Here are the sydphil@mailman.sydney.edu.au emails for the semester.
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Stephen White, (Tufts)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Stephen White, (Tufts)
The title of the talk is "Transcendental Arguments". Here is an abstract for the talk:
Transcendental arguments purport to specify necessary conditions, either for our having conscious experience or our having a meaningful language. And they have long been thought useful in addressing the most radical skeptical doubts about our knowledge of the external world. In recent years, however, critics have questioned how any argument could take us from premises about internal mental states, appropriately conceived, to conclusions about the external world. I argue that these doubts about transcendental arguments are misplaced. Far from having to provide a bridge between the internal and the external as conceived by the skeptic, the proponent of a transcendental argument need only deny that any such bridge is necessary. In their linguistically oriented forms, transcendental arguments allow us to question the capacity of the skeptic's conception of experience to ground and explain our possession of a meaningful language. If, as I argue, a transcendental argument works, the skeptic's claim is not unanswerable but unstatable.
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday July 30 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Naomi Scheman, (Minnesota)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Naomi Scheman, (Minnesota)
The title of the talk is "Wittgenstein, Lugones, and the Politics of Intelligibility". Here is an abstract for the talk:
One way of understanding Wittgenstein's notion of forms of life is through the Argentinian-American Lesbian philosopher María Lugones's notion of "worlds"--inhabited communities of sense-making. "World"-travel involves the realization that who and what one is can shift, often disconcertingly, as one moves from one to another world of sense and sees oneself reflected in different eyes. Such travel can be mandatory for those who are variously marginalized and who thereby acquire skills that the more privileged may lack, including the communal crafting of livable, intelligible identities within alternative, counter-normative "worlds". Following Wittgenstein's injunction that learning a language is learning a form of life, I want to explore responses to the linguistic innovations arising from within trans communities, such as the singular 'they' and the prefix 'cis' for non-trans women and men. As such innovations spread into the dominant "world", I will argue that we ought not to trivialize the resistance with which they are met. These shifts in "what we say" deeply challenge and change the dominant world of sense, undermining a form of life in which there are, for example, only two genders and which one we are is determined by how we are assigned at birth. Such a shift (one I think we have conclusive reason to undertake) is and ought to be seriously disconcerting.
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Aug 06 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Waldemar Brys, (University of Notre Dame, Australia)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Waldemar Brys, (University of Notre Dame, Australia)
The title of the talk is "Early Confucianism and Knowledge-to". Here is an abstract for the talk:
I argue that early Confucian philosophical texts offer us a view on which a person’s knowing to φ---that is, her *knowledge-to*---is a distinct kind of knowledge irreducible to more familiar kinds, such as knowing-that, knowing-how, or knowing-by-acquaintance. Unlike knowing-that, knowing-to is non-propositional, and unlike knowing-how and knowing-by-acquaintance, knowing-to is present only when the agent is performing a corresponding action. I defend such an early Confucian account of knowledge-to by arguing that it offers us an attractive conceptual alternative to standard ways of thinking about the relation between knowledge and action.
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Aug 13 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Luara Ferracoili, (University of Sydney)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Luara Ferracoili, (University of Sydney)
The title of the talk is "Depopulation: an ethical perspective ". Here is an abstract for the talk:
Two-thirds of humanity now live in states where fertility rates have fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman (Madgavkar et al. 2025, 3). Even states with high standards of living, where one would expect citizens to be optimistic about the prospects of their children such as France, Australia, and Japan have found themselves with fewer than two children per woman—with France at 1.9, Australia at 1.5, and Japan at 1.4. With current trends, some countries could see their populations shrink by up to 50% by the turn of the century (Ibid). How should liberal states respond, given that these changes will significantly disrupt retirement systems and government services like healthcare and aged care? In this talk, I will explore the ethical complexities around potential solutions like boosting fertility, delaying retirement, improving productivity, and increasing skilled migration.
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Aug 20 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Tim Bayne, (Monash University)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Tim Bayne, (Monash University)
The title of the talk is "Babies, Bots and the Birth of Consciousness". Here is an abstract for the talk:
When does consciousness first emerge in human development? I develop one answer to this question, and suggest that that answer has interesting implications for the question of artificial consciousness.
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Aug 27 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Christopher Lean, (Macquarie University)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Christopher Lean, (Macquarie University)
The title of the talk is "Maintaining an ethical asymmetry between conserving and creating biodiversity". Here is an abstract for the talk:
Environmental conservation as a practice and philosophy has been implicitly and explicitly backward-looking. It is the act of preserving, conserving, restoring, and maintaining the features of the biotic world we inherit. Increasingly, this bias has been confronted by anthropogenic environmental change and increasing capacity to address existential environmental risk with technology. There has been a call to re-evaluate and support the practice of creating novel ecological arrangements (novel ecosystems) and to incorporate the value of engineered biotic novelty (novel biodiversity). This paper confronts the question of what, in principle, could justify a bias in value towards preserving biodiversity over creating biodiversity. I present two related, but ultimately independent, arguments for this position. First, I will consider methodological reasons towards preserving environmental value from axiology. There are a range of reasons that value conserved has been considered preferable to value created, beyond an unguided dispositional status quo bias (Cohen 2011; Brennan & Hamlin 2016). I argue the processes and products of deep history instantiate features that warrant asymmetrical valuation. Second, I present a reconsidered version of ‘authenticity’ as a justification for preserving biodiversity (Katz 2022). Under my presentation, authenticity refers to the evolved entanglement and interdependency of lineages and gene lineages. These interdependencies should be valued epistemologically and aesthetically.
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Sep 3 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Melissa Merritt, (University of New South Wales)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Melissa Merritt, (University of New South Wales)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Sep 17 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Nicholas Southwood, (Australian National University)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Nicholas Southwood, (Australian National University)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Sep 24 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Krisztina Orban, (Tübingen)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Krisztina Orban, (Tübingen)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Oct 8 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Cristian Larroulet Philippi, (University of Melbourne)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Cristian Larroulet Philippi, (University of Melbourne)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Oct 15 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Chad Lee-Stronach, (Northeastern University)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Chad Lee-Stronach, (Northeastern University)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Oct 22 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Emily Hulme, (University of Sydney)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Emily Hulme, (University of Sydney)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Oct 29 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Daniel Bell, (University of Hong Kong)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Daniel Bell, (University of Hong Kong)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Nov 5 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Francois Cusset, (University of Nanterre)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Francois Cusset, (University of Nanterre)
The title of the talk is "White Male Wokeness Strikes Back, The ideological assault on identity politics and the ensuing rise of the far right: a global perspective ". Here is an abstract for the talk:
One way of understanding the recent intensified assault on wokeness and the rise to power of regressive masculinists/supremacists (of the MAGA movement and beyond) worldwide is to view it as a reversed form of aggressive wokeness, demanding a gender backlash in favor of men and a racial/civilisational priviledge instead of keeping the previous neutral, « universalist », elitist standpoint. Anthropologists and political theorists trying to circumscribe the specificity of our political mutation would be well advised to go in this direction – some of them do it already
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Nov 12 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, Al Hajek, (Australian National University)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Al Hajek, (Australian National University)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Nov 19 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Subject: University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series, David Plunkett, (Dartmouth)
Hi everyone,
This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is David Plunkett, (Dartmouth)
The title of the talk is "". Here is an abstract for the talk:
The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Nov 26 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494).
Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au
Ryan Cox
Lecturer in Philosophy
Discipline of Philosophy
School of Humanities
University of Sydney
ryan.cox@sydney.edu.au