The Serious Metaphysics Group

Peter Tse (Dartmouth)

TBC

Abstract. TBC.

Tatiana Barkovskiy (Cambridge)

Knowledge by love as a form of knowledge by experience

Abstract. Contemporary philosophy identifies love as a mental phenomenon, with different ideas about what kind of mental phenomenon it is: an emotion proper, an emotion complex, or, more recently, a syndrome. Medieval contemplative thinkers, on the other hand, express great interest in the idea of divine love and how its lived experience can be epistemically transformative for the agent by providing authoritative evidence that warrants certainty of the most important kind of knowledge (that of the divine), making the judgement in question, and even in itself accounting for the very methods in which such knowledge is gained. Thus, love and knowledge by experience are closely related in a philosophically significant way. I shall enquire about the metaphysical assumptions and implications of this framework by asking the following: what is the nature of love as they understand it? When or where (if so) does love cease being a simple emotion and transform into something more – whether that is seen in the way in which these thinkers employ the term ‘love’ in their discourses (namely whether there is a shift in their emphasis of one of its aspects or a redefinition of the entire concept) or is it rather in any modification to the ontological constitution of love itself (namely whether this object undergoes an alteration to its structure, properties, or causal powers) – and how is that achieved? Simply put, is there one stable love, but the authors’ perspective on it and the way in which they discuss it change, or is love itself transformed into different types or levels of love?

Giacomo Giannini (Düsseldorf)

Active powers under the spotlight

Abstract. Some powers theorists claim that accepting an ontology of dispositional properties imbues the world with a dynamic and active aspect that would be otherwise lacking. Thus far, however, there has been little success in moving past metaphors and clarifying what such dynamism and activity should amount to. In this talk I suggest that one way to elucidate the idea that powers are dynamic and active is to think that a robust conception of change must play a central role in power-based explanations. I use the grounding of modality as an example, suggesting that friends of dynamic powers should embrace a specific version of Dispositionalism in which the modal facts change over time. I then argue that this view entails an especially strong version of Necessitism and Permanentism. In turn, according to an influential view in the philosophy of time, this amounts to adopting a Moving Spotlight Theory of time. I conclude by sketching how a powers–MST might look and highlighting some challenges.

Nora Heinzelmann (Heidelberg)

Ethical and social implications of human genetics

Abstract. Philosophical research has recently discussed possible social and ethical implications of potential genetic or phenotypic differences between individuals and groups. Typical arguments assume that we can distinguish between individuals or groups based on their genetic information, that certain properties like intelligence have genetic correlates, and that individual or group differences on the one hand and differences in properties like intelligence on the other hand map onto each other in some systematic way. All of these assumptions are supposedly based on empirical evidence. Relying on them, authors argue for normative implications concerning, inter alia, migration, demographics, or research policies. While their implications have been highly controversial, the relevant empirical claims have rightfully been regarded as outside of the purview of academic philosophy. The present paper argues that this stance is deeply problematic. While philosophy is not equipped to deal with questions of human genetics and evolution, it must not base its arguments and discussions on descriptively false claims. This is especially true if these discussions have controversial normative implications that may cause real-world harm. The empirical claims underlying philosophical arguments about genetic or phenotypic differences between individuals and groups, however, are either false or, if regarded as mere hypothetical scenarios, epistemically worthless. Therefore, I call on the philosophical community for greater academic vigilance and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Chris Scambler (Oxford)

Identity is always relative

Abstract. In this talk I defend Geach’s Thesis about identity: that there is no ‘absolute’ relation of identity; there are only sortal-relative relations, such as being the same car as or the same person as. Although the thesis is due to Geach, my argument, as well as its associated logical semantics, is quite different. Essentially, the argument is that (a) there is no logical or metaphysical need for an absolute identity relation, while (b) the view that there is such a relation can be seen as the source of many intractable and unnecessary problems in epistemology, semantics, and metaphysics. So there is no reason to believe in the relation by (a), and plenty of reasons not to by (b). As part of the argument I present a semantics for second-order logic on which Leibniz’s Law fails for every equivalence relation, and show how it recovers the logic of standard identity under certain background non-logical assumptions. I also explain how the semantics avoids certain logical difficulties that plagued Geach’s original efforts.

