Genericity in Philosophy and Linguistics ("The Generic Workshop")

Genericity in Philosophy and Linguistics Workshop and Special Issue of Inquiry

Guest Editors: Bernhard Nickel and Rachel Sterken

Workshop Organisers: Bernhard Nickel, Torfinn Huvenes and Rachel Sterken

The goal of this workshop and the subsequent special issue of Inquiry is to provide a forum for new work on genericity, especially work focused on drawing out the connections between the study of generics and other areas of philosophy, including (but not limited to) metaphysics, (meta-)ethics, epistemology, philosophical methodology, philosophical logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, psychology, and semantics. Contributions from philosophy, psychology, and linguistics are all welcome, so long as they forge connections between the narrowly linguistic study of generics and other fields of philosophy. Questions to be addressed might include

• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand dispositions?
• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand kinds?
• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand laws?
• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand ethical principles?
• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand the subject matter of semantics more generally?
• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand the subject matter of semantics more generally?
• How (if at all) does the study of generics help us to understand non-monotonic reasoning, defeasible reasoning and/or inductive inference?
• What is the connection between genericity in language and in thought?
• Can the study of generics help us understand social prejudice and stereotypes?

Workshop Details

Time/Date: October 3rd and 4th, 2015

Place: 310 Emerson Hall, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Workshop Program

Saturday, October 3, 2015

10:45 am - 11:45 am: Alex Anthony (Rutgers) - Taste and Genericity

Commentator: Ravi Thakral (St Andrews)

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Matt Teichman (Chicago) - Genericity and Quantification

Commentator: Joseph Milburn (Pittsburgh)

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga (Cambridge) - The Effect of Context on Generic and Quantificational Generalisations

Commentator: John Collins (East Anglia)

3:15 pm - 4:15 pm: James Kirkpatrick (Oxford) - Generics and (Reverse) Sobel Sequences

Commentator: Preston John Stovall (Pittsburgh)

5:00 pm - 6:30 pm:KEYNOTE - Michael Glanzberg (Northwestern) - Generics in Language, Generics in Thought

Sunday, October 4, 2015

9:00 am - 10:00 am: Samia Hesni (MIT) - A Good Duck is Monogamous and Boys Don’t Cry: Normative Generics and the Indefinite Singular 

Commentator: Kristina Gehrman (Tennessee-Knoxville)

10:15 am - 11:45 am: KEYNOTE -Jennifer Saul (Sheffield) - Generics don't Essentialise People: People Essentialise People!

Special Issue Details

Papers submitted for the workshop will also be considered for inclusion in a special issue of Inquiry devoted to the themes of the workshop. Papers will be separately refereed through the journal.

About the Journal

Inquiry is an international peer-reviewed journal publishing work within in all areas of philosophy. It was founded by Arne Næss in 1958. The journal is a forum for presenting the best of philosophical thinking from a variety of perspectives. Inquiry publishes research articles, symposia, special issues, target articles, review essays, and critical discussions. [www.tandfonline.com/action/.U494cFxORg0]

Workshop Website: http://thegenericworkshop.rachelsterken.org