LEMMings@Northwestern

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Date: December 2, 2009

Author: Fabrizio Cariani

Institution: Northwestern University

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Abstract: I investigate a general question about how to defer to a group of equally reliable and independent experts. Start with a principle like:
      Trust the Majority (TM)
      If the majority of the experts believe p, you have a defeasible reason

      to believe p.
My key question is:
        (*)  when is the warrant to trust the majority defeated?
Of course, it could be defeated by new evidence, but that is not the case I will discuss.
Philip Pettit  argues that it is defeated when (TM) forces you to acquire inconsistent beliefs. I agree. However, Pettit also sketches a theory of group deference that implicitly assumes that the threat of inconsistency is the only way in which the testimony of a group of equally reliable experts can be defeated. I argue that this fails in ways that have important consequences for how we should design such a theory.

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: December 4, 2009
Title: Proportionality in Comparative Correlatives
Author: E. Allyn Smith
Institution: The Ohio State University
Time: 2:00 - 4:00
Location: Kresge 2-345
Abstract: This paper discusses the similarities and differences between conditional sentences and Comparative Correlative (CC) sentences such as The faster we drive, the sooner we'll get there or The bigger they are, the harder they fall. I begin by reviewing the similarities discussed in the literature (cf. McCawley 1988, Beck 1997), then introduce others of my own, including CC counterparts of sentences known to be problematic for certain accounts of conditionals such as the 'indistinguishable participants' problem in If a man shares an apartment with another man, he shares the housework with him. Another kind of problematic example for analyses of conditionals in the style of Kamp 1981 and Heim 1982 is the 'proportion problem', exhibited by sentences such as If a farmer owns a donkey, he is usually rich, where you intuitively quantify over farmers rather than farmer-donkey pairs (or minimal situations). Looking at the CC counterparts of proportional kinds of examples will reveal an important difference between CCs and conditionals, which motivates a treatment of proportionality as the modal flavor at work in CCs, contra past approaches in which generic or universal operators are used.

Sponsor: PhLing

 

Date: January 6, 2010

Author: Ezra Cook

Institution: Northwestern University

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: January 20, 2010

Author: J.D. Trout

Institution: Loyola University Chicago

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: January 22, 2010
Title: Not Just a Truthometer: Taking Oneself Seriously (but not too Seriously) in Cases of Peer Disagreement

Author: David Enoch
Institution: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Sponsor: Philosophy Colloquium

 

Date: February 3, 2010

Author: Carl Messenger

Institution: Edinburgh University

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: February 5, 2010

Author: Fabrizio Cariani

Institution: Northwestern University

Time: 2:00-4:00 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: PhLing

 

Date: February 17, 2010

Author: Ted Poston

Institution: University of Southern Alabama

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: February 26, 2010

Author: Will Thompson

Institution: Northwestern University

Time: 2:00-4:00 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: PhLing

 

Date: March 3, 2010

Author: Georgi Gardiner

Institution: Edinburgh University

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: March 17, 2010

Author: Andrew Cullison

Institution: SUNY Fredonia

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: March 31, 2010

Author: Christopher Tucker

Institution: University of Notre Dame/University of Auckland

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

Date: April 14, 2010

Author: Sanford Goldberg

Institution: Northwestern University

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

Date: April 16, 2010

Title: The Myth of Epistemic Agency

Author: Hilary Kornblith
Institution: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Sponsor: Philosophy Colloquium

 

Date: April 28, 2010

Author:Michael Titelbaum

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: May 12, 2010

Author: Axel Gelfert

Institution: National University of Singapore

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: November 20, 2009

Author: John Burgess

Time: 4:00 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-359

Institution: Northwestern University

Sponser: PhLing

 

Date: November 18, 2009

Author: Jason Bridges

Institution: University of Chicago

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: November 9, 2009

Author: Rick Dale

Institution: University of Memphis

Time: TBA

Location: TBA

Sponsor: Language and Cognition Colloquium

 

Date: November 4, 2009

Author: Nathan King

Institution: University of Notre Dame

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: October 23, 2009

Title: TBA

Author: Tim Sundell

Time: 4:00 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Institution: Northwestern University

Sponsor: PhLing

 

Date: October 21, 2009

Author: Juan Comesaña

Institution: University of Arizona

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: Ocotber 16, 2009

Title: Thinking of Things

Author: Robin Jeshion

Institution: University of California, Riverside

Sponsor: Philosophy Colloquium

 

Date: October 7, 2009

Author: Robert Audi

Institution: University of Notre Dame

Time: 12:00-1:30 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Sponsor: Epistemology Brown Bag

 

Date: October 2, 2009

Title: Articles, Particles, Syntax

Author: Lee Goldsmith

Institution: Northwestern University

Time: 4:00 P.M.

