27-28 May 2022

MTA BTK Lendület Morals and Science Research Group

(Budapest, Hungary)

Keynotes:

Danielle Macbeth (Haverford College)

Willem deVries (University of New Hampshire)

Michael Esfeld (University of Lausanne)

David Landy (San Francisco State University)

Peter Olen (Lake-Sumter State College)

James O'Shea (University College Dublin)

Theme:

Wilfrid Sellars is arguably one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. His writings have influenced the views of many philosophers with different metaphilosophical backgrounds, from ontology through philosophy of language to philosophy of mind. Opinions, of course, differ as to what exactly makes a position or attitude Sellarsian in these philosophical areas of study, and what was the stance of Sellars himself regarding scientific realism, empiricism, conceptual frameworks or the mental. 

The leitmotif of our conference is Sellars’s critique of logical atomism and positivism and the question of what exactly is “Sellars’s role in bringing about the collapse of sense data empiricism” (Rorty’s introduction to EPM). This question, however, is intertwined with a broader and more familiar distinction of Sellars, the distinction of the manifest and the scientific image. And although Sellars gives ontological priority to the descriptive image of nature expressed in theories, he also considers the essentially norm-governed manifest image methodologically and epistemically ineliminable. This broadening of the theme also opens up a wide range of topics of Sellars’ thought. We would therefore welcome papers on all areas of Sellars’s philosophy.

There is one more dimension of Sellars’s thinking that we should highlight, namely that Sellars’s writings are pervaded “through and through” with allusions to the history of philosophy as Sellars saw his own philosophy as a contribution to a philosophical dialogue that spans the ages. Accordingly, the Sellarsian attitude should not be confined to contemporary issues and there may be ample scope for Sellarsian interpretations in the history of philosophy. We would also encourage papers based on such an approach.

This is by no means a representative list of possible Sellarsian or Sellarsian-related topics:

• what is the role of philosophy, how it is related to science
• scientific realism and anti-realism
• the role of models in theory construction
• Sellarsian ideas in philosophy of mind (fictionalism, realism, "sensa", introspection)
• the relationship between the manifest and the scientific image
• the difference in ontology and in principles of conceptual frameworks, their significance in addressing different philosophical issues
• the Sellarsian interpretation of the concepts of person and we-intentionality
• Sellars and the history of philosophy 

Submission

We invite abstracts – roughly 500 words, excluding references – of short papers, suitable for a 25-30 minutes presentation. Abstracts should be prepared for blind review and include the title of the paper.

Abstracts should be sent to László Kocsis (kocsis.laszlo@gmail.com) or Krisztián Pete (pete.krisztian@pte.hu) by 31^th of March. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than 15^th of April.

Depending on the state of the pandemic, the event will take place in Budapest, Hungary. Should the organization of an in-person conference not be possible, it will be held online of which all participants will be informed in due time.

The Sociological Heritage of the Scottish Enlightenment,

ed. by Tamás Demeter and Eric Schliesser (forthcoming, Edinburgh University Press)

Date of the event: 28th and 29th January, 2022

Programme

Friday, 28th of January 

15:00 – cca. 17:00 I. General Perspectives
Chris Berry
Kenneth Macdonald (online)


Saturday, 29th of January

10:00 – cca. 13:00 III. Hume-focused chapters
Angela Coventry
Tamás Demeter
Catherine Dromelet
André Willis

Lunch break

14:00 – cca. 15:30 III. Smith-focused chapters
John Hall
Spiros Tegos

16:30 – cca.18:30 IV. Other Scottish Heroes
Nicholas B. Miller (online)
Dirk Schuck
Craig Smith

Science, Faith and Society

Date of the event: 21st-23rd October, 2021.

You can join by clicking on the links below.

21st of October:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85861623996?pwd=MGorMjFodVBtTWJWQ2lKbkZyRTk0Zz09

Zoom Meeting ID for Thursday is 858 6162 3996 and Passcode is 187093.

22nd of October:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83407181305?pwd=SXkwdVVTL1ppUEs0c2lpRExaSVgrQT09

Zoom Meeting ID for Friday is 834 0718 1305 and Passcode is 904923.

23rd of October:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87844550469?pwd=Qjg1NUVtVlp6MjdjYnZsTkswaG45dz09

Zoom Meeting ID for Saturday is 878 4455 0469 and Passcode is 581240.

