Yerevan Academy of Linguistics and Philosophy

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Yerevan Academy of Linguistics and Philosophy

Yerevan Academy for Linguistics and Philosophy General Information The Yerevan Academy for Linguistics and Philosophy (YALP) is an intensive summer program in linguistics and philosophy. YALP 2017 will bring together 50 undergraduate and graduate students from Armenia and other countries in the region. The purpose of the academy is to provide an opportunity for students to develop their knowledge and skills, possibly with a view toward applying to doctoral programs in philosophy or linguistics (including programs in the USA and Europe). Participation in The Yerevan Academy for Linguistics and Philosophy is free of charge. People Organizers Daniel Altshuler (Linguistics, Hampshire College/The University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Arshak Balayan (Philosophy, The American University of Armenia) Ned Markosian (Philosophy, The University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Susanna Melkonian-Altshuler (Philosophy, The University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Teaching Faculty Daniel Altshuler (Linguistics, Hampshire College/The University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Maria Baghramian (Philosophy, University College Dublin) Arshak Balayan (Philosophy, The American University of Armenia) Paul Boghossian (Philosophy, New York University) Hans Kamp (Linguistics/Philosophy, University of Stuttgart/University of Texas at Austin) Ned Markosian (Philosophy, The University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Susanna Melkonian-Altshuler (Philosophy, The University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Friederike Moltmann (Linguistics/Philosophy, Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique/New York University) Maria Polinsky (Linguistics, The University of Maryland) Program and Dates Application deadline is April 15. Students are expected to demonstrate commitment and to attend all classes, which will be held on weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., from July 31 to August 11. Students are expected to participate in 4 classes each day. This summer program will have parallel sessions of linguistics and philosophy. According to our tenta- tive schedule, the philosophy sessions will offer courses on four branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of language. The linguistics sessions will offer courses on seman- tics, syntax, and morphology. Additional details about courses will be published soon. Venue All classes will be held at Paramaz Avedisian Building (PAB) of The American University of Armenia. Contacts: Please visit https://sites.google.com/view/yalp2017/home page for further information and for application forms. Please write e-mails to [email protected] for questions. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

RATES of PASSAGE James Van Cleve That Time Flows Or Passes
To appear in Analytical Philosophy. RATES OF PASSAGE James Van Cleve That time flows or passes seems to be among the most obvious and inescapable of truths, yet there is an entire camp of philosophers who deny it—upholders of what is variously called the static theory of time, the eternalist theory, the four-dimensional theory, or the B theory.1 There is an initially compelling argument for their position, expressible in a pair of rhetorical questions: If time passes, must there not be a rate at which it passes? Yet what could that rate possibly be? The very idea of such a rate seems nonsensical or absurd. To make sense of it, we would evidently need to posit a hyper-time in which ordinary time passes, but the notion of hyper-time, besides being mystifying by itself, seems to be but the second step in a preposterous infinite series of time dimensions, hyper-hyper-time and so on up.2 My aim in this paper is to defend the man in the street’s dynamic conception of time by answering this simple yet forceful argument. The sections are as follows: 1. Markosian and Prior on the passage of time 2. Markosian’s reply to the rate-of-passage arguments 3. Rates of passage and infinite regress arguments 4. Absolute lengths and absolute rates 5. An hour per hour all over again 6. Prior’s schema and the puzzle of passage 7. Summary and conclusion Appendix: Shoemaker worlds 1 For a run-down of various related “isms” and the various names in play for them, see Sider 2001 or the introduction to Gale 1967.
