Dear all, The new CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science) seminar series continues this Wednesday, 24 October, 1-2:30pm in HPS Seminar Room 2. Adam Caulton (Philosophy, Cambridge), will give a talk entitled "A Humean Alternative on What There Is". The abstract is below.
All are very welcome, and we hope to see many of you there. Best wishes, Vashka -- Quine's dictum that to be is to be the value of a variable has become an enormously popular mantra for ontologists of a regimenting disposition, but it is apt only on the assumption of other Quinean doctrines that are, for good reason, more controversial. In this talk, I will outline an alternative that takes its inspiration from Hume's dictum that there are no necessary connections between distinct existents. I will trace a brief history of the dictum within 20th Century analytic philosophy, and argue that Hume's dictum provides a better guide than Quine's for interpretative projects in the philosophy of physics, with some worked-through examples. Finally (and if there's time), I will attempt to use this application of Hume's dictum to reconcile a Kuhnian notion of conceptual relativity with Davidson's apparent scepticism about the possibility of rival conceptual schemes. _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
