Est. 1871
Upcoming Events
WEEKLY EVENTS - WEEK 11
Discussion Group:
Monday April 2nd at The Greenmantle Pub, 7 pm, 133 Nicolson Street, No Assumed Knowledge
Topic: End of the Year Social/Philosophy of Film
Reading Group:
Tuesday April 3rd at The Aspen Bar and Grill, 7 pm, 66-67 South Bridge (Across the Street from Old College), No Assumed Knowledge
Article: Rene Girard's 'Violence and Religion - Cause or Effect?' which can be foundhere AND/OR Nietzsche's 'Guilt, Bad Conscious, and the Like' (the second essay within 'Geneaology of Morals') which can be foundhere.
Note: The main article will be Girard but the Nietzsche article is a good one to compare to Girard, especially for students in the Early Continentals course. If you don't manage to finish the entire passage come along to the reading group anyway.
Guest Lecture:
Thursday April 5th, 6:15 pm, Appleton Tower Lecture Theatre 1
Speaker: Dr. Franz Berto, Aberdeen University
Title: The Empire Strikes Back: The Law of Non-Contradiction after Dialetheism
Abstract: Strong paraconsistency, also called dialetheism, claims that some contradictions are true, against the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC). The motivations for dialetheism are nowadays well known. In this talk I address a problem with negation that quickly surfances in disputes between dialetheists and supporters of LNC: when you say: A and a dialetheist replies: not A, she may not have managed to rule out that what you have claimed is the case. It may happen that both A and not A, so the dialetheist may accept them both. Saying that A is false, or not true, may not help either: the dialetheist has dismissed both negation and the truth and falsity predicates as exclusive expressing devices therefore, she faces complications in manifesting disagreement. Graham Priest has tried with a notion of rejection made independent from the acceptance of negation but, as I will show, this has troubles in its turn. I address the issue by developing an algebra for a sentential negation operator, NOT, via a primitive notion of content exclusion, which I show to be shared by dialetheists, and indeed required by their theory. I then establish via my NOT a formulation of the LNC on which both the orthodox friend and the paraconsistent foe of consistency can agree, in a sense of agreeing to be specified. I show how this opens up the prospect of a debate between dialetheists and friends of the LNC, free from issues of immediate question-begging and hard clashes of intuitions.
More PhilSoc
PhilSoc assumes NO previous knowledge of the subject and students from all disciplines are welcome.
Our lecture series attracts choice scholars from all over the world. Notable past speakers include Simon Blackburn, Daniel Dennett, Thomas Pogge, Richard Swinburn, Timothy Williamson, and Ernest Sosa.
Our reading and discussion groups offer a friendly and informal context in which to chat and discuss philosophical issues.
We also have a society library in the Dugald Stewart Building and will run academic support sessions during the term. These sessions will most likely be on logic and other pre-honours courses. Suggestions for other academic support session topics are welcome.
Especially keen students are encouraged to submit articles to our forthcomingacademic journal.
If you have any questions, or want to know what PhiSoc is like, pop-in to any of our regular weekly events or send us anemail.