Katie Robertson (Stirling)

TBC

Abstract. TBC.

Helen Steward (Leeds)

Why not interventionism?

Abstract. Interventionism (see esp. Woodward (2003)) is my current favourite theory of causation. In particular, it promises to do what any fully successful theory of causation would have to do: show how the ‘two concepts’ of causation often discussed in the literature are linked. I think it is nearly right, but I remain dissatisfied with it. In this talk I aim to (i) explain why interventionism is my preferred theory among those currently on offer; (ii) explain what my remaining misgivings are; and possibly (iii) say something about what kind of alternative theory might successfully address the remaining issues.

Marko Jurjako (Rijeka) — tbc (3 December 2025)

Abstract. tbc

Jack Casey (CFI, Cambridge) — Humean Supervenience needs another primitive (26 November 2025)

Abstract. David Lewis’s Humean Supervenience (HS) (1983, 1986, 1994) com- mits us to just two ontological primitives: intrinsic, perfectly natural properties (I-properties), and spatiotemporal relations (ST-relations). Everything ‘else’, we are told—all contingent facts about a world—, supervenes on the distribution of these two primitives. In this talk, I argue that HS in fact requires an additional primitive: an extrinsic relation of worldhood . Ifworldhood , as a property of maxi- mal objects, is reducible to the distribution of IPs and ST-relations, then worldhood must supervene on them. I argue that no functional supervenience claim for worldhood can be found in terms of a subvenience base consisting of justIPs and ST-relations. An irreducible, primitive extrinsic relation of worldhood is required. The ontological inexpense of HS, arguably its primary theoretical benefit, is thereby challenged.

John Gibbins (Wolfson, Cambridge) — The metaphysics of Cambridge romanticism and idealism (1830– (19 November 2025)

Abstract.

Chris Oldfield (Faraday, Cambridge) — Naturalism without content: Where Plantinga’s conflict actually (12 November 2025)

Abstract.

Will Hornett (Philosophy, Cambridge) — The unity of the senses (5 November 2025)

Abstract. Our senses give us very different perspectives on the world. But given these differences, how is it possible for it to seem to us as though they are five perspectives on the same world, rather than each being a way to experience a sense-specific world? I canvas and reject two solutions: the first appeals to broadly Kantian ideas about the unity of spatial representation; the second is the now- popular idea that there are not really distinct sensory experiences in the first place. Instead, I argue that the solution is that there is intersensory communication: the senses communicate their content to one another, each characterising the world in terms of other senses. Understanding the objectivity of a multi-sensory being’s perspective involves seeing how the senses are distinct, yet form a system.

Andrew Ma (Philosophy, Cambridge) — Having the courage of one’s intentions (29 October 2025)

Abstract. It is usually assumed that an individual is in control of themselves when the rational mind leads and wayward non-rational motivations are kept in check. However, in this paper, I argue that this orthodox view is misguided. I show that there is a role for the reactive attitudes in motivating exercises of willpower when, relative to an intention, the reasoning mind is out of control. In these instances, reactive-attitude motivated willpower enables the individual to overcome potential weakness of will, a would-be failure of the individual to act in line with their intentions. Through the paper, I show that such exercises of willpower are particularly pertinent for interpersonal accountability.

Zdenka Brzovi ´c(Rijeka) — The epistemic value of historical classifications (22 October 2025)

Abstract. Classifying entities into natural kinds is usually assumed to explain why members share certain properties. In contrast, historical classifications are gener- ally taken to explain how a grouping came about (see Khalidi 2022). This paper investigates whether certain historical categories, defined both by historical and shared current properties, can also serve an explanatory role of the sort typically attributed to natural kinds. I explore this issue using the case study of gene fami- lies. Genes descended from a common ancestor belonging to the same gene family typically retain similar sequences and functions. However, it is by knowing the history and features of other family members, and not by sequence alone, that we can infer the likely role of a given gene within the family. Understanding the evolu- tionary history of a gene family is essential both for anticipating how its members will behave and for explaining why they do so in particular ways. I argue that, in such cases, historical information delivers insights into causal constraints and possibilities that synchronic properties alone cannot offer. In this way, historical classifications yield explanations of the sort typically attributed to natural kinds.