Programme:

Thursday, 21st of October:

14.00-14.45: Martin Beddeleem: Order without orders: Redefining authority in liberalism
14.45-15.00: Discussion

15.00-15.45: Peter Hartl: Central planning of science and Polanyi’s vision of free society
15.45-16.00: Discussion

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30-17.15: Jon Fennell: That Our World Might Endure: Polanyi’s "Primary Education"
17.15-17.30: Discussion

17.30-18.15: Phil Mullins: Science, Faith and Society and Polanyi’s Metaphysical Account
18.15-18.30: Discussion

18.30-19.00: Break

19.00-19.45: Walter Gulick: From Scientific Truth to Personal Meaning
19.45-20.00: Discussion

Friday, 22nd of October:

14.00-14.45: Agnes Festre & Stein Ostbye: Faith in Science: What can we learn from Michael Polanyi?
14.45-15.00: Discussion

15.00-15.45: Tihamer Margitay: Liberal Knowledge Arguments against Dictatorship
15.45-16.00: Discussion

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30-17.15: John Preston: World Views in Polanyi’s Science, Faith and Society
17.15-17.30: Discussion

17.30-18.15: Andrew Grosso: Polanyi Among The Pluralists
18.15-18.30: Discussion

18.30-19.00: Break

19.00-19.45: Stephen Turner: The Tragedy of the Liberal Theory of Science
19.45-20.00: Discussion

Saturday, 23rd of October:

14.00-14.45: Daniel Paksi: The Galilean Principle of Relativity: The Ultimate Fundament of Moral Inversion
14.45-15.00: Discussion

15.00-15.45: Oliver Keenan: Polanyi in the "Republic of Conscience": Academic Freedom and the Structure of Reality
15.45-16.00: Discussion

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30-17.15: Gábor Bíró: Enlightenment is Dead, Long Live the Enlightenment: Towards a Post-critical Age of Reason
17.15-17.30: Discussion

17.30-18.15: Cristopher Goodman: The English and the Continent
18.15-18.30: Discussion

18.30-19.00: Conference ending

Early Modern Theories of Society

Date of the event: 15th of November, 2019.
Venue of the event: 1097 Budapest, 4. Toth Kalman st., 7th floor

Programme

11:00 - 12:00: Alissa Macmillan: "'O visions ill forseen': Hobbes, Milton, and Cavendish on Knowledge of the Future"

12:00 - 13:00: Bartholomew Begley: "Rousseau, Ranciere, and the Science of Politics"

13:00 - 14:00: Lunch Break

14:00 - 15:00: Ted McCormick: "Relocating Political Arithmetic: Quantification, Transmutation, and the Making of Population, 1500-1800"

15:00 - 16:00: Akos Sivado: "A Hundred Years Too Early: William Petty and Statistical Reasoning about Society"

The Future of the Humanities in a Disruptive World
Debating Challenges and Opportunities

A panel discussion with

Karla Pollmann
Dean of the Faculty of Arts,
University of Bristol

Confirmed discussants:
Tim Crane
Tamás Demeter
István Kenesei
Gábor Kiss Farkas
Benedek Láng
Csaba Pléh
Iván Szelényi
Gábor Zemplén

The focal points of the discussion will be:
-The function of the Arts and Humanities in a Changing World: how to Innovate the Curriculum?
-What is "Progress" in the Arts and Humanities?
-Application and Commercialization in Higher Education - Opportunities and Limits
-How to Organize Successful Inter- and Multidisciplinarity in Challenge-led Research Clusters?

Date of the event: 4th of November, 2019, 10 AM
Venue of the event: Research Centre for the Humanities, 1097 Budapest, Tóth Kálmán st. 4., 7th Floor, Trapéz Room

Mental Fictionalism

Date of the event: 24th-25th October, 2019.
Venue of the event: 1097 Budapest, 4. Toth Kalman st., 7th floor

Programme

24th of October:

10.00-10.45: Adam Toon: Fictionalism and Intentionality

10.45-11.30: Amber Ross: Mental Fictionalism: Believers without Belief

11.30-12.00: Coffee Break

12.00-12.45: Meg Wallace: Deflating Mental Fictionalism: A Lesson in Metalinguistic Diplomacy

12.45-13.30: Zoe Drayson: What We Talk about When We Talk about Mental States

13.30-14.30: Lunch

14.30-15.15: Adrian Downey: Radically Embodied Fictionalism: A Better Alternative to Eliminative Materialism

15.15-16.30: Dan Hutto: Reasons, Narratives, and Fictionalism: The Primary Reason Problem Revisited

16.30-17.00: Coffee Break

17.00-17.45: Bill Lycan: A Rylean Mental Fictionalism

17.45-18.30: Daniel Dennett: Am I a Fictionalist?