Location: Kresge 2-345

Abstract: This paper contends that the definite article “the” and the indefinite article “a” do not contain any semantic content. They only serve a syntactic func- tion, as particles in other languages do, and any meaning associated with them is inferred pragmatically. This contention, which is called in the paper the “syntactic hypothesis,” is arrived at by observing an instability in the recent unified semantical accounts of the articles. These accounts jettison the uniqueness of the definite article and the non-uniqueness of the indefinite article into the pragmatics, yet retain the ex- istential quantifier purportedly contributed by both articles in the semantics. These accounts are unstable because they fail to apply rigorously their own principle for distinguishing between what is pragmatic and what is semantic. A rigorous applica- tion leads to jettisoning the existential quantifier as well. The syntactic hypothesis, however, renews an old Russellian worry about descriptions without referents. The paper concludes by alleviating this worry and even offers an explanation for the debate between Russellians and Strawsonians over the truth-value gap.

Sponsor: PhLing

 

Date: September 28, 2009

Title: Two timescales are better than one: The interaction of online and developmental processes in word recognition and learning.

Author: Bob McMurray

Institution: University of Iowa

Time: 4:00 P.M.

Location: Annenberg G21

Abstract: Research on language development and use tends to simplify the problem by focusing either on the fast processes of real-time comprehension and production, or the slow processes that underlie acquisition.  However, in doing so, it may be missing novel solutions to old problems.

This talk focuses on the interaction of processes across short and long timescales to explain a range of problems in word recognition and word learning.  I start by examining the process of mapping acoustic cues onto categories.  A series of eye-tracking studies with adults demonstrate that when this problem is framed in terms of online, temporal processes, lexical processes are highly sensitive to fine-grained detail, information that classic accounts argue should be lost early in processing.   

This begs the question of where this gradiency comes from.  Computational work suggests that it derives basic statistical learning processes that underlie phonological development, but only when these mechanisms are buttressed with online competition.  Statistical learning and competition also offer a solution to the problem of cue-integration.  Here I describe behavioral studies and computation work showing that lexical processes may be critical for integrating asynchronous cues over time, but that amount of weight to given each cue is a product of developmental history.   

This approach also has practical value.  Specific language impairment has been viewed as a developmental problem, and associated with auditory/phonological deficits. I show here that it may be better characterized as a deficit in online word recognition, at the lexical level; a deficit which may cascade to higher and lower levels of processing.

All of this suggests that speech perception is fundamentally molded by lexical processes.  Thus, I end by briefly considering work on word learning.  I’ll discuss the way that variation between speakers seems to facilitate early word learning, and the implications of this for early phonetic categories. I’ll also discuss ongoing computational modeling showing that when slow associative processes are buttressed by online competition, they can account for a range of effects in word learning.

Thus, the interaction of simple mechanisms at two time-scales may shed new light on old problems like the problem of invariance in speech, the process of cue-integration, the nature of SLI, and the form of early word learning.

Sponsor: Language and Cognition Colloquium

 

Date: March 19, 2009
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Kresge 2-410
Title: Itamar Francez , University of Chicago
Description: Existentials, Predication and Modification

This paper offers a new semantic theory of existentials (sentences of the form There be NPpivot XPcoda) in which pivots are (second order) predicates and codas are modifiers. The theory retains the analysis of pivots as denoting generalized quantifiers (Barwise and Cooper 1981; Keenan 1987), but departs from previous analyses in analyzing codas as contextual mod- ifiers on a par with temporal/locative frame adverbials. Existing analyses universally assume that pivots are arguments of some predicate, and that codas are main or secondary predicates. It is shown that these analyses cannot account for the behavior of codas with quantifiers and for the interaction of multiple codas, both of which receive a simple treatment on the proposed theory. The assimilation of codas to frame adverbials explains several semantic properties which have not been analyzed in the semantic literature, and that distinguish existentials from their copular counterparts. Furthermore, it highlights important properties of the semantics of modification and its relation to predication

Date: February 13, 2009
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Kresge 2-345
Title: Carl Ehrett , Northwestern University
Description: Vagueness and the 'Factuality' of Semantics

The epistemicist solution to the problem of vagueness can seem wildly optimistic. Epistemicism holds that there is a precise but unknowable boundary separating the bald from the nonbald, the rich from the nonrich, and so on. Where we stumble or hesitate in our judgments, unsure of whether a particular hairscape counts as bald or not, epistemicism holds that there is some (perhaps undiscoverable) fact of the matter. Detractors of epistemicism complain that the epistemicist cannot provide a satisfactory account of how it is that our coarse, inconsistent usage of 'bald' could possibly determine a particular, absolutely precise boundary for that term. I call this the precision problem for epistemicism. I argue that the nature of the precision problem has been misunderstood. A proper understanding of the source of the precision problem shows it to be not merely a problem about how a term manages to acquire a precise semantic boundary; the problem is rather that of explaining how a term manages to acquire any particular semantic content at all. So understood, the problem reasserts itself as a problem for any view that takes a vague utterance to have semantic content. Thus the precision problem is indeed a problem forepistemicists, but not a problem for them qua epistemicists; and it does not dis advantage epistemicism with respect to rival accounts of vagueness. I argue that to bring the precision problem to bear against epistemicism, any rival account must not only solve the precision problem, but must do so in a way unavailable to epistemicism. Since the precision problem is crucial to the case against epistemicism, an epistemicist solution seems to be the best available account of the problem of vagueness.