Richard Holton (Philosophy, Cambridge) — Hows and whys in history (15 October 2025)

Abstract. Reflecting on some comments of Christopher Clarke in Sleepwalkers , I explore the ways that how-explanations differ from why-explanations, both in history, and elsewhere; and then examine the reasons that how-explanations don’t just descend to the level of ‘one damn thing after another’. My basic contention, extending the framework of Christian List’s, is that even if a how explanation doesn’t entail counterfactual dependence at the level at which it is couched, it is embedded within a net of counterfactual dependencies, which may run both at lower, and at higher levels.

Owen Griffiths (Cambridge) — Reconciling perceptual contents and relations (4 June 2025)

Abstract. Inferentialism is a popular position in the philosophy of language. It is striking, then, that one of the best-known puzzles in the philosophy of language – Frege’s puzzle of informative identity – has not been discussed in relation to it. I will argue that inferentialism faces severe problems when we consider its potential responses to Frege’s puzzle.

Abstract. In this paper I consider whether perception might be both relational and contentful, and specifi- cally, how explanations of perception might invoke both contents and relations. The context of this discussion is that we find ourselves largely in a “stand-off” between representational and relational (or na ̈ıve realist) the- ories of perception. Content or representational theories explain perception as having contents: perceptions represent the world as being some way. Relational theories deny that perceptual experience have contents, they explain perception as constituted by relations to external objects, and the relations are hypothesized to be basic acquaintance or attentional or referential relations. Given that content and relational theories have different explanatory strengths and weaknesses and bring different insights to the table, I argue that it would be good if we could combine their insights. The paper begins by giving an overview of mixed content-relational accounts to date. The bulk of the paper reconstructs the McDowell-Evans Singular Con- tents and De Re Senses approach as well as McDowell’s subsequent work to show how he offers a mixed view that integrates contents and relations. I build on this work, with a skill-based approach to the perceptual understanding or mode of presentation that secures our relation to individual things in the world and their properties.

Paula Keller (Cambridge) — Genealogy as ideology critique (28 May 2025)

Abstract. How can some past state of affairs serve as critique of some present state of affairs? That is the central question for those interested in making the genealogical method work for evaluative purposes. Existing – simple, epistemic, and functional – accounts of genealogy are troubled by genetic fallacy, self- defeat, and the superfluity of the past state of affairs. I defend an account of genealogy as ideology critique: a past state of affairs reveals that some story we have told ourselves about the past is false. On this account, genealogy is not guilty of genetic fallacy, self-defeat or the superfluity of the past. I defend this account against two further objections: that genealogy is then not a direct critique of some present state of affairs and that genealogy is then only applicable in very limited cases.

Alice Hilder-Jarvis (Cambridge) — Gender identities as interpretative frameworks (21 May 2025)

Abstract. I propose a novel metaphysical account of gender identity. I characterise gender identities as interpretative frameworks, which individuals use to make sense of themselves and their salient life experiences. On my account, having a particular gender identity is a matter of adopting a particular set of interpretations for (some of) one’s life experiences, where those interpretations frame one’s experiences as evidence for membership of some particular, prior gender category. On this view, the act of self-interpretation is central to the concept of gender identity. My account explains why previous philosophical attempts to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for gender identities have not been successful. It also sheds light on some important, previously unanswered questions about gender identity. It illuminates what might lead an individual to have a given gender identity, or to relinquish one gender identity and adopt another. More generally, it explains how and why practices of ascribing gender identity vary over time and across cultures. Most importantly, it explains why individuals cannot exercise entirely free choice over their gender identities, yet can exercise some limited agency over them.

Neil Dewar (Cambridge) — Coordinates, groups, and geometrical representation (14 May 2025)

Abstract. This talk is about how to represent geometrical structures. It argues that when we use coordinates to represent such structures, what matters are the relations between the coordinates deemed admissible. These relations are most naturally captured by group-theoretic means; thus, coordinate-based approaches to geometry should be assimilated to group-based approaches.

