2014 Northern New England Philosophical Association meeting

Dear Colleagues,                                                                         

The next annual NNEPA conference will be at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, October 17-18 under the coordination of the new NNEPA president, Professor Timothy Nulty.

 Our distinguished keynote speaker will be Professor Stephen Yablo, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Much of his work is in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic,  including such topics as mental causation, epiphenomenalism, supervenience, identity and essence, properties, existence, metaphor, figurative language and fictionalism, intentionality or aboutness, conceivability and possibility, definition, and paradox and truth.  Among other accomplishments, he has shown that a long-standing widely endorsed diagnostic of the root of liar-like paradoxes in some form of self-reflexivity or circularity is mistaken. 

Many of his important papers have been collected in two volumes: Thoughts: Papers on Mind, Meaning, and Modality (Philosophical Papers, Volume 1), OUP, 2008 (exploring Cartesian themes in the metaphysics of mind, especially issues in modal epistemology and mental causation) and Things: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2, OUP, 2010, exploring first-order topics in contemporary analytic metaphysics, as well as topics in meta-metaphysics, developing a presupposition-based alternative to the role of pretense in factionalism about abstracta.  Easily accessible reviews of these anthologies which outline their contents can be found here:

           http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24155-thoughts-papers-on-mind-meaning-and-modality-philosophical-papers-volume-1/

           http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/25473-things-philosophical-papers-volume-2/

His forthcoming book, Aboutness, due in  May 2014 from Princeton University Press,

           http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10013.html

develops a subject-directed account of content that, by putting the subject matter back into content in philosophical semantics, promises to shed light on a number of other outstanding philosophical issues.

His home web page can be found here, and under “papers” there, you will find many:

                                http://www.mit.edu/~yablo/home/Hello.html

First Call for Papers

Papers may be on any topic, but should be limited to 25 minutes reading time. Send abstracts (500-750 words) and/or papers (suitable for 25 minute presentations) by September 1, 2014 to:

Prof. Timothy Nulty , Timothy J. Nulty [email protected]

Papers dealing with any of the work of Stephen Yablo are especially welcome, and will be considered for a possible Saturday morning plenary session devoted to his work.

In conjunction with its annual conference, the Northern New England Philosophical Association will host a session for undergraduates to share their work in a collaborative environment. Undergrads should submit complete papers of no more than 2500 words by September 15, 2014 to:

Prof. Timothy Nulty , Timothy J. Nulty [email protected]>

Updates will appear at the UNH site,

        http://cola.unh.edu/philosophy/nnepa

Hope to see you in October at Umass Dartmouth!

Paul

Paul McNamara

NNEPA, Executive Secretary