Category: Talks SOPhiA

Alba Lavagnoli Gonzalez Universidad de Valladolid Gilbert Ryle (1949) introduced a fundamental distinction between “knowing that” and “knowing how”, defining the latter as a type of practical or dispositional knowledge. Starting from this dichotomy, this paper aims to investigate whether the knowledge generated by machine learning and deep learning can be classified precisely as “knowing…

Marvin Thinschmidt University of Potsdam In this paper, I will discuss one of the most popular theories of quotation: the demonstrative theory. I will then defend this theory by formulating a rebuttal of one of the central arguments often brought forward against it.According to the demonstrative theory of quotation, which is primarily associated with Davidson…

Jorge Ramos UNED, Madrid Biology is an autonomous from physics (Mayr, 2004), intrinsically complex and methodologically pluralistic (Leonelli, 2019) science. I argue that this autonomy extends to its metaphysics. I propose basing it on its practices to account for its pluralism. Physics and its metaphysics do not exhaust the ontology revealed by biological practices, such…

Luca Buratta Univeristy of Turin Backtracking reasoning poses two challenges for theorists of subjunctive conditionals (counterfactuals). The first concerns the distinction between forward and backward counterfactuals:  the former state that if something had been different, later events would have been different, whereas the latter state that if something had been different, earlier events would have…

Donggeon Kim Sungkyunkwan University The aim of this paper is to gloss the epistemic logician’s operator ‘K‘ in a novel way using the concept of epistemic environment suggested by Martin Miragoli (2025), so that we can account for the distinctively epistemic failure in a case of sanctioned white ignorance. To this end, I will refer…

David Kubíček Masaryk University In the second half of the last century, as a result of rapid scientific progress, prenatal genetic diagnosis began to be implemented and legalized. Thanks to this, we are able today to diagnose potential disabilities in a fetus and, based on this diagnosis, terminate the pregnancy prematurely. Many advocates for the…

Michael Stöger University of Vienna Consider an exchange between two astronomers:A: “Pluto is a planet.”B: “No. Pluto is not a planet.”A and B express a prima facie disagreement. However, since both are experts in their field, we can assume that A and B have common knowledge of the relevant facts concerning Pluto. So, it is…

Aphrodite Simalas Leibniz Universität Hannover Much of the current debate on epistemic injustice (EI) in medicine focuses on its most visible forms: patients’ testimony is downgraded, or their experiences are difficult to articulate. These injustices are commonly conceptualized through Fricker’s (2007) concepts of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. Yet if these concepts are treated as exhaustive,…

Leon Schmitt Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Conceptual analysis of concepts such as responsibility and rationality often leads to an impasse. Competing accounts differ in their commitments and implications, but none of them is inconsistent. This generates two problems: One is how to choose between such accounts. This problem is accompanied by the concern that the only “basis”…

Elena Eid Humboldt University of Berlin (and “Human Abilities” Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities) Speech act theory debates the role of uptake. First, scholars disagree on whether uptake is necessary for illocutionary performance. Second, those who view it as a requirement contest its precise function. While McDonald (2020) holds that interlocutors only block…