Filosofisk fredagsseminar, 23. mars 2018

-——Bilde: Blanche of Castile... (ca. 1230)——-

Sara Kasin Vikesdal er doktorgradskandiat i filosofi ved IFIKK (UiO), medlem av forskningsgruppen ConceptLab, og fredag den 23. mars skal hun holde vårsemesterets andre Filosofisk fredagsseminar. Tittelen til seminaret er "The Nature of Thoughts". Seminaret vil bestå av et foredrag på omtrent en time, etterfulgt av en pause på et kvarter, og avsluttes med en spørsmålsrunde på 30 minutter.

Abstract: It seems plausible that when someone has a thought about a single individual in a direct way, the content of the thought is transparent to the thinker. For instance, if you believe that Ringo Starr was the drummer for the Beatles, you have a particular person in mind and you believe of that particular person that he has a certain property.

It may seem equally plausible that it is transparent to the thinker whether or not two of her thoughts concern or refer to the same thing. After all, if you have a further belief that Ringo Starr is from Liverpool it will be obvious to you that this thought concerns the same individual as you belief that Ringo was the drummer for the Beatles, and you can use this information to infer that the drummer for the Beatles is from Liverpool. However, it is not the case that sameness of reference is always transparent to thinkers. Let’s say you have a further belief that Richard Starkey was the drummer for the band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. This thought concerns the same individual that you believe to be the drummer for the Beatles and who was born in Liverpool. In this case, it is possible that you are not aware of this fact: You may fail to know that Richard Starkey and Ringo Starr is the same person. What is puzzling, then, is that even though you may know the content of these thoughts in isolation, you may fail to know whether or not they concern the same individual. This phenomenon has been at the center of many debates within philosophy of language and mind since Frege (1892). It is widely held that it causes problems for a compelling view about the nature of thoughts. I aim to solve these problems. I will propose a new account of the nature of thoughts and use this framework to explain the difference between cases where the fact that two thoughts have the same content is transparent to the thinker and cases where it is not.

Tid: 23. mars 2018, kl. 18.15-20 Sted: Seminarrom 219, Georg Morgenstiernes hus Tittel: The Nature of Thoughts Foredragsholder: Sara Kasin Vikesdal, doktorgradskandiat i filosofi og medlem av ConceptLab ved IFIKK (UiO)

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