J. Robert G. Williams (Leeds) — Inconceivable indeterminacy (7 May 2025)

Abstract. Can there be no fact of the matter whether a thing exists, where it is located, whether it is part of another thing, or whether it is conscious? Can there be indeterminacy in the fundamental facts that limn reality? Many smart philosophers have assured us that this is inconceivable – a striking contrast to indeterminacy in non-fundamental facts like redness, baldness or whether something is a heap. This encouraged the idea that indeterminacy can never be something “in the world”, but must consist in some kind of mismatch between a (precise) underlying reality and (imprecise) ways of representating it. If that’s true, it’s an extremely informative constraint on metaphysical theories of fundamental reality, ruling out any option that would compromise crystalline precision. My position is that fundamental reality could well be messy and indeterminate, and in previous work I’ve developed positive theories about how such metaphysical indeterminacy would work. In In this paper I’ll explore the idea that the smart philosophers were correct that indeterminacy in the fundamentals is inconceivable, and develop an explanation for this without giving up the claim that it is possible. I trace the consequences for conceivability-possibility links, the rational role of indeterminacy-judgements, and the relation of this to Bernard Williams’ classic discussion of de se indeterminacy.

Henrik Røed Sherling (Cambridge) — Mental illness (19 March 2025)

Abstract. tbd

Zdenka Brzović (Visiting, Rijeka) — What is the explanatory status of natural kinds? (12 March 2025)

Abstract. In debates on natural kinds, it is often argued that natural kinds should be identified with categories that play significant inductive and explanatory roles in science. However, the criteria for what constitutes explanatory success remain underexplored. This paper examines whether we can identify specific features of good explanations that rely on kind membership. Some authors who touch upon the explanatory role of natural kinds argue that, ideally, explanations should invoke a single key property, cause, or a mechanism which is crucial for the kind’s explanatory role. Such properties are super-explanatory (Godman et al. 2020). This approach reflects not traditional metaphysical essentialism but a form of explanatory essentialism. While these explanations may be favoured for their simplicity, relying on a single cause risks being incomplete. In other words, if we can identify many causes for the clustering of properties of, say, members of a certain species, why invoke just phylogenetic relations, or just interbreeding, and not genetic causes, developmental causes, etc. To address this issue I draw from the debate on what makes scientific explanations deep or powerful. I argue that citing a single key property is justified if that property provides us with invariant generalizations regarding kind members (see Hitchcock and Woodward 2003).

Lukas Skiba (Bergen) — Vertical Ontological Pluralism (5 March 2025)

Abstract. Ontological pluralists claim that there are multiple ways of being, e.g., one way of being for concrete entities and another way of being for abstract entities. This is usually spelled out quantificationally, i.e., as the claim that there are multiple irreducible quantifiers, e.g., one quantifier ranging over concrete entities and another over abstract entities. Standard ontological pluralism is horizontal: pluralists take their multiple irreducible quantifiers to be all first-order quantifiers, i.e., quantifiers binding variables in the position of singular terms. In this talk, I argue that the conception of reality espoused by higher-order metaphysicians constitutes an alternative and, in many ways, preferable way of spelling out the ontological pluralists’ vision. The higher-orderists’ pluralism is vertical rather than horizontal: the multiple ways of being recognized by higher-orderists correspond not to multiple first-order quantifiers, but to multiple quantifiers of different orders, e.g., first-order quantifiers binding variables in the position of singular terms and second- order quantifiers binding variables in the position predicates. I argue that vertical ontological pluralism does justice to some of the main motivations for ontological pluralism, while offering elegant responses to some major objections put forward against ontological pluralism, such as the notational variant objection and the logicality objection.

Neil Dewar (Cambridge) — Representation by coordinates (26 February 2025)

Abstract. This talk is about how to use coordinates to represent physical structures: in particular, spa- tiotemporal and measurement structures. It argues that the coordinates themselves are less important than one might think; rather, what matters are the relations between the coordinates deemed admissible. These relations are most naturally captured by group-theoretic means.