[Show full text]
Miriam Schoenfield
________________________________________________________________________ Miriam Schoenfield ________________________________________________________________________ Department of Philosophy E-mail: [email protected] New York University 5 Washington Place New York, NY 10003 Areas of Specialization and Competence AOS: Epistemology, Metaethics AOC: Philosophy of Mind, Applied Ethics, Logic, Philosophy of Race and Gender Employment Bersoff Fellow – New York University (Fall 2015-Spring 2017) Assistant Professor – The University of Texas at Austin (Fall 2012 – Present) Visiting Scholar – The University of Oxford – New Insights and Directions in Religious Epistemology (May 2013, May 2014, May 2015) Education Ph.D. in Philosophy Dissertation: Imprecision in Normative Domains Roger White (chair) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007 – 2012) B.A. in Philosophy with Highest Honors, in Mathematics with Honors, in Neuroscience summa cum laude Brandeis University (2002 – 2006) Publications - Refereed “The Accuracy and Rationality of Imprecise Credences” Forthcoming in Noûs “Moral Vagueness is Ontic Vagueness” Forthcoming in Ethics 1 “Bridging Rationality and Accuracy” Forthcoming in The Journal of Philosophy “A Dilemma for Calibrationism” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2015) 91(2):425-455 “Permission to Believe: Why Permissivism is True and What it Tells Us About Irrelevant Influences on Belief” Noûs (2014) 48(2):193-218 “Chilling Out on Epistemic Rationality: A Defense of Imprecise Credences (and other imprecise doxastic attitudes)”
[Show full text]
The Dynamic Theory of Time and Time Travel to the Past
University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Philosophy Department Faculty Publication Series Philosophy 2020 The Dynamic Theory of Time and Time Travel to the Past Ned Markosian Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/philosophy_faculty_pubs The Dynamic Theory of Time and Time Travel to the Past Ned Markosian University of Massachusetts Amherst DOI: 10.2478/disp-2020-0006 BIBLID [0873-626X (2020) 57; pp.137–165] Abstract I argue that time travel to the past is impossible, given a certain meta- physical theory, namely, The Dynamic Theory of Time. I first spell out my particular way of capturing the difference between The Dynamic Theory of Time and its rival, The Static Theory of Time. Next I offer four different arguments for the conclusion that The Dynamic Theory is inconsistent with the possibility of time travel to the past. Then I argue that, even if I am wrong about this, it will still be true that The Dynamic Theory entails that you should not want to travel back to the past. Finally, I conclude by considering a puzzle that arises for those who believe that time travel to the past is metaphysically impossible: What exactly are we thinking about when we seem to be thinking about traveling back in time? For it certainly does not feel like we are thinking about something that is metaphysically impossible. Keywords Time travel, Dynamic Theory of Time, Static Theory of Time, backward causation, presentism. 1 Introduction Most people will tell you that the inexorable passage of time is a real thing, and (for better or worse) one of the more salient aspects of reality.1 For most people endorse what is sometimes called The Dynamic Theory of Time, according to which time really passes, and there are fundamental differences between the past, the present, and the future.
[Show full text]
Against Parthood* in Karen Bennett and Dean W
Against Parthood* In Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman, eds., Oxford Theodore Sider Studies in Metaphysics, volume 8 (Oxford: OUP, 2013): 237– 93 I will defend what Peter van Inwagen calls nihilism: composite entities (entities with proper parts) do not exist.1 This formulation will need to be rened, and, at the very end of the paper, softened a little. But let us stick to the simple, strong version for now. Nihilism may seem absurd. For the world of common sense and science consists primarily of composite entities: persons, animals, plants, planets, stars, galaxies, molecules, viruses, rocks, mountains, rivers, tables, chairs, telephones, skyscrapers, cities… According to nihilism, none of these entities exist. But it is not absurd to reject such entities if one accepts their noncomposite subatomic particles. Consider three subatomic particles, a, b, and c, arranged in a triangular pattern. According to some, there exists in addition a fourth thing, T , which contains a, b, and c as parts. According to me, this fourth thing does not exist. Picture the disagreement thus: *Thanks to Frank Arntzenius, Elizabeth Barnes, Karen Bennett, Jiri Benovsky, Mike Bergmann, Ben Caplan, Ross Cameron, John Collins, Earl Conee, Shamik Dasgupta, Janelle Derstine, Sinan Dogramaci, Cian Dorr, TomDougherty, Matti Eklund, Hartry Field, Kit Fine, Anthony Fisher, Pete Graham, Yu Guo, John Hawthorne, Allan Hazlett, Sophie Horowitz, Michael Huemer, TomKelly, Josh Knobe, Rob Koons, Martin Lin, Ned Markosian, Kris Mc- Daniel, Trenton Merricks, Jill North, Lewis Powell, Jim Pryor, Josh Schechter, Nico Silins, Steve Steward, Margot Strohminger, Sarah Stroud, Meghan Sullivan, Jason Turner, Bruno Whittle, Dean Zimmerman, to anonymous referees, and especially to Liz Harman for much wisdom and patience.
