Dear all,
Just a reminder that the first SMG talk of the term is happening today 11am-12.30pm in the board room. Our speaker is David Etlin (Munich), giving a talk entitled "Vague Desire: the Sorites and the Money Pump". More details below. Hope to see you there, Matthew Simpson On 16-01-2014 14:32, Matthew Simpson wrote: > Dear all, > > Our first Serious Metaphysics meeting will take place this coming Wednesday > 22nd Jan, beginning at the new time of 11am, in the philosophy board room. > Our speaker is David Etlin (Munich) who will be giving a talk entitled "Vague > Desire: the Sorites and the Money Pump" (abstract below). The meeting will as > usual last 90 minutes. > > This term's programme can be found on our website at > http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/seminars-phil/SMG > > I look forward to seeing you there! > > Best wishes, > > Matthew Simpson > > _Vague Desire: the Sorites and the Money Pump_ > David Etlin, University of Munich > > "The similarity between the sorites paradox of vagueness and the money pump > of decision theory has been noted by Dummett (in "Wang's Paradox"), but the > connection has not been widely recognized or developed. We argue that on one > plausible philosophical theory of linguistic meaning, the Gricean intention > based account (as developed in Schiffer's "Meaning"), the paradox of > vagueness turn out to be a puzzle about intransitive preferences. Given this, > one can solve the sorites paradox by diagnosing the appealing but mistaken > principle connecting preference and choice leading to the money pump. We > argue for a resolution of the money pump having consequences not only for > diachronic principles of rational choice, but also the standard synchronic > principle of rationalizable actions. Our approach to vagueness helps overcome > worries about the arbitrariness of rejecting instances of the sorites step, > and also supports a treatment of vague expressions that don't immediately > lend themselves to soritical reasoning." > > -- > Matthew Simpson > PhD Student in Philosophy > University of Cambridge > Mail: Robinson College, Cambridge, CB3 9AN -- Matthew Simpson PhD Student in Philosophy University of Cambridge Mail: Robinson College, Cambridge, CB3 9AN
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