University of Connecticut Graduate Student Conference

The topic of this year’s conference will be Identity.

‘Identity’ is a central notion in philosophy. Metaphysicians wonder about diachronic personal identity or composition as identity, philosophers of mind have in the past proposed the mind/brain identity theory, while philosophers of mathematics and logicians have been concerned with the logical relation of identity, or identity among different mathematical structures, or the metaphysical identity of numbers. Socially inclined philosophers have sought to account for minoritarian identities in philosophical discourse, and also how self- and community-identity are affected or determined by factors such as gender or race. Philosophers of language have grappled with the identity of co-referring terms and the resulting Frege puzzle, as well as vague identity.

The conference is a one-day event featuring talks by five graduate speakers on topics related to identity across metaphysics, philosophy of logic and philosophy of gender. 

Prof. Heck will deliver our keynote speech on their recent work in philosophy of gender and sexuality. The title is “Pornography and Presupposition”. 

How To Attend

The conference is free and open to everyone with an interest in philosophy, especially philosophy graduate students. Anyone who would like to attend should register for the conference at https://forms.gle/iUYvLk5Sf93HSFN76. A link to the (password protected) online platform (TBD) hosting the conference will be sent out to registered participants just prior to the event.

Programme

9.15am - 9.30 — Welcome

9.30am - 10.20 — Rafael Perez “Hume’s Dictum and the Causal Account of Property Identity”

10.20am - 11.10 — Tien-Chun Lo “Identity and Purity”

11.10am - 11.30 — BREAK

11.30am - 12.20pm — Matthew Turyn “Gender Internalism”

12.20pm - 1.30 — LUNCH

1.30pm - 2.20 — Ali Abasnezhad “The Leibnizian View of Identity and Paraconsistent Logic”

2.20pm - 3.10 — Salim Hireche “Relativised Essentialism”

3.10pm - 3.30 — BREAK

3.30pm - 5.00 — Keynote: Richard Kimberly Heck “Pornography and Presupposition”