Dear All, Next Tuesday (12th Feb), John Maier, from the University of Cambridge, will give a talk entitled `Lewis on Compatibilism'. An abstract is attached below.
The meeting will start at 5.15pm and will be held in the Fisher Building of St. John's College in either the Boys Smith Room, the Dirac Room, or the Castlereagh Room. As usual, the speaker will present for no longer than 45 minutes, followed by a discussion until 7.00pm. If you would like to join John for dinner after the talk, then please let me know by noon on the day of the talk. The termcard is available online: http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/news_events/moral_sci.html Regards, Daniel Brigham Secretary of the Moral Sciences Club Faculty of Philosophy University of Cambridge *** I explain the position developed by David Lewis in his paper 'Are We Free to Break the Laws?' and defend it against a recent criticism by Helen Beebee. The key point is that Lewis's central claim admits of a metaphysical and an epistemic reading. Beebee reads it metaphysically, as do all other published discussions I am aware of, but philosophical and textual considerations make clear that it is the epistemic reading that is intended. These relatively narrow exegetical concerns shed light, I think, on some rather important philosophical issues. One is the puzzle of why Lewis, commonly thought of as an armchair metaphysician par excellence, devotes so much of his time to defending theses that are, by his own lights, contingent and a posteriori (notably the doctrine of 'Humean Supervenience'). Another is the question of what kind of position, exactly, compatibilism about free will is supposed to be. _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
