Category: Talks SOPhiA

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…

Johannes Baer Universität Hildesheim Iris Murdoch argues that moral action depends on and is preceded by moral attention, an epistemic state that makes us aware of the world around us and enables us to grasp the moral demands of a given situation. She then claims that moral attention is often clouded by egocentrism and proposes…

Arkadiusz Synowczyk Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) Most work in neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of modality divides into two broad approaches: essence-first and powers-first. The former defines necessity as truth in virtue of essences, and possibility as what is not false in virtue of essences. The latter begins with possibility, understood in terms of potentialities, and defines…

Jenny Kurrath Leibniz-Universität-Hannover Whose feelings count, and whose words matter? Theories of epistemic injustice have shown how power shapes credibility, intelligibility, and epistemic authority. Yet these theories often understate how epistemic injury persists after the initial moment of disbelief or misrecognition. Testimonial and hermeneutical injustices do not merely exclude subjects from epistemic practices; they can…

Malte Schlenker LMU Munich Eliot Watkins (2026) advanced a paradox for Kratzer semantics of deontic modals and all similar semantics according to which ‘ought’ is upwards monotonic:Consider:GAME: I have to press the right button of a machine to win 10€. Playing the game costs 1€. There are 100 buttons. I do not know which button…

Krzysztof Dyrda University of Warsaw Coming as an ambitious response to Russell’s paradox, which aims not only to preserve the original Cantorian notion of multiplicity (Menge) but also to preserve laypeople’s everyday intuitions about mereological notions, Leśniewski’s axiomatic theory of sets expounded in The Foundations of General Set Theory is all but incomprehensible when put…

Sofia Rosa Tinto  Università degli studi di Torino This paper addresses the question of whether large language models (LLMs) genuinely possess semantic competence or merely simulate it. Drawing on Kripke’s rule-following consideration, I adopt the view that meaning is grounded not in inner mental facts but in publicly accessible normative practices. On this basis, some…