Category: Talks SOPhiA

Arturo Vazquez University of Southampton The relationship between psychological language and artificial behaviour remains puzzling in current debates on the philosophy of mind. This paper aims to offer a plausible account of a specific use of psychological language in this context. When programming a machine learning algorithm to solve a particular task, we might employ empirical, truth-bearer…

Mathilde Cappelli  University of Geneva  The aim of this talk is to shed light on the elusive nature of sexual desire by exploring its valence. In the philosophical literature sexual desire has mostly been understood as sexual arousal (i) or desire for sexual activities (ii). I shall explore the suggestion that sexual desire could be understood…

Moritz Rene Pretzsch University of Kassel This contribution address the problem of how the early Wittgenstein, in confrontation with B. Russel’s type theory and Platonic realism and G. W. Frege’s understanding of logic, can on the one hand argue for an experiential independence of logic and on the other hand himself remark during a meeting…

Paride Del Grosso University of Antwerp Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is an approach to management of the organisations (companies, schools, hospitals, etc.) according to which managerial decisions – e.g. implementing remote working in order to improve employees’ welfare – should be based on the best available evidence. In fact, an evidential basis increases the chances that…

Luca Gasparinetti Università della Svizzera italiana “Does causation play a role in fundamental physics? Generally, it has been argued in several places that causation does not play any legitimate role in fundamental physical theories. Based on recent developments in cutting-edge physics, I will show that this tradition can be reinvigorated with a novel challenge. I…

Jonas Ouass Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf In a society marked by specialized labor, our daily actions hinge on the expertise of often unfamiliar individuals. Whether it’s consuming food, medication, or navigating technical systems, we rely on others for our well-being and convenience. Yet, this reliance raises questions about its justification and meaning. This presentation delves into what…

Elias Gambarte Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München In his Lecture on Ethics, Wittgenstein attempts to show more explicitly than in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus why we cannot talk about ethics. In propositions, expressions such as ‘good’, ‘valuable’ or ‘right’ can only have a relative meaning. If ethics attempts to express something beyond relativisation – in other words, something absolute…

Filippo Iorillo KU Leuven What is the content of a stereotype? The classical universal view of stereotypes describes the content of a stereotype with universal statements of the type: “All Italians are lazy”. This view has been challenged by a “statistical” account. Stereotypes have a more complex logical structure than universal generalizations. For instance, the…

Marianna Leventi Lund University The concept of moral protest has played a significant role in the discussions on moral responsibility. Moral protest was first introduced by Pamela Hieronymi (2001) as a form of moral blame, an idea that influenced future approaches. According to Hieronymi, moral protest targets the harmful act instead of the agent who…

Clement Mayambala Innsbruck University, Institute for Christian Philosophy Our cognitive faculties are often furnished with biased associations which influence how we perceive, and believe about, people based on their membership in certain social groups. For example, the association of black people with uncleanliness and irrationality, or women with emotionality, or LGBTQ people with perversion. Such…