Open Minds X

Open Minds X

A graduate conference in all areas of Philosophy

Friday 3 July 2015

Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road

We are pleased to announce our tenth annual graduate conference. Following on from the success of Open Minds I - IX, this conference is intended to provide a supportive and stimulating environment for postgraduate students and early career researchers to share and discuss their work.

Our keynote speaker will be Dr Maja Spener (University of Birmingham), who will be presenting her paper ‘Abilities and the Nature of Perception’. For information about the other talks, see the conference programme below.

Registration, lunch and refreshments are free for all, thanks to the generous support of both the Analysis Trust and the Mind Association. However, you must register so that we can order enough lunch and refreshments; please contact [email protected].

In addition, if you would like to register for dinner with the speakers on the 3rd July, let us know. We will be eating at east Z east, eating from the silver menu, c. £21, which has plenty of vegetarian options.

Aims of the conference

One of our key aims, as the name ‘Open Minds’ is suggests, is to facilitate open discussion across a wide variety of philosophical topics and perspectives. To that end, Open Minds has never had a theme, preferring to hold talks from any area of analytic philosophical inquiry. With this in mind, speakers are encouraged to deliver their papers in such a way as to encourage debate with an audience largely unfamiliar with their area of study. Our hope is to foster links across different institutions and specialization areas which will hopefully stay with attendees throughout their future careers. 

Accessibility information

The conference will take place on the second floor of the Arthur Lewis Building. Please visit the DisabledGo page for this building for disabled access information. We can provide a portable loop system if required. If you have any queries or would like further information, please contact the conference organisers on [email protected].

Philosophy at The University of Manchester subscribes to the BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme. We also have a policy covering conduct at all of our events.

Programme

9.30am Registration & coffee

10.00am Parallel session 1: The Generality Problem for Intellectualism (Joshua Habgood-Coote)
Parallel session 2: Brains in Bliss: What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Pleasure? (Lucy Tomlinson)

10.30am  Parallel session 1: To What Extent does the Demand for Objectivity in Knowledge Practices Contribute to Epistemic and Social Injustice? (Fidaa Chehayeb)
Parallel session 2: What the temporal content of consciousness tells us about the future of neuroscience (Andy Routledge)

11am Parallel session 1: Externalism about Mental Content, Slow-Switching and Epistemic Reasons (Ben Sorgiovanni)
Parallel session 2: Are thoughts ever experiences? (Peter Forrest)

11.30am Coffee 

12.00pm Parallel session 1: This is not a sentence. Or: Where on Earth are the syntactic units of natural language? (Nick Tasker)
Parallel session 2: Consequentializing and Underdetermination (Marius Baumann)

12.30pm Parallel session 1: Is Ludlow’s Metalinguistic Move Plausible? (Jumbly Grindrod)
Parallel session 2: Developing Autonomy and Transitional Paternalism (Faye Tucker)

1.00pm Parallel session 1: ‘Making Room for Reality’: Intersectionality and the Double Bind in Feminist Philosophy. (Amy Kings)
Parallel session 2: Striving as Suffering: Schopenhauer's A Priori Argument for Pessimism (Patrick Hassan)

1.30pm  Lunch

2.30pm Parallel session 1: An Ordinary Definition of a Boundary: Bringing Finiteness in to the World (Gonzalo G Nunez)
Parallel session 2: First too narrow, now too broad (Vanessa Carr)

3.00pm Parallel session 1: Natural Properties and Counterparts (Aaron Wilson)
Parallel session 2: Committed Agency: Incompatibilism for Compatibilists (Chris Ovenden)

3.30pm Parallel session 1: A Problem for Modest Identity Theories of Truth (Daniel Brigham)
Parallel session 2: Why Intuitions Are Not Reasons (David Jenkins)

4.00pm Keynote address: Abilities and the Nature of Perception (Maja Spener)

5.00pm Drinks and dinner