Reasons and Causes as Projections of Processual Reality

Dionysis Christias

The Research Centre for Greek Philosophy at the Academy of Athens invites you to the second lecture of the seminar series
'Reason and Nature' by Dionysis Christias (Associate Research Professor of Philosophy of Language at the Research Centre for Greek Philsoophy of the Academty of Athens), entitled:

Reasons and Causes as Projections of Processual Reality

Abstract: The topic of this talk is the seeming incommensurability between two equally indispensable ways of understanding ourselves-in-the-world: our normativist self-image, which singles out human beings from the rest of nature due to their normative capacities and abilities, and our causal-naturalistic self-image, in which human beings are complex physical systems just like all other natural processes. The normativist framework makes an item intelligible by placing it in the ‘space of reasons’ while the naturalistic framework makes an item intelligible by placing it in the ‘space of causes’. It will be suggested that both these intelligibility spaces are best understood as fractured projections of processual reality. To this end a) I argue that the space of reasons and the space of causes are mutually irreducible yet ‘parallel’ orders, and I make explicit the connection of this view to Spinoza’s psychophysical parallelism, and b) I propose that a process metaphysical framework is needed to provide determinate meaning to the view that these irreducible ways of understanding ourselves-in-the-world are different projected dimensions of one and the same metaphysical reality. Finally, it is suggested that the language of reasons and the language of causes can be understood as practically indispensable discursive tools for diachronically updating and revising our beliefs in the context of inquiry.  

Zoom Link:  https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82296542792?pwd=GvMlQg5bGeWi7PjSltv8aKfwRol0VF.1