Philosophy Day Symposium FA25

Please join us for some solidarity and endterm socializing at our biannual Philosophy Day! symposium, which will be held on Friday December 5th from 12:00pm–6:15pm in rooms PSY–153 and 150.

Pre-game Tailgating Party:

10:30am–11:30am: Panel Discussion
Are you curious about PhD programs and interested in hearing more about the application process, some dos and don’ts, the transition to doctoral studies, the experience of doing high-level research in Philosophy? Then come join alumni Caitlin Mace from the University of Pittsburgh and Andrew Bollhagen from the University of California San Diego, who will together be hosting an informal panel discussion for interested students. The event will be held in the department seminar room, located in MHB–915.

Program:

12:00pm–1:00pm: Poster Session
And now for something completely different: this fall, participants in the graduate proseminar will present their first semester’s work in a poster session format. It will take place in PSY–153.

1:00–1:45pm: Graduate Student Research Presentation
El Nicklin (Cal State Long Beach)
‘Locke’s simple ideas of reflection’

• Abstract: For Locke, ideas originally enter the mind via sensation or reflection. Sensation gives us ideas of external things, while reflection gives us ideas of the mind’s operations. Ideas also enter the mind as simple and unmixed, which gives rise to a Lockean taxonomy of simple and complex ideas. Discussion of Locke’s simple ideas of sensation notwithstanding, there are lacunae in Locke’s account and the literature regarding how we should understand simple ideas of reflection. This talk fills in those gaps with the following strategy: (1) motivate the claim that Locke did preserve the simple/complex distinction for reflection, but (2) show that Locke’s claims around simple ideas of sensation and reflection are disanalogous.

1:45–2:00pm: Break / Spillover Q&A

2:00–3:00pm: Alumni Speaker
Caitlin Mace (University of Pittsburgh)
‘The vehicle indeterminacy problem in neuroscience’

• Abstract: Neural representations are a controversial posit in neuroscience. While positing representations helps researchers talk and reason about connections between neural activity and cognition or behavior, some want to press that such neural representations are real. Theories about neural representations distinguish between representational vehicles—i.e., concrete neural patterns—and content—i.e., what the patterns represent. This distinction has allowed some philosophers to be realists about vehicles but not their content, which supposedly offers a more secure position than realism about the complete representation. This talk treats vehicles as a scientific kind in order to investigate the basis for realism about them. A central criterion for realism in science is robust detection, which requires re-identifying the entity by various means and in various contexts. But because we do not know the relevant property by which to re-identify vehicles, we rely on similarity in respects that are problematically and arbitrarily tied to current tool use and theories of brain function. Drawing on neuroscientific expertise, I show that re-identification in practice is done by coarse-graining vehicles, i.e., compressing, abstracting, or suppressing variations in patterns. I conclude that this coarse-graining strategy vindicates neuroscientific practice but not vehicle realism.

3:00–3:30pm: Socializing

3:30–4:30pm: Guest Speaker
Mitchell Herschbach (Cal State Northridge)
‘Simulation theory and functional localization’

• Abstract: Simulation theory (ST) is one of the major accounts of how people ‘mentalize’ i.e., attribute mental states to others. ST claims that mentalizers use their own mind as a model to simulate the mind of another person. Advocates often appeal to similarity in the brain activity of mentalizers and targets as evidence of simulation. But doing so requires understanding what cognitive functions are performed by these brain regions. Most accounts of ST appear to assume a thesis of functional localizationism: that the brain has physically discrete regions, which each implement distinct psychological functions (e.g., that the amygdala is the neural basis of fear). Functional localizationism has been the norm in cognitive neuroscience, but has recently been challenged by evidence of (1) neural reuse (brain areas being reused across multiple cognitive functions); (2) neural degeneracy (different brain regions performing the same brain function in different circumstances); and (3) contextualism (brain regions perform different functions in different circumstances) (McCaffrey, 2023). Does simulation theory assume an overly simplistic, empirically implausible form of functional localization? Does the denial of functional localization spell the collapse of simulation theory? Or can simulation theory accommodate a more complicated picture of how the brain works? Answering these questions require distinguishing between different anti-localizationalist theses. I argue that simulation theory is in principle compatible with all these forms of anti-localizationism, even if the most radical departures from it complicate the implementation and empirical investigation of simulation-based mentalizing. I will also draw some substantive theoretical conclusions about ST’s definition of simulation from this analysis.

4:30–4:45pm: Break / Spillover Q&A

4:45–6:15pm: Keynote Speaker
Sam Rickless (University of California San Diego)
‘The moral status of enabling harm revisited’

• Abstract: It is widely accepted, at least by most non-consequentialists, that, other things equal, it is more difficult to justify doing harm than it is to justify allowing harm. But there is a further question regarding the moral status of enabling harm, conduct that appears to share features with both paradigmatic cases of doing harm and paradigmatic cases of allowing harm. To enable harm is to remove an obstacle that would otherwise prevent a pre-existing causal sequence from leading to harm or to place an obstacle that will prevent a pre-existing causal sequence from preventing harm. In the past, I have defended the Equivalence Thesis, i.e., the proposition that the moral status of enabling harm is the same as the moral status of allowing harm. The Equivalence Thesis has come under attack, in particular from Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland, and my aim in this talk is to restate the case for that thesis and respond to Barry and Øverland’s criticisms of it.

6:45–8:30pm: Reception and Dinner
Speakers and participants invited!