Sem 1, 2025

• Week 0 , Feb 19
• Speaker: Melina Tsapos, (Lund University, Sweden)
• Title: What is Interesting about Conspiracy Theories?
• Abstract: A central debate in conspiracy theory research concerns how to conceptualize conspiracy theories in a way that advances our understanding of the phenomena and those who believe in them. This debate remains unresolved, with researchers adopting widely different positions: while some argue for a purely descriptive understanding, others seem strongly committed to the view that conspiracy theories are, or can be shown to be, inherently irrational. This paper reconstructs the controversy, arguing that it stems from two distinct scholarly motives: to attain objective knowledge of the phenomena in question versus to defend beliefs and norms that are part of the researcher’s own cultural context. By examining the epistemological and methodological challenges in this field, I highlight how competing frameworks—normative cultural biases versus objective scientific inquiry—shape our understanding of rational belief. When cultural biases influence research, they risk narrowing its scope and undermining the development of a comprehensive understanding of conspiracy theories. Ultimately, even proponents of normative cultural approaches can acknowledge that such perspectives fail to capture the full complexity and significance of these phenomena
• Week 1 , Feb 26
• Speaker: Mircea Dumitru, (University of Bucharest)
• Title: Representations, Models, and Proofs/Rules
• Abstract: In this paper I present and assess, firstly independently from one another, and then comparatively, the strengths and the weaknesses of three views on semantics: model-theoretic, truth-conditional, and proof-theoretic. The whole philosophical perspective from which I explore those three approaches is motivated by the investigation of the connection between truth and meaning, and also by the understanding of the role and place of meaning within a physicalist outlook of the world. I also hint at how one can combine and coordinate those three approaches depending on the philosophical issues which those systems seek to model. In the process, I present the philosophical rich and nuanced positions of Donald Davidson who pioneered the Tarski-type truth-conditional semantics for natural languages, and of Wilfrid Sellars who made an essential contribution to the understanding of both semantic and pragmatic aspects of the relations between truth and meaning from an inferentialist (proof) based perspective. The paper sketches how certain problems within the Davidsonian framework can be fixed within the Sellarsian framework. The paper ends with some critical points and challenges that I raise against the proof-theoretic (inferentialist) approach questioning its power to give a complete account of the issue of the relationship between truth, meanings, and rules.
• Week 2 , March 5
• Speaker: Markus Pantsar, (RWTH Aachen University, Germany)
• Title: Recognizing artificial mathematical intelligence in theorem proving
• Abstract: One key question in the philosophy of artificial intelligence (AI) concerns how we can recognize artificial systems as intelligent. To make the general question more manageable, I focus on a particular type of AI, namely one that can prove mathematical theorems. The current generation of automated theorem provers are not understood to possess intelligence, but in my thought experiment an AI provides humanly interesting proofs of theorems and communicates them in human-like manner as scientific papers. I then ask what the criteria could be for recognizing such an AI as intelligent. I propose an approach in which the relevant criteria are based on the AI’s interaction within the mathematical community. Finally, I ask whether we can deny the intelligence of the AI in such a scenario based on reasons other than its (non-biological) material construction.
• Week 3 , March 12
• Speaker: Peter Godfrey-Smith, (University of Sydney)
• Title: Tolerance, Autonomy, and Free Expression
• Abstract: Problems surrounding “toleration of the intolerant” are addressed by Ben Kerr and I with a hierarchical framework that explicitly distinguishes levels of tolerance and intolerance. This talk will look at the application of the framework to free expression. The “Voltairean principle” formulated by Evelyn Beatrice Hall – "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – illustrates the themes. With the framework in place, I'll look at arguments bearing on tolerance of the expression of controversial opinions, making use of Tim Scanlon’s 1972 paper “A Theory of Freedom of Expression.”
• Week 4 , March 19
• Speaker: Richard Bett, (Johns Hopkins University)
• Title: A Dose of Medicine in Sextus Empiricus' Philosophy
• Abstract: Sextus Empiricus was a doctor, a member of the Empiric school, as well as a skeptical philosopher. There are clear links between Empiricist medicine and his brand of skepticism. The use of medical analogies in Greek philosophy goes back at least to Plato. But how far does Sextus appeal to medical analogies in explaining his own philosophy? The answer is, less than we might have expected, even though he often uses examples from medicine. But perhaps he took the general analogy between skepticism and medicine for granted. It is also worth asking how far viewing his skeptical method in light of the medical analogy is helpful for us in understanding him. Here too, there may be limits to how illuminating this is; however, there are certainly connections worth exploring.
• Week 5 , March 26
• Speaker: Stephanie Sheintul, (University of Adelaide)
• Title: Rights, Powers, and Paternalism
• Abstract: It is controversial when we are morally permitted to act for another’s good. Some suggest that we are rarely permitted to do so given that competent adults have a pro tanto claim right to be the only ones to act only or primarily for their own good. Others suggest that people have a special moral power over their good – what has been called the power of prudential exclusion (PPE) – such that they can exclude us from acting for their good when it would otherwise be permissible for us to do so. I have three aims in this paper. The first is to argue that, rather than the aforementioned right, competent adults more plausibly have a pro tanto claim right against others acting to promote their good for a particular set of well-being-related second-order reasons. Specifically, according to this right, others must not promote their good for the reason that (a) they are unlikely to (or will not) deliberate, judge, or act in their best interests and/or that (b) their judgment or decision about what is valuable or in their best interests is mistaken and/or inferior to the acting agent’s. The second is to introduce a corollary power to the PPE – what I call the power of prudential inclusion (PPI) – which holds that we have the moral power to give others permission to act for our good when it would otherwise be impermissible for them to do so. The third is to sketch a novel rights-based anti-paternalist account based on the right that I (partly) defend we have.
• Week 6 , April 2
• Speaker: Ryan Cox, (University of Sydney)
• Title: Educational Justice as Fairness
• Abstract: Most, if not all, systems of education in advanced industrial societies fail to give all participants within them a fair chance. They are, in this respect, unfair. What makes them unfair? And what would it take to give all participants a fair chance? According to the dominant improper influence approach, they are unfair because some differences in educational outcomes within those systems of education are due to differences in things like social class background—things that are improper influences on differences in educational outcomes. To give all individuals a fair chance, on such an approach, would be to eliminate all such influences. In this presentation, I point to some difficulties with the improper influence approach and introduce a new approach to fairness in education: the fair chance approach. I argue that the fair chance approach provides a better explanation of what makes systems of education unfair when they are, and of what it would take to give all participants within them a fair chance.
• Week 7 , April 9
• Speaker: No seminar this week. Julius Stone law lecture.
• Note: RC in US
• Week 8 , April 16
• Speaker: No seminar this week. Pacific APA.
• Note: RC in US
• Week 9 , April 30
• Speaker: TBA
• Week 10 , May 7
• Speaker: Matthew Hammerton, (SMU)
• Week 11 , May 14
• Speaker: Chris Cousens, (University of Glasgow)
• Week 12 , May 21
• Speaker: Tyler Paytas, (Australian Catholic University, Sydney)
• Week 13 , May 28
• Speaker: TBA
• Week 17 , Jun 25
• Speaker: Tina Firing
• Week X, Special Seminar , Jul 11
• Speaker: Niko Kolodny, (University of California, Berkeley)

