June 2007
Public & Private Reasoning Theme
Friday June 15 2007
Sparke Helmore Lecture Theatre 2, ANU
Phenomenology and Intentionality
A one-day workshop on "Phenomenology and Intentionality" will be held
at the Australian National University on June 15, 2007, organized by
the Centre for Consciousness and by the Philosophy Program in the
Research School of Social Sciences.
The focus of the conference will be on the relationship between the
phenomenal character and the intentional content of conscious
experience. The schedule will be as follows:
- 10am-12pm Susanna Siegel (Harvard)
Do Experiences Have Contents?
- 1:30pm-3:30pm Adam Pautz (ANU/Texas)
The Intentionality of Phenomenology
- 4pm-6pm William Lycan (North Carolina)
Phenomenal Intentionalities?
Attendance at the conference is free, but if you plan to attend and
are outside ANU, please e-mail Maire Ni Mhorda at
maire@coombs.anu.edu.au
David Chalmers
Mon 25 June 2006
3.30-5.30pm, Ross Hohnen Room, Chancelry
'Tricks of the Argumentative Trade'
'Tricks of the Argumentative Trade'
'Philosophical Heuristics'
Alan Hajek (Philosophy, RSSS, CASS, ANU)
Chess players typically benefit from mastering various heuristics: ‘castle early’, ‘avoid isolated pawns’, and so on. Indeed, most complex tasks have their own sets of heuristics. Doing philosophy well can be a very complex task; are there associated heuristics? I find the grandmasters of philosophy repeatedly using certain techniques, many of which can be easily learned and applied. Some are pointers to where good arguments, or good counterexamples, may be lurking. Some suggest ways of generating new arguments from old ones. Some are heuristics for creating new arguments from scratch. Some provide self-defence against fallacies. These various techniques can especially help philosophers to be self-critical: they help us spot problems in our own work before others all too helpfully spot them for us. And many of them generalize beyond philosophy, providing inoculations against poor reasoning, wherever we might find it, or improving our own reasoning, whatever our purpose.
I will identify many such techniques, each illustrated by numerous examples. Topics to be discussed include (time allowing):
- definite descriptions;
- arbitariness, and multiplicity of candidates for some philosophical job;
- self-undermining positions;
- reflexivity and self-reference;
- extreme and near-extreme cases;
- the 'proves too much' strategy (which, I argue, proves too much).
'Argumentative Tricks in Politics and Journalism'
Morag Fraser (The Age)
Politicians and journalists use many argumentative and rhetorical techniques, some of their own devising, others thrust upon them. This talk will survey a field of examples from the media and politics - from the ways and means of factual communication to ‘spin' - and take an occasional detour through historical precedents and prescriptions.
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