[Show full text]
Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association
January 2007 Volume 80, Issue 3 Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association apa The AmericAn PhilosoPhicAl Association Pacific Division Program University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 www.apaonline.org The American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Eighty-First Annual Meeting The Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA April 3 - 8, 2007 Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association (ISSN 0065-972X) is published five times each year and is distributed to members of the APA as a benefit of membership and to libraries, departments, and institutions for $75 per year. It is published by The American Philosophical Association, 31 Amstel Ave., University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716. Periodicals Postage Paid at Newark, DE and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Proceedings and Addresses, The American Philosophical Association, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716. Editor: David E. Schrader Phone: (302) 831-1112 Publications Coordinator: Erin Shepherd Fax: (302) 831-8690 Associate Editor: Anita Silvers Web: www.apaonline.org Meeting Coordinator: Linda Smallbrook Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association, the major publication of The American Philosophical Association, is published five times each academic year in the months of September, November, January, February, and May. Each annual volume contains the programs for the meetings of the three Divisions; the membership list; Presidential Addresses; news of the Association, its Divisions and Committees, and announcements of interest to philosophers. Other items of interest to the community of philosophers may be included by decision of the Editor or the APA Board of Officers.
[Show full text]
Philosophy of Time: a Slightly Opinionated Introduction
Philosophy of time: A slightly opinionated introduction Florian Fischer There are several intertwined debates in the area of contemporary philos- ophy of time. One field of inquiry is the nature of time itself. Presentists think that only the present moment exists whereas eternalists believe that all of (space-)time exists on a par. The second main field of inquiry is the question of how objects persist through time. The endurantist claims that objects are three-dimensional wholes, which persist by being wholly1 present, whereas the perdurantist thinks that objects are four- dimensional and that their temporal parts are the bearers of properties. The third debate in the field of contemporary philosophy of time is about tense- versus tenseless theory. Tensers are at odds with detensers about the status of the linguistic reference to the present moment. These are only very crude characterizations and it is even disputed by some ad- vocates of the corresponding positions that they are accurate. However this very sketchy picture already reveals a fundamental difference: The eternalism/presentism and endurance/perdurance discussions belong to the field of metaphysics, whereas tense is in the first instance a linguistic phenomenon. Among the many fields of philosophy, there are two that are more intimately interconnected than most but whose practi- tioners have too long pursued relatively independent paths. On the one hand, there are philosophers of language, who have devoted much attention to indexicals (`now', etc.), tem- poral operators (ìt has been the case that', etc.), and tensed sentences. On the other hand, there are the philosophers of tensed and tenseless time (also called A-time or B-time, dynamic time or static time, etc.).
[Show full text]
Backwaters of Ontology: the Special Composition Question and Its
Backwaters of Ontology: The Special Composition Question and Its Discontents BY JANELLE DERSTINE A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School—New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy Written under the direction of Dean Zimmerman and approved by ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ____________________________ New Brunswick, NJ October 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Backwaters of Ontology: The Special Composition Question and its Discontents by JANELLE DERSTINE Dissertation Director: Dean Zimmerman The goal of the present work is to explore a wide variety of answers to the so- called special composition question (hereafter SCQ), which asks, given some things, the Xs, when is it that the Xs are some one thing, rather than many? For instance, given some pieces of wood, e.g., the wood (and perhaps other materials things like epoxy) compose a canoe? As with the aforementioned cases, it seems obvious that sometimes, e.g., some lumber composes a fence, some molecules compose an organism, or some quantities of alcohol compose a martini. In other situations, it seems questionable whether there is anything one could do to make some things compose another thing. For instance, is there anything one could do to make two persons and an apple pie compose one thing, some single thing such that it is two parts person and one part pie? As a rather famous example of the latter “strange kind,” David Lewis postulates “fusions” of such disparate and ii heterogeneous things as “trout-turkeys,” composed of the front half of a turkey and back half of a trout.