Previous Speakers

Alejandro Naranjo Sandoval (University of California, Davis), Jessica Isserow (University of Notre Dame), Stephen Finlay, Hong Yu Wong (Tübingen), James Norton, Finnur Dellsén, Tina Firing (University of Tasmania, University of Iceland), Sean Donahue (ANU), Ulrik Nissen (Aarhus University, Denmark), David Plunkett (Dartmouth), David Bronstein (University of Notre Dame (Sydney)), David Glick (University of California, Davis), Stephen Finlay, Caleb Perl (Australian Catholic University (Melbourne)), Lok-Chi Chan (joint work with Shawn Standefer) (National Taiwan University), Hannah Tierney (University of California, Davis), Holly Lawford-Smith (University of Melbourne), Anca Gheaus (Central European University), David Enoch (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Sukaina Hirji (University of Pennsylvania), Neil Mehta (Yale-NUS College), Luara Ferracioli (University of Sydney), Thomas Corbin (joint work with Gene Flenady) (Macquarie University), Alex Lefebvre (University of Sydney), Inês Hipólito (Macquarie University), Glen Pettigrove (University of Glasgow), Jordi Fernandez (University of Adelaide), Alex Kocurek (Cornell), Sam Shpall (University of Sydney), Brian Epstein (Tufts), Anna Smajdor (University of Oslo), Peter Millican (Oxford University and National University of Singapore), Kyle Blumberg (University of Melbourne), Emanuel Viebahn (FU Berlin), Matthew Slater (Bucknell University), A. C. Grayling (Northeastern University London), Natalja Deng (Yonsei University), Teresa Baron (University of Nottingham), Kristin Gjesdal (Temple University), Brian Hedden (Australian National University), Supriya Subramani (University of Sydney), Michael Nielsen (University of Sydney), Michael Devitt (CUNY), Caroline West (University of Sydney), Alex Horne (University of Sydney), Joseph Rouse (Wesleyan University), Tom Davies (University of Melbourne), Arash Abizadeh (McGill University), Tom Dougherty (University of North Carolina), Michaela Manson (Monash), …