Sponsor: PHLING

Date: February 10, 2009
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Kresge 2-345
Title: Alvin Goldman, Rutgers University
Description: Psychological Dimensions of Epistemology

How can psychology – or cognitive science – help the largely philosophical project of epistemology? One straightforward answer is: By illuminating the processes of perception, memory, deductive and probabilistic reasoning, etc. In other words, by explaining how epistemic agents cognize. W. V. Quine (1969) proposed that traditional epistemology be replaced by psychology in just this way. Quine has been castigated by philosophers ever since, for proposing (as the critics see it) to eliminate epistemology in favor of psychology. Nonetheless, these kinds of psychological contributions might help epistemologists choose among genuine but controversial epistemological theories (e.g., experiential vs. non-experiential foundationalism), not eliminate epistemological theorizing altogether. A second way in which psychology (or cognitive science) might help epistemology is by focusing on epistemic attributors, or evaluators, rather than epistemic agents. In making judgments about “knowledge” or “justified belief,” what mental representations of these terms or concepts do attributors recruit? The present talk focuses on this second approach. This is the approach of experimental philosophy (applied to epistemology), which has focused on the diversity of intuitive judgments about knowledge. In the present talk the focus is on finding psychological and cognitive-scientific tools that can help philosophers appraise competing theories by seeing what predictions can be made about the behavior (i.e., judgments) of evaluators when they apply certain cognitive heuristics. In considering process reliabilism, for example, one might ask what cognitive heuristics are available to evaluators by which they individuate and select process types. The psychological theory of “basic-level” concepts might be helpful here (Erik Olsson). In considering how epistemic evaluations are made (“Is this belief justified or unjustified?”), heuristics posited in other cognitive domains, such as the simulation heuristic posited for theory-of-mind, might be invoked.

Sponsor: Cognitive Science & Philosophy Department

Date: December 12, 2008
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Kresge 2-345
Title: Michael Horton, University of Kentucky
Description: Alethic Functionalism and the Unity of Semantics

Alethic pluralism is the view that there is more than one property of truth and that such properties are discourse relative. Alethic functionalism, on the other hand, views truth as a multiply realizable property, the property of having a property that plays the truth-role. Although truth’s realizer properties may vary from discourse to discourse, the higher-order property is the only property of truth and is domain insensitive. In this paper I argue for two claims: first, if alethic pluralism is correct then a general semantic theory employing the notion of truth will be impossible for a language with sentences belonging to more than one discourse. Rather we will need a semantic theory for each discourse-specific fragment of a language. Second, given some plausible assumptions about property individuation, the same holds true of alethic functionalism. The latter claim is surprising since it is as a response to the standard problems facing alethic pluralism that the theory is supposed to shine. I conclude with some general remarks about where a truth theorist can go from here.

Sponsor: PHLING

Date: December 12, 2008
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Kresge 2-345
Title: Michael Horton, University of Kentucky
Description: Alethic Functionalism and the Unity of Semantics

Alethic pluralism is the view that there is more than one property of truth and that such properties are discourse relative. Alethic functionalism, on the other hand, views truth as a multiply realizable property, the property of having a property that plays the truth-role. Although truth’s realizer properties may vary from discourse to discourse, the higher-order property is the only property of truth and is domain insensitive. In this paper I argue for two claims: first, if alethic pluralism is correct then a general semantic theory employing the notion of truth will be impossible for a language with sentences belonging to more than one discourse. Rather we will need a semantic theory for each discourse-specific fragment of a language. Second, given some plausible assumptions about property individuation, the same holds true of alethic functionalism. The latter claim is surprising since it is as a response to the standard problems facing alethic pluralism that the theory is supposed to shine. I conclude with some general remarks about where a truth theorist can go from here.

Sponsor: PHLING

Date: October 10, 2008
Time: 1:00pm
Location: MTC 3-119
Title: Peter Ludlow, Northwestern
Description: Linguistic Data and Linguistic Intuitions/Judgments

The topic of data is an interesting one in any science, not least because we don't have a firm grasp on what it is that data is supposed to be, nor on what sort of role it is supposed to play in theorizing, or for that matter, whether there is a clear distinction between data gathering and theorizing.  My goal in this paper will be to try and get clear on the nature of data in linguistic theorizing and closely consider one of the more controversial sources of data -- so-called "linguistic intuitions."  I'll make the case that linguistic intuitions are best described as linguistic judgments and I'll make the case that for the most part they are reliable enough sources of data and in some cases are crucial for the conduct of linguistic investigation.
Sponsor: PHLING