[Show full text]
Sideways Music NED MARKOSIAN
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/analysis/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/analys/anz039/5543488 by University of Massachusetts/Amherst user on 05 August 2019 Sideways music NED MARKOSIAN There is a popular theory in the metaphysics of time according to which time is one of four similar dimensions that make up a single manifold, which is appropriately called spacetime. Some of the ways in which time is supposed to be similar to the dimensions of space, according to this theory, include the following: (i) there is no intrinsic direction to time; (ii) physical objects are extended in time in virtue of having different temporal parts in different regions of time; (iii) the so-called ‘A-properties’ (such as being present, being past and being future) are not to be included in accurate descriptions of fundamental reality;1 (iv) there is no such thing as the passage of time; (v) there are no ontological distinctions between past, present and future. I will refer to this popular theory as the Spacetime Thesis. Here is a for- mulation of the view.2 (The Spacetime Thesis) The universe is spread out in four symmetrical and similar dimensions (each one orthogonal to each other one), which together make up an isotropic, four-dimensional manifold, appropri- ately called spacetime. Humans tend to perceive one dimension – the one we call ‘time’ – as different from the others in various ways, but in reality, no one of the dimensions is intrinsically different from any of the others. It is worth emphasizing that the different components I am building into the Spacetime Thesis need not all be combined in this way – there are a number of ‘mix and match’ variations that have been endorsed in print.
[Show full text]
RCFW First Proof Corrections
13 THE CONSEQUENCE ARGUMENT Joe Campbell Introduction The phrase ‘consequence argument’ was f rst used by Peter van Inwagen as the name for the following informal line of reasoning: If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us. (van Inwagen 1983: 16; see also Fischer and Pendergraft [2013: 575]; Tognazzini and Fischer [forthcoming]) The classical convention is that the consequence argument is an argument for classical incompatibilism: if determinism is true, then no one is or ever was able to do otherwise. The classical convention is controversial since van Inwagen’s informal argument is about what is or is not up to us , which is perhaps a different concept than the ability to do otherwise (cf. Carroll and Markosian 2010: Ch. 3). Nonetheless, I adopt the classical convention in this essay, for it simplif es an already complex discussion. Given the classical convention, the consequence argument is distinguished from other important arguments, such as the direct argument (van Inwagen 1980, 1983), the ultimacy argument (Strawson 2010: Ch. 2), the manipulation argument (Pereboom 2001; Mele 2006), the control argument (Carroll and Markosian 2010: 63–4), and the new argument against compatibilism (Mumford and Anjum 2014). These arguments offer conclusions that are broader, narrower, or otherwise different from classical incom- patibilism and they are not discussed further in this essay.
