CFP: Experience & Updating

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: EXPERIENCE & UPDATING

July 20-21

Ruhr University, Bochum

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Catrin Campbell-Moore (Bristol)
J. Dmitri Gallow (Pittsburgh)
Anna Mahtani (LSE)
Luca Moretti (Aberdeen)
Jim Pryor (NYU)
Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh)

WORKSHOP THEME:It is a longstanding philosophical idea that we obtain our evidence (observational data, perceptual beliefs) on the basis of experiences, and that accepting this evidence is often justified/rational in light of the respective experience. This procedure corresponds to the first step of rational, or justified, belief acquisition. In a second step, we use this evidence to justify other, non-perceptual beliefs and to update our belief system.

Concerning the second step, formal epistemology and philosophy of science have already made considerable progress in explaining how we should proceed rationally from evidence to hypotheses about the world, even if many further questions and problems remain. However, very little progress has been made concerning the first step.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together formal epistemologists, philosophers of science and philosophers of mind working at the intersection of both topics and to answer questions regarding experience and its relation to rational updating. We are especially interested in debates concerning:

• conditionalization in general
• conditionalization and holism
• experience and defeaters
• formal accounts of defeat
• experience and vagueness of (perceptual) concepts
• models of the content of experience
• theory-ladenness of experience
• models for how experience might get theory-laden

ORGANIZERS: The workshop is organized by members of the research group From Perception To Belief and Back Again.  (Peter Brössel (Pittsburgh & Bochum), Finnur Dellsén (Dublin), Anna-Maria A. Eder (Northeastern), and Thomas Raleigh (Vienna))

SUBMISSIONS: We welcome submissions of extended abstracts for additional contributed talks. Each contributed presentation will be one hour long, including a 15-minute Q&A session.

Please submit both an extended abstract of 1000 words and a shorter abstract of 150 words to: [email protected] by May 5th, 2017. The subject line of the email should be: “Experience and Updating”. Both longer and shorter abstracts must be fully anonymous and suitable for blind refereeing. Please submit all abstracts in PDF format.

We aim to make a decision on contributed papers by mid/late May.

For any questions or inquiries about submissions please contact:  [email protected]

For general questions about the workshop please contact: [email protected]

You can find more information about the workshop on: https://experienceandupdating.wordpress.com