Experimental Philosophy Lab Meetings in New York

This Friday, November 5th, at 3:30 at the CUNY Graduate Center, Room 5414, join the Metro Experimental Research Group for presentations by Andy Egan and Philipp Koralus. Come for the informal talks and Q&A and stay for discussion afterwards. Please note: This time talks will be held at CUNY, not NYU.

Titles and abstracts follow. More details (including our calendar) are available at: http://www.yale.edu/cogsci/mergcalendar.htm

 

Andy Egan
Rutgers University, Philosophy

Title: Why Ethics is All About Me 

Abstract: Moral relativism has been a pretty unpopular view, at least in philosophical circles.  There are good reasons for this – there are a lot of legitimate grounds for concern and skepticism about the prospects for a relativist metaethics. Part of the reason why the problems for moral relativism have seemed so bad, I think, is that we haven’t had the best version of the view on the table.  I present the version of moral relativism that I think has the best prospects, and argue that its prospects are pretty good – good enough to deserve a spot among the views that we take seriously in our metaethical theorizing.

Philipp Koralus 
Princeton University, Philosophy

Title: Against the alleged de re/de dicto ambiguity of descriptions: Comparative acceptability measures applied to semantics

Abstract: Descriptions occurring in attitude report contexts can admit of de re, de dicto (and sometimes additional “intermediate”) interpretations. Standard views trace those interpretations to an ambiguity in sentences like “John wants a sloop”. I show how a classical ambiguity test can be operationalized as a comparative acceptability judgment task and present data that suggest that descriptions in attitude contexts are not ambiguous as traditionally thought.