ugly", "boring"...). I'll argue that reactive predicates do not express ways things can be (that is, they are nonfactual), and the attitudes of finding something scary or believing that it is scary are non-cognitive. Then, I'll discuss the relationship between reactive finding and reactive belief, sketching a theory that explains why reactive finding requires having some relevant experience of the object in question, whereas reactive belief does not. Time permitting, I'll discuss the nature of factuality and the correctness conditions of non-cognitive beliefs. 

Some linguistic data we'll be exploring:

1. I find Guernica beautiful. 

2. #I find Guernica to be painted by Picasso. 

3. #I find The Exorcist scary but I haven't seen it. 

4. I believe The Exorcist is scary, but I haven't seen it.