Marcus Ackermann (Cambridge) — Modelling compatibilist divine foreknowledge (19 February 2025)

Abstract. Ever since Arthur Prior created the formal framework of branching time, there has been a ven- erable tradition of using it to investigate the supposed compatibility of divine foreknowledge and creaturely freedom. For example, it has been utilized to formalize the famous compatibilist views of (among others) Anselm, Ockham, Leibniz or de Molina. In this talk, I show that past attempts at formalizing such views systematically fail because they are either descriptively or formally inadequate. I then suggest that the key to overcoming this dilemma lies in rejecting the orthodox view that the sole purpose of such models is to tell us how to assign truth-values to sentences. Once we start thinking of such models in a richer fashion, I argue that a both formally and descriptively adequate approach naturally commends itself to the compatibilist.

Marko Jurjako (Visiting, Rijeka) — Towards a concept of mental disorder for criminal law: an explicationist proposal (12 February 2025)

Abstract. While the concept of mental disorder is widely debated in the philosophy of psychiatry, its role in criminal law remains underexplored. This paper addresses how mental disorder should be understood in legal contexts where it informs issues such as competency, culpability, and access to special treatment. Using the explicationist methodology, the paper outlines several desiderata for an adequate concept, identifying a key criterion: the non-redundancy criterion, which requires that mental disorder be defined independently of the capacities underpinning criminal responsibility. The paper evaluates objectivist, value-laden, and hybrid accounts of mental disorder from psychiatry, concluding, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that a naturalistic, objectivist concept best meets the non-redundancy requirement and serves criminal law’s practical needs.

Richmond Kwesi (Visiting, Accra) — Conceptual engineering, disagreement, and the metaphoric process (5 February 2025)

Abstract. Conceptual engineering has been characterized as a project aimed, on the one hand, at fixing, revising, and improving defective or deficient concepts (conceptual re-engineering), and on the other hand, at creating new concepts to replace ill-suited ones (de novo conceptual engineering) (Chalmers, 2020). The need for the engineering of concepts arises out of the occurrence of deep disagreements among speakers in the use of concepts. Should one be resolute or abandon their views or conceptions in the face of disagreements on the content and application of concepts? What are the ontological and epistemic constraints to revising concepts in the face of disagreements? This paper offers two related perspectives on conceptual engineering and deep disagreements: one, conceptual engineering is characteristic of the use of metaphor, and that, since the metaphoric process often involves two concepts, conceptual engineering can be understood as revising or refining a concept in light of another concept. Two, metaphor, understood both in terms of seeing or conceiving from a perspective, often from one’s own perspective, and saying of a thing that it is X while acknowledging that it is not only X, is a useful framework for resolving disagreements over concepts. Understood within the metaphoric process, conceptual engineering can be pursued without the underlying assumption that the concepts to be engineered are defective.

A.C. Paseau (Oxford) — Some metaphysical problems for Plenitudinous Platonism (29 January 2025)

Abstract. Plenitudinous Platonism is the thesis that there are as many types of mathematical object as possible. Because it takes mathematics to be the study of abstract objects, it is a form of platonism; and because it takes any coherently describable mathematical structure to exist, it is also a form of structuralism. An umbrella term, Plenitudinous Platonism also goes by the name of Full-Blooded Platonism, or Egalitarian Platonism, or (less accurately) Mathematical Pluralism. My talk will raise some problems for the view. As my title indicates, I will focus on the metaphysical side of things.

Chuang Liu (Shanghai) — The evolutionary game origin of moral facts (11 December 2024)

Abstract: In the backdrop of an evolutionary approach for an expressivist conception of morality (`a la Gibbard), we argue that there are moral facts, and they are a species of group or “we” facts that have a separate evolutionary origin and ontological status from the individual or “me” facts. We discuss the empirical evidence for we-commitment or we-identity in the comparative psychology literature. We then discuss the possibility of designing evolutionary games with certain population structures such that the dynamics leads to the appearance of the we-commit (a how-possible explanation). In the end, we discuss connections of the above with the philosophical literature on group or social ontology.