[Show full text]
APA Eastern Division 2018 Meeting Program
The American Philosophical Association EASTERN DIVISION ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING PROGRAM SAVANNAH CONVENTION CENTER SAVANNAH, GEORGIA JANUARY 3 – 6, 2018 Visit our table at APA Eastern. Offering a 20% pb / 40% hc discount with free shipping to the contiguous U.S. for orders www.sunypress.edu placed at the conference. Lessing and the Enlightenment Failing Desire His Philosophy of Religion Karmen MacKendrick and Its Relation to Eighteenth- Century Thought Unmaking The Making of Americans Henry E. Allison Toward an Aesthetic Ontology E. L. McCallum Satan and Apocalypse And Other Essays in Political The Symbolic Order of the Mother Theology Luisa Muraro Thomas J. J. Altizer Translated by Francesca Novello Edited and with an Introduction Aristotle on God’s Life-Generating by Timothy S. Murphy Power and on Pneuma as Its Vehicle Foreword by Alison Stone Abraham P. Bos Defining Religion Having a Word with Angus Graham Essays in Philosophy of Religion At Twenty-Five Years into His Robert Cummings Neville Immortality The Last Fortress of Metaphysics Carine Defoort and Roger T. Ames, Jacques Derrida and the editors Deconstruction of Architecture March 2018 Francesco Vitale Inheritance in Psychoanalysis Translated by Mauro Senatore Joel Goldbach and James A. Godley, editors Author Meets Critics Session Mystery 101 Friday, January 8th, An Introduction to the 7:00 – 10:00 pm Big Questions and the Limits The Good Is One, of Human Knowledge Its Manifestations Many Richard H. Jones Confucian Essays on Metaphysics, Morals, For Foucault Rituals, Institutions, Against Normative and Genders Political Theory Robert Cummings Neville Mark G. E. Kelly IMPORTANT NOTICES FOR MEETING ATTENDEES SESSION LOCATIONS Please note: this online version of the program does not include session locations.
[Show full text]
Ned Markosian
NED MARKOSIAN Department of Philosophy University of Massachusetts – Amherst Amherst, MA 01003-9274 [email protected] http://markosian.net/ 413-545-2330 4 September 2018 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION • Metaphysics • Philosophy of Art • Epistemology • Ethics AREAS OF COMPETENCE • Logic • Philosophy of Language • Modern Philosophy • Philosophy of Religion • Ancient Philosophy • Philosophy of Science EDUCATION • Ph.D. (Philosophy), University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1990 • B.A. (Philosophy and English, with High Honors in Philosophy), Oberlin College, 1983 ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT • University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Professor, 2015-present • Central European University summer seminar for early-career philosophers (on Ontology and Metaontology, with Mark Balaguer, Ferenc Huoranszki, Michaela McSweeney, Kate Ritchie, and Raul Saucedo), Budapest, Summer 2017 Markosian – CV, page 2 • Central European University summer seminar for early-career philosophers (on Ontology and Metaontology, with Mark Balaguer, Sara Bernstein, Kathrin Koslicki, Terence Horgan, Ferenc Huoranszki, and Meghan Sullivan), Budapest, Summer 2015 • Western Washington University, Professor, 2005-2015 • Australian National University, Research Associate, September-December 2009 • Western Washington University, Associate Professor, 2001-2005 • Western Washington University, Assistant Professor, 1998-2001 • West Virginia University, Assistant Professor, 1992-1998 (on leave for 1993- 1994 academic year) • University of Hartford, Visiting Assistant Professor, 1993-1994 • University
[Show full text]
WHAT ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS? Ned Markosian Abstract: The
A version of this paper appears in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (2000), pp. 375-395. WHAT ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS? Ned Markosian Abstract: The concept of a physical object has figured prominently in the history of philosophy, and is probably more important now than it has ever been before. Yet the question What are physical objects?, i.e., What is the correct analysis of the concept of a physical object?, has received surprisingly little attention. The purpose of this paper is to address this question. I consider several attempts at answering the question, and give my reasons for preferring one of them over its rivals. The account of physical objects that I recommend – the Spatial Location Account – defines physical objects as objects with spatial locations. The intuitive idea behind the Spatial Location Account is this. Objects from all of the different ontological categories – physical objects; non-physical objects like souls, if there are any; propositions; universals; etc. – have this much in common: they all exist in time. But not all of them exist in space. The ones that exist in time and space, i.e., the ones that have spatial locations, are the ones that count as physical objects. 1 Introduction The topic of this paper is a concept that has figured prominently in the history of philosophy, and is probably more important now than it has ever been before. It plays a crucial role in contemporary discussions of the nature of people, the nature of mental phenomena, and ontological theses like materialism (the thesis that only physical objects exist) and physicalism (the thesis that everything that exists is just what a true and complete physics would say exists).
[Show full text]