Invited speakers in Hilary Term 2016
20/01/2016, 4:30pm-6:30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Stephen Mumford (University of Nottingham):
New meditations on first philosophy, in which causation's nature and existence is demonstrated.
02/03/2016, 4:30pm-6:30pm, Corpus Christi College, Morelli Room:
Sophie Allen (University of Oxford):
It just had to be this way: dispositional necessity, singularism and tropes.
Visiting speakers in Hilary Term 2016
26/01/2016, 5:00pm-6:30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Matthew Meyer (The University of Scranton)
Nietzsche's Ontic Structural Realism? Paper
03/02/2016, 5-6.30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Rowland Stout (University College Dublin)
09/02/2016, 5:00-6:30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Michael Esfeld (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)
Against properties: why relations are sufficient
23/02/2016, 5:00-6:30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Magdalena Bosch Rabell (UIC, Barcelona)
01/03/2016, 5:00pm-6:30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Andrea Bottani (University of Bergamo)
Outline of a Locationist Theory of Properties
08/03/2016, 5:00pm-6.30pm, Corpus Christi College, Fraenkel Room:
Matthew Tugby (Durham University)
A Platonic and Qualitative Theory of Powers
Reading group in Hilary Term 2016
27 Jan. in Fraenkel Room, Corpus Christi College:
Chapter 4: Varieties of Potentiality (presented by Martin Pickup) handout
Chapter 4 introduces important classifications of potentialities: the joint potentialities that objects possess together; the extrinsic potentialities that objects possess in virtue of possessing joint potentialities together with other objects; and iterated potentialities. In each case, we start with intuitive cases and merely generalize from there.
10 Feb. in Fraenkel Room, Corpus Christi College:
Chapter 5: Formalizing Potentiality (presented by Maximilian Zachrau) handout
A formal language for potentiality is introduced, which allows us to express such potentiality ascriptions as ‘I have a potentiality to be such that I am sitting or you are standing’, etc. Potentiality is governed by axioms and rules that are in parallel with those formetaphysicalmodality: in particular, closure under logical implication, distribution over disjunction, and implication by actuality.
24 Feb. in Fraenkel Room, Corpus Christi College:
Chapter 6: Possibility: Metaphysics and Semantics (presented by Daniel Kodaj) handout
Chapter 6 explores how the account deals with some standard cases of metaphysical possibility and necessity, and how it meets the two constraints of formal adequacy and semantic utility.
9 March in Fraenkel Room, Corpus Christi College:
Chapter 7: Objections (presented by David Glick) handout
The final chapter goes through counterexamples of two kinds: potentialities without the corresponding possibilities, and possibilities without the corresponding potentialities. The chapter also sketches a (Stalnakerian) account of possible worlds as unmanifested potentialities of the world, and discusses the relation between potentiality and time.