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Philosophy Seminars in the Gong, Autumn 2011

Our Philosophy Seminar Series is will start up again on March 16th, with our own Sarah Sorial (ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UOW Philosophy/Law) presenting.

Title: Speech and the problem of harm

Abstract: This paper examines the question of whether speech can cause or constitute harm. Drawing on J.L. Austin and Rae Langton's respective accounts of authority, this paper offers a normative criterion with which to assess contested speech acts. I argue that the harm caused or constituted by speech is located in the authority of the speaker. The criteria developed is then applied to a number of difficult cases in order to demonstrate how it yields the right result.

Other speakers this term include David Neil (UOW), Maureen O'Malley (Sydney/Exeter), Rosalyn Diprose (UNSW), and Nicolas Bullot (Macquarie/MACCS).

Note that we've changed our seminar times to Wednesdays at 4:30, in the usual location - 19.1003. All are welcome to join us.

Philosophy @ UOW ranked alongside Monash, Melbourne, UNSW and Adelaide for Research Excellence

We're very pleased with the results from the Australian Research Council's nationwide assessment of 'Research Excellence for Australia'. Philosophy at UOW earned a '4' on the 5 point scale, putting us in the company of Adelaide, La Trobe, Melbourne, Monash, UNSW and UQ and behind only ANU and Sydney. If you're looking to do high quality research in Philosophy in Australia, come to the Gong!

December Workshop: Expertise, Pedagogy, and Practice

The Philosophy department at the University of Wollongong will be hosting a workshop on expertise, pedagogy, and practice on Dec 6-7, 2010. This workshop is supported through the ARC Discovery grant ‘Embodied Virtues and Expertise’ (DP1095109)

The workshop takes as its focus recent work on situated and embodied cognition, the concepts of expertise, skill and practice, and contemporary pedagogical theory. This work has made important steps towards overcoming traditional intellectualist and individualist models of cognition, group interaction and learning, but has in turn generated a number of important questions about the shape of a model that emphasizes learning and interaction as situated and embodied.

Speakers:

Christopher Winch (King’s College, London) – Education and Broad Concepts of Agency

David Beckett (Melbourne) – Beyond the Chicken Sexer: A Distributional Account of Expertise, Excellence and Agency

John Sutton (Macquarie) – Applying Intelligence to the Reflexes: expertise and the transmission of embodied skills

Greg Downey (Macquarie) – tba

Paul Hager (UTS) – Group Practice: A Further Dimension of Expertise?

Mary Johnsson (UTS) – Dialogic Engagement: A Bakhtinian Perspective on Expert-Novice Interactions at Work

Nicola Johnson (Monash) – Problematising the label of ‘expert’ within education: Power, authority and discourse

David Simpson (Wollongong) – Wittgenstein and Stage-Setting: from natural reactions to the space of reasons

Michael Kirchhoff (Wollongong) – Extended Cognition and the ‘World is its Own Best Model’ Model of Cognition

Kellie Williamson (Macquarie) – Groups as Thinkers: Learning and Transactive Memory

Andrew Geeves (Macquarie) – Improvisation, rehearsal and temporality: the emergence of expertise within a group of professional musicians in an embodied and situated context

Full details, including abstracts, maps, transport and accommodation options, can be found here: http://bit.ly/abyoHI

There is no attendance fee, but to assist with catering arrangements, attendees must register by emailing David Simpson (dsimpson@uow.edu.au) by 28 Nov 2010

October Workshop: Levels of Explanation and Causation

The Philosophy department at the University of Wollongong will be hosting a workshop on "Levels of Explanation and Causation" on October 15th-16th, 2010. Participants include Phil Dowe (UQ), Peter Menzies (Macquarie), and Jon Opie (Adelaide).

The focus of this workshop will be on questions such as what a level of explanation is, how the appropriate levels for explaining particular phenomena are identified, how causes and explanations at different levels relate to one another, and how arguments about levels of explanation and causation depend on the specific accounts of causation or explanation we adopt. The complete workshop schedule can be found at

http://bit.ly/uowlevels

All are welcome to attend. Registration is free, though there will be an optional fee to cover catering costs and a workshop dinner. If you are interested in attending, please contact Patrick McGivern at patrickm@uow.edu.au for more information.

Dominic Murphy in the Gong

We're pleased to have Dominic Murphy (Sydney, HPS) presenting a paper at the UOW Philosophy Research Seminar series on Tuesday, October 5th. All are welcome to attend.

Title: Folk Epistemology and the Attribution of Delusion

Abstract: Philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists have spent some time recently arguing about the concept of delusions, and how delusions might be explained. I will approach this topic from a different angle, and ask about the grounds for our attributing delusions. I suggest that we call a belief a delusion when it is inexplicable using the constraints of what I call 'folk epistemology'. Folk epistemology is a collection of common sense assumptions about the ways beliefs are caused. I suggest that understanding our attributions of delusions in this way solves some of the familiar puzzles about the concept of delusion, but it also suggests that delusions may not be a natural kind that can be given a unified scientific treatment.

When and Where: 5:30pm, Tuesday, October 5th in room 19.1003

Brett Calcott in the Gong

We're pleased to have Brett Calcott (ANU) presenting a paper at the UOW Philosophy Research Seminar series on Tuesday, September 21st. All are welcome to attend.

Title: Evolvability as Inductive Learning

Abstract: In this paper, I construct an analogy between inductive learning and (one kind of) evolvability. Roughly, the analogy comes down to this: Just as we distinguish between smart and dumb creatures, we can distinguish between smart and dumb developmental systems. By a smart creature, I mean one that, because of its prior experience, will be more apt to generate a "good" guess in response to a new situation. By a smart developmental system, I mean one that, due to its previous selective regime, will be more apt to generate a "good" phenotype when presented with a new environment. So an evolvable developmental system, like a mind that uses induction, can generate good responses on the basis of prior experience. In the talk, I fill out the vague terms in this rough analogy, give a very general outline of the conditions under which smart developmental systems can occur, and look at a simple model showing one way it might work.

When and Where: 5:30pm, Tuesday, September 21st in room 19.1003