“Aquinas on Eternity, Tense, and Temporal Becoming”

Congratulations to FSPB contributor Andrew Brenner (UNF) for winning the FPA’s Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Philosophy Paper! Andrew will present his paper — “Aquinas on Eternity, Tense, and Temporal Becoming” — on Friday, November 13th at 5:00 P.M. at the FPA’s second plenary session.

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A Note on the Semantics of First-Degree Entailment

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes- Walt Whitman
 

Dialetheists, notably Graham Priest and, apparently, Walt Whitman, contend we may, under certain circumstances, ascribe truth to contradictions. A dialetheia is by definition a proposition, p, that when conjoined to its negation, ~p, produces a true evaluation, such that [...]

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Abstracts of Papers, Part 2

Here are abstracts of the papers for the conference’s second concurrent sessions. More to follow shortly.

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God, Time, Heidegger, and Personal Identity

Congratulations to Andrew Brenner and Ace Comparato whose projects were accepted for presentation at UNF’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium!
Here are the abstracts of their projects:
“Special Relativity and Divine Eternality: The Contemporary Debate”
Andrew Brenner

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Two New Blogs

The first, Matters of  Substance, is a group blog devoted to discussing the manifold issues that metaphysicians work on, as well as the field of metaphysics itself. At Matters of Substance you will find posts dealing with essentialism, causality, and space-time…among other quintessential metaphysical topics.
The second, It’s Only a Theory, is also a group blog which (as the name implies) is [...]

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The Dust Hypothesis

Fascinating argument and discussion at the Splintered Mind.

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Conference Papers

Congratulations to the students whose papers have been accepted for presentation at the 12th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference at UNF on February 7th:
“How to Motivate the Maxim that ‘Ought Implies Can’ to Defend the Principle of Alternate Possibilities”
Sean Armil (University of Florida)
“On the Limitations of Formal Methods”
Wataru Asanuma (Florida State University)
“A Defense of [...]

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Stimulating the Cerebral Cortex

Stimulating points on the cerebral cortex with the tip of an electrode can make a subject experience various sensations. A patient may move an arm and experience this movement as external, i.e., not originating from the subject, experienced as a reflex. Some have taken this to show there is part of the mind (higher order [...]

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H.M. Dies at 82

A famous participant in neuroscience research, H.M., died last week. NYT reports:
In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.
For the next 55 [...]

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Metaphysical Awareness Month

Via Leiter, I’ve learned it is Metaphysical Awareness Month! Check out how some folks are planning to celebrate this month.
And, in the spirit of awareness, here’s a link to the SEP entry on metaphysics.

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This is a Very Pleasant Pineapple

Looks like you can watch the whole film, “Wittgenstein,” here.

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Predication, Quantification and Individuation

Predication is one of the most basic features of our language. To use a predicate in discussion of the actual world is to make a claim about the way the world (or whatever specific part of it we happen to be speaking about) is. It’s obvious that word-world connections such as those we see in [...]

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part IV).

Given the discussion of parts I, II and III, I want to propose a way to understand intensions which may end up speaking to certain questions about modal semantics. As an introduction, let’s recall that Carnap engaged in a similar project in Meaning and Necessity. In that work, state-descriptions were to play the functional role [...]

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part III).

The difficulty for using a “conceptually prior” class of possible worlds — more about what is meant by the phrase in scare quotes in a moment — to the purpose of giving an account of the intension of predicate terms (at least one which is epistemically responsible) is more apparent. Say we assume, as Lewis [...]

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The False Problem of Time

I hope to hear what you guys think of this post, I’m sure there is at least one doubt-worthy premise, but I thought it was a least an interesting topic. In this post I want to first show how phenomenology identifies false problems by breaking perceptual inputs into pieces and wholes. Next I want to apply this to time [...]

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part II)

In part I of this series, I promised to outline what I felt were shortcomings of the view according to which we could provide a genuine modal semantics (semantics for a language with modal operators) under the presupposition that this language was “antecedently meaningful” — which I take to mean at a minimum that at [...]

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part I)

One thread of philosophy of language intersects, in at least a few places, with a thread of philosophical considerations about modality. Once we begin considering how to provide an account of understanding the meaning or intension of a predicate such as ‘is ψ’, we realize that we must consider possible circumstances or imaginary scenarios in [...]

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Philosophers’ Carnival #53

Class is officially in session for the 53rd Philosophers‘ Carnival!
Since we at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog have recently returned to class, we thought you should too. We would like to thank all those who submitted, and we hope that you find the current selection as engaging as we did. Courses (or posts if you [...]

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For Rigid Designation, Essentialism Out = Essentialism In

Whatever other implications there are from a theory according to which at least some singular referring terms are directly referring and proper names are rigid designators, one take-home lesson is properly semantic: if there’s anything to the notion of rigid designation, and if proper names are in fact rigid designators, then the semantics of proper [...]

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God’s Existence and the Standard Model of Particle Physics: An Entailment Relation?

In Faith and Philosophy (January 2007), Elliott Sober once again takes up the question of intelligent design (ID) theory, arguing that the minimalist ID (mini-ID) theory–despite what its proponents claim–has theological implications. Here is how Sober describes mini-ID theory:

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Why We Should Not Fear Death

Death is a common topic of speculation and frequently anxiety. In the time that Epicurus was laying out his way of life and sharing it with others this was the case. Epicurus, though, claimed that we should not fear death because, “Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since [...]

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Concept Possession and the Ability to Sort

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on concepts explains three commonly held views of concepts. On the first, concepts are taken to be psychological entities that serve as constituents of the mental representations that feature in the representational theory of mind. On the second, concepts are understood in terms of concept possession which is explained [...]

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Reason, Intuition, Objects

… a grad student conference on the epistemology and ontology of logic will take place this fall at SUNY-Buffalo. The keynote speaker is Stewart Shapiro (Ohio State). Details and the CFP are available at the conference website.
- Rico Vitz

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Nature of Mind: Dualism vs. Monism vs. ?

I’ve always had a deep interest in the nature of the human mind, but I have never been able to comfortably assert a philosophical stance on the subject, i.e. am I a dualist, monist, or something else entirely. This winter break I read The Mysterious Flame by McGinn and found myself less certain than ever. [...]

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Interview: John Martin Fischer

The FSPB welcomes John Martin Fischer (UC-Riverside) to our blog.
FSPB: Hi, John, thank you for joining us. Congratulations to you and to UC-Riverside on being ranked, along with Florida State, as the top program in the nation for Philosophy of Action.

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