7th annual Philosophy Day Symposium (FA17)
Come join us, and support our graduating honors students at their Honors Showcase: Friday Dec 1st 2017, at 2:00pm in AS–122.
Honors Showcase:
2:00pm Jacee Cantler, ‘The narrative view of the self and the history of women in Philosophy’
Abstract: I argue that analyzing the self allows unique and interesting perspectives into the experience of being a woman participating in the academic field of philosophy. Specifically, I examine the narrative self-constitution view, as outlined by Marya Schechtman. Using this view, I examine how the narratives of women have historically been rejected in academic philosophy. I use the life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle to apply this theory. Using Schechtman’s framework, and the life of Cavendish as a case-study, I uncover a possible explanation for the existential tribulation women have faced in philosophy. This work can be used to understand how the narratives of women have been rejected throughout the history of philosophy.
2:30pm Monica Casares, ‘Deliberation and normativity’
Abstract: In this presentation, I will discuss one primary metaethical concern with irreducible normative truths: there is a favoring relation between normative truths and non-normative truths that is difficult to explain. I will outline David Enoch’s indispensability argument for the existence of normative truths. It is his contention that this argument shows belief in irreducible normative truths to be justified because agents would not be able to participate in rational deliberation without them. My criticism will focus on the fact that Enoch’s argument uses a normative premise to justify a normative conclusion, and that there are metaethical theories which posit reducible normative truths that are well-equipped to accommodate rational deliberation.
Guest Speakers:
3:20pm Nicholas Jolley (UC Irvine), ‘Malebranche and Descartes on the existence of bodies’
Abstract: In the Elucidations to The Search After Truth and elsewhere, Malebranche offers a fascinating critique of Descartes’s proof of the existence of bodies. According to Malebranche, not only is Descartes’s ‘alleged demonstration’ a failure, but it is also misguided; a demonstration of the existence of bodies is impossible in principle. First, I show how the debate between Malebranche and Descartes turns on competing conceptions of the nature of demonstration and the eternal truths. Second, I turn to Malebranche’s more internal critique of Descartes’s argument. According to Malebranche, Descartes’s ‘proof’ is inconsistent with his own rules of method. I show how, despite appearances, this objection does not depend on a naïve interpretation of Descartes’s argument. I also seek to defend Malebranche’s argumentative strategy against some recent criticisms by Monte Cook.
5:00pm Matt McCormick (CSU Sacramento), ‘Proving the negative: justifying atheism’
Abstract: Atheism, it is often alleged, cannot be justified because one ‘cannot prove a negative’. Agnosticism is a better response to our epistemological situation with regard to God. McCormick argues that there’s a goal-post-moving mistake and motivated reasoning fallacy behind the agnosticism position; you can prove a negative, and atheism is justified by the collapse of a long list of accounts of God that falter from deductive or inductive disproofs. We can know that there is no God the same way that we can know that there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.