Junyeol Kim – Winner of the 2021 APA Routledge Taylor & Francis Prize

Posted on by

Congratulations to alumni Junyeol Kim, who has been awarded the 2021 APA Routledge Taylor & Francis Prize for the article “The Horizontal in Frege’s Begriffsschrift” (Synthese, 2020). This prize is awarded for the two best philosophical articles written by adjunct professors.

***Abstract from article***

This paper addresses an issue with the sign ‘’ in Frege’s mature version of Begriffsschrift, i.e., the version in ‘Function and Concept’ and Grundgesetze. The sign is a performative for asserting in that writing down ‘’ is equivalent to asserting that p. Frege further says that writing ‘’ is also equivalent to identifying the reference of ‘p’ with the truth-value True. It looks as if he holds that asserting that p consists in identifying the True with the reference of ‘p’. Frege’s commitment to it, however, seems to encounter a number of tensions. This paper aims to show that these tensions can be avoided by endorsing a non-assertive conception of identification under which making an identification is not making an identity assertion. The suggested reading leads to an entirely different understanding of the compositionality of the sign ‘’ as well as Frege’s conception of assertion and judgment.

Colena Sesanker-“Concerns raised over Community Colleges”

Posted on by

Check out alumna Colena Sesanker (2017), quoted in a recent article titled “Concerns raised over community colleges” in the Willimantic Chronicle about the consolidation of the community colleges.

***Excerpt from article***

Colena Sesanker, a philosophy professor at Gateway Community College and chairwoman of the faculty advisory committee to the Board of Regents, challenged Gov. Ned Lamont’s and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system’s assertion the consolidation is “mostly a streamlining of back office functions.”

“There is a lot of misinformation and it is not by accident,” she said. “Consolidation means the elimination of all 12 community colleges and what that means is that among other things legislators will not be able to take for granted that they will have a full service college.”

Kensuke Ito: “Truth and Falsity in Communication: Assertion, Denial, and Interpretation”

Posted on by

Check out alum Kensuke Ito's forthcoming article in Erkenntnis, "Truth and Falsity in Communication: Assertion, Denial, and Interpretation." The abstract may be found here.

***ABSTRACT***

Our linguistic communication is, in part, the exchange of truths. It is an empirical fact that in daily conversation we aim at truths, not falsehoods. This fact may lead us to assume that ordinary, assertion-based communication is the only possible communicative system for truth-apt information exchange, or at least has priority over any alternatives. This assumption is underwritten in three traditional doctrines: that assertion is a basic notion, in terms of which we define denial; that to predicate truth of a sentence is to assert the content it expresses; and that one should, in the context of radical interpretation, try to maximize the truth of what foreigners believe or utter. However, I challenge this assumption via a thought experiment: imagine a language game in which everyone aims to exchange only falsehoods. I argue that information exchange is possible in this game, and so truth-guided communication and falsity-guided communication are conceptually on a par. As a consequence, we should reject the three doctrines, based as they are on the conceptual priority of assertion-based communication.

Drew Johnson: Proper Function and Ethical Judgement Towards a Biosemantic Theory of Ethical Thought and Discourse

Posted on by

Check out Philosophy Graduate Student Drew Johnson’s recent publication titled “Proper Function and Ethical Judgment Towards A Biosemantic Theory of Ethical Thought and Discourse.” You can read the full paper here.

 

***Abstract***

This paper employs Ruth Millikan’s biosemantic theory of representation to develop a proposal about the function of ethical claims and judgments. I propose that ethical claims and judgments (or ethical ‘affirmations’) have the function of simultaneously tracking the morally salient features of social situations and directing behavior that coordinates in a collectively beneficial way around those features. Thus, ethical affirmations count as a species of what Millikan labels ‘Pushmi-Pullyu’ representations that simultaneously have a descriptive and a directive direction of fit. This proposal supports a version of motivational internalism that can accommodate a surprising range of actual failures of motivation. I also briefly situate this proposal in the metaethical literature, contrasting it with other hybrid views incorporating elements of cognitivism and expressivism.

Cody Turner: “Neuromedia, Cognitive Offloading, and Intellectual Perseverance”

Posted on by

Congratulations to graduate student Cody Turner, who’s recent paper titled “Neuromedia, Cognitive Offloading, and Intellectual Perseverance” was accepted for publication at the journal Synthese. To read more check out a preview of the pre-publication version attached below!

Loader Loading...
EAD Logo Taking too long?

Reload Reload document
| Open Open in new tab

Lewis Gordon: Philosophy and Global Affairs, Vol. 1 Issue 2

Posted on by

Check out the second issue of Philosophy and Global Affairs, co-edited by Lewis Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon. You can also read their contributed articles, linked below.

 

"A Forum on Creolizing Social and Political Theory" by Lewis Gordon

The author discusses Jane Anna Gordon’s proposal, in the 2006 international meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, of creolizing theory. He summarizes the research it generated, including Gordon’s monograph on creolizing political theory, and the set of articles in this forum on creolizing social and political identities and theory.

 

"Creolizing as a Method, Creolizing as a Politics, and the Relationship" by Jane Anna Gordon

Using Juliet Hooker’s explicit criticisms as a frame, this essay first explores creolizing as a method and then creolizing as a politics, drawing on the contributions of Bernal, Bose, Lindsay, and Valdez to address questions including whether creolizing offers any advances for non-European and non-canonical figures whose worlds and thought are already understood and embraced as creolized; whether creolizing methods are of any use in the project of epistemic decolonization; and whether we can assume a prori that political or philosophical projects defined by an open orientation to mixture are necessarily normatively superior to others. It concludes by considering how Monika Brodnicka and T.D. Harper-Shipman’s essays focused on Africa put the methodological and political questions into productive relationship with one another.

 

Lewis Gordon: The Crime Without a Name

Posted on by

Can new language reshape our understanding of the past and expand the possibilities of the future? Barrett Holmes Pitner seeks better words to reframe discussions about race and culture and to change the way we understand our diverse and rapidly evolving political climate. In his new book, he examines ethnocide in America, the systematic erasure of a people's ancestral culture, and its particular impacts on Black Americans, who have endured that erasure for generations. A compelling analysis of our nation's ethnocidal foundation, The Crime Without a Name posits that activating this concept within our discourse, as we continue to reckon with our wrongs, can help sustain the richness of our diverse cultures in perpetuity.

Holmes speaks with Lewis R. Gordon about the historical origins of ethnocide in the U.S., and examines the personal lived consequences of existing within an ongoing erasure—and how to combat it.