Mariane Olivera (Visiting Scholar) — Existence, pre-theoretical knowledge, and meaning in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics (4 December 2024)

Abstract: In this talk, I will try to answer how it is possible to know scientifically the existence of at- tributes for Aristotle and which skills it involves. Aristotle starts the treatise on Posterior Analytics with the requirement that any inquiry must have some kind of prior knowledge. I shall argue that what is meant by prior knowledge is based mainly on (1) knowledge of the meaning of a set of terms and (2) rudimentary knowledge of the existence of a kind. The former configures the first stage of inquiry, while the later configures a second stage into discovery of attributes as having a causal explanatory structure. The gap between scientific knowledge (the knowledge of definitions of sciences) and the so-called ”pre-theoretical knowledge” is bridged by these stages together.

Rose Ryan Flinn (Cambridge) — Frege's Puzzle and forms of perception (27 November 2024)

Abstract: Grasping a picture’s content is a ‘twofold’ experience: we are aware of two things at once in different ways. We perceive the picture’s surface, and we have a visual impression of a different sort of its content. At the same time as being twofold, this experience is also unified. We do not have two separate experiences, one of the picture’s surface and another of its content, but are aware of them in a single experience. It has been a puzzle in the philosophy of pictures to account for these two features of the experience. How is it possible for it to be both twofold and unified? In this paper, I suggest that an analogous question arises about the state of understanding a name that we read or hear. Plausibly, this state is structurally similar to grasping a picture’s content in being both twofold and unified. I give a characterization of this state that (a) reconciles these two features and (b) sheds light on the possibility of potentially informative identity statements. In doing so, I interpret and approve of David Kaplan’s intriguing suggestion that ‘the linguistic difference between “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus” – the simple difference between thinking of Venus qua Hesperus and thinking of it qua Phosphorus – may be all [we need to resolve Frege’s Puzzle]’.

Matthew Simpson (Cambridge) — Universal generalisations and supposition (20 November 2024)

Abstract: In this talk I’ll motivate and explore a new account of the words ”all” and ”every” as they appear in sentences like ”every juror agreed on the verdict” and ”all attendees were shocked by the outcome”, which draws on Robert Stalnaker’s famous account of conditionals. I’ll show how this account does better than the three existing accounts of these words, especially with regard to what I call ”uncertainly empty generalisations”, which are generalisations that, to a given agent, might or might not be empty, applying to nothing in the actual world.

Malte Hendrickx (Michigan) — Difficulty (13 November 2024)

Abstract: What is difficulty? Despite being frequently invoked in numerous normative debates, the nature of difficulty remains poorly understood. Different accounts, tailored to specific explanatory contexts, have recently been proposed in different philosophical discussions. I show that these accounts are vulnerable to clear counterexamples. I then provide an alternative, empirically informed account of difficulty in terms of cognitive demand. This account, I argue, captures empirical phenomena as well as the intuitions underlying existing accounts of difficulty in terms of effort, complexity, or sacrifice, which are correlates of cognitive demand. I end by showcasing the broad applicability of this account of difficulty by looking at a set of normative debates invoking difficulty. I show that understanding difficulty in terms of cognitive demand helps us make progress on pressing questions in the study of moral responsibility, achievement, the value of difficult action, moral demandingness, and epistemic injustice.

Chris Oldfield (Cambridge) — The Activity View of physicalism (6 November 2024)

Abstract: Like other philosophical “-isms”, the term “physicalism” covers a multitude. In his 2010 book, Physicalism, the author of the Stanford Encyclopaedia entry on the subject argued that there is no formula- tion of physicalism – that is no way of cashing out the content of the claim – that is both true and deserves the name. In this paper I develop an alternative way of thinking about physicalism, as an activity with an aim, which cannot be reduced to the content of a philosophical theory, or the adoption of a propositional attitude or an ideological commitment to provisionally accept only the ontology of some current or complete physics. This view, which I call The Activity View, is immune from the various dilemmas and challenges raised by Hempel (1980), Chomsky (2009) and Stoljar (2010). It is also open to several possible interpretations of the core concern of physicalism, from Neurath (1931) to Montero (2013). As a metaphilosophical alternative to The Theory View of physicalism, The Activity View of physicalism is in no way intended be an exhaustive view of all that “physicalism” has been taken to mean but it promises to explain what is at stake in current disputes, and the ability of philosophers to change their mind about what physicalism entails, without falling prey to van Fraassen’s (1996) charge of false consciousness in philosophy.