25th of October:

10.00-10.45: Bruno Mölder: Interpretivism and Mental Fictionalism

10.45-11.30: Miklós Márton and János Tőzsér: A Unified Pragmatic Account of Fictional Utterances and Its Consequences to Mental Fictionalism

11.30-12.00: Coffee Break

12.00-12.45: Greg Currie: Fictionalism about Fiction's Insight into the Mind

12.45-13.30: Sam Wilkinson: What Might We Be Doing When We Call Someone Mentally Ill?

13.30-14.30: Lunch

14.30-15.15: Ted Parent: I Think; Therefore, I am a Fiction

15.15-16.30: Julianne Chung: Three Kinds of Non-Literalism about Knowledge-Talk

16.30-17.00: Coffee Break

17.00-17.45: Tim Crane and Katalin Farkas: Mental Fiction and Mental Fact

17.45-18.30: Tamás Demeter: A Mental Fictionalism Worthy of Its Name

Meta-Theories of Disagreement

Date of the event: 17th-18th October, 2019.
Venue of the event: 1097 Budapest, 4. Toth Kalman st., 7th floor

Programme:

17th of October

09.00-10.00: Nikolaj Pedersen: Disagreement and non-evidentialism

10.00-11.00: Ákos Gyarmathy: Faultless disagreements without scepticism

11.00-11.20: Break

11.20-12.20: János Tőzsér & László Bernáth: Responses to the failures of philosophical knowledge

12.20-14.00: Lunch break

14.00-15.00: Crispin Wright: Can sense be made of faultless disagreement?

15.00-16.00: Martin Kusch: Empiricism, relativism, disagreement

16.00-16.20: Break

16.20-17.20: Graham Bex-Priestley & Yonatan Shemmer: Disagreement without belief

18th of October

09.00-10.00: Chris Ranalli: Deliberative epistemology and disagreement

10.00-11.00: Teresa Marques: Illocutionary force and attitude mode in normative disputes

11.00-11.20: Break

11.20-12.20: Filippo Ferrari: Normative commitments and cognitive disagreement

12.20-14.00: Lunch break

14.00-15.00: Péter Hartl: The meta-ethics of belief: epistemic expressivism and disagreement

15.00-16.00: Sebastiano Moruzzi: Diaphonic pluralism - How to be pluralist about disagreement?

16.00-16.20: Break

16.20-17.20: Delia Belleri: The shape of metaontological pluralism

17.20-18.20: Annalisa Coliva (online): Disagreement unhinged (co-authored with Michele Palmira)

The MTA Lendület Morals and Science Research Group and Hertford College, Oxford cordially invite you to their workshop:

Recasting the Treatise, Vol. III.

Date of the event: 12th and 13th of October, 2019.
Venue of the event: 1097 Budapest, 4. Tóth Kálmán st., 7th floor (Trapéz room)

Programme:

Saturday, 12th of October

10:00-11:30: Jacqueline Taylor: "Some Considerable Alterations": The Significance of Hume's Revisions to EPM and a Comparison with Treatise 3

Coffee break

12:00-13:00: Lorenzo Greco: In Search of the Perfect Character: Recasting Hume's Virtuous Person

Lunch break

14:00-15:00: Saliha Bayir: The Naturalistic Fallacy in Hume's Moral and Political Philosophy

Coffee break

15:30-16:30: James Chamberlain: Hume on the Standards of Morality and Taste, and the General Point of View

Coffee break

17:00-18:00: Peter Millican: When, and Why, Did Hume Renounce Egoism?

Sunday, 13th of October

10:00-11:00: Michael Gill: One Way the Treatise is Superior to the Enquiry: On the Relation between Virtue and Nature

Our research group cordially invites you to its upcoming conference on

Ernest Nagel and the Making of Philosophy of Science as a Profession

Date of the event: 4th of October, 2019.
Venue of the event: 1097 Budapest, 4. Toth Kalman st., 7th floor

Programme: