FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TO THE LOGICAL (AND BACK) — (A Radical Contextualist Approach)

FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TO THE LOGICAL (AND BACK)
(A Radical Contextualist Approach)

A WORKSHOP AND INAUGURATION OF A SERIES
(see program below)

Michael Williams is a Krieger-Eisenhower Professor and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Before Johns Hopkins, he taught at Yale, the University of Maryland, and Northwestern. He has been the recipient of an NEH fellowship and has held visiting positions at several universities including Chicago, Michigan, Oxford, Pennsylvania, and MIT. Professor Williams lectures frequently nationally and internationally. His main areas of interest are epistemology (with special reference to skepticism), philosophy of language and the history of modern philosophy. In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of Groundless Belief (1977; 2nd edition 1999), Unnatural Doubts (1992; 2nd edition 1996) and Problems of Knowledge (2001). He is currently working on Curious Researches: Reflections on Skepticism Ancient and Modern.

The main objective of this workshop and of the Radical Contextualism series in general is to explore origins and consequences of (current brands of) contextualism (Travis, Récanati, Searle). Usually contextualism in the philosophy of language concerns the implications of pragmatic phenomena for semantics. We will focus instead on the implications of occasion-sensitivity for the structure of the thought of rational beings, and vice versa, i.e. the bearing of the thought of rational beings on the presence and function of occasion-sensitivity. We intend that work to extend to questions regarding the form and function of logic, the nature of objectivity, and the nature of philosophy. 

CONTEXTUALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY 

The first workshop of the network will have Prof Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins - Baltimore) as guest. Michael Williams’ work has been very influential in epistemology proposing a contextualist approach while at the same time opposing other contextualist epistemologists such as e.g. Keith De Rose. 


PROGRAM

DECEMBER 11 | Sala do Departamento de Filosofia (Torre B)

10:30 | Opening: Sofia Miguens (U.Porto) & David Zapero (U.Bonn): Presentation of the Radical Contextualism network

11:15 - 12:30 | Sofia Miguens (U.Porto): Temptation and Therapy - Wittgensteinian responses to other minds' skepticism

Lunch break

15:30-17:30 | Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins University): How Anti-Skepticism Lost Its way.
Comments.

Dinner


DECEMBER 12 | Sala 203

10:30-12:30 | Charles Travis (King's College London/U.Porto): Workings of The Psychological: The Strange Case of Singular Thought
Comments.

Lunch break

14:30 - 15:45 | David Zapero (U.Bonn): Context-Sensitivity, Analysis, and Singularity
Comments.


DECEMBER 13-14

Luca Corti (U.Porto) & Diana Couto (U.Barcelona/U.Porto): Interview with Michael Williams


Org. Charles Travis (King's College London/U.Porto), Mattia Riccardi (U.Porto), Sofia Miguens (U.Porto), João Alberto Pinto (U.Porto)
Research Group Mind Language and Action Group (MLAG)
Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto - FIL/00502
Financiamento: FCT