Paul Hoyningen-Huene — How do robust abstract economic models explain? (30 October 2024)

Abstract: I shall try to answer the question how robust abstract economic models explain; my main illustrative example is the Sakoda-Schelling model of (racial) segregation. I shall presuppose that abstract economic models deliver for the real world how-possibly explanations at best. The crucial question is how model results can be transferred to real-world phenomena. I shall propose reframing this transfer problem in the following way. Robust model results inductively support a conjectured, non-obvious logical truth that can be immediately applied both to the model world and to the real world, thereby delivering how-possibly explanations. I shall develop this thesis in eight steps gradually dismantling its counter-intuitive character. The result will be that one function of robust abstract models is to tease out non-obvious explanatory consequences of theories (evolutionary theory, e.g.) or mechanisms (Sakoda-Schelling dynamics, e.g.) that cannot be directly inferred from them.

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (Visiting Scholar) — Quantum music and logic of sound and silence’ (23 October 2024)

Abstract: This presentation discusses applicability of logic and certain elements of analytic philosophy and mathematics (namely set theory) into structural music analysis. I will start with a brief overview of metaphorical correlations between quantum mechanics and avant-garde music. This will not only present views on interpretations of quantum mechanics, history and philosophy of the twentieth century physics, focusing on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Pauli exclusion principle, superposition, quantum entanglement etc., but will also serve as a prelude to the discussion of advanced composition techniques. In music where pitches and rhythms are dominant and eloquently present, application of logic, mathematics and geometry is fruitful and has already been researched to a substantial extent. What this talk takes into consideration is the sonoristic direction of avant-garde music, where timbre-texture is the fundamental co- ordinate, while pitches and rhythms are emergent. I will also introduce new and innovative concepts such as multi-dimensional ’nets’ of techniques (as opposed to single-dimensional ’sets’) and timbral-textural classes and morphisms (from category theory), and will investigate the applicability of logical space and possible worlds into music structure as well as vagueness and ambiguity of timbres and the role of epistemicism in music. It will be argued that probabilistic logic (and modal operators such as necessity and possibility) can be applied to timbral structures in music.

Alexander Bird (Cambridge) — Is imagination essential to creativity? The case of improvisation in music (16 October 2024)

Abstract: We have argued that creativity involves, essentially, the exercise of the imagination (Hills and Bird 2019). Critics have suggested that there are examples of activities that are clearly creative, but do not seem to involve the imagination. In this response we focus on the case of musical improvisation, which is clearly creative. We consider two arguments that suggest that improvisation does not require the imagination. First, it would require an excessive cognitive load, given the quantity of new music being produced. Secondly, improvisation can lack the phenomenology of imagination. We answer the first objection by looking carefully at techniques of improvisation, which aim to reduce the cognitive load. We respond to the second objection by considering two possibilities: first that imagination can sometimes be unconscious; secondly that the imagination in improvisation is sometimes enactive/embodied imagination, which is to say that it is imagination that is constituted in part by the performance itself.

Kamil Majcherek (Cambridge) — tbd (14 March 2024)

Abstract: tbd

Abstracts

Anna Alexandrova (Cambridge) — tbd (7 March 2024)

Abstract: tbd

Helene Scott-Fordsmand (Cambridge) — tbd (22 February 2024)

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Chiara Martini (Cambridge) — Solving Some Problems in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Geometry (15 February 2024)

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Will Hornett (Cambridge) — Perceptual Capacities and the ‘Mosaic of Sensations’ (8 February 2024)

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Chris Oldfield (Cambridge) — Mereology Naturalized? Not Yet (25 January 2010)

Abstract