Digest Week 5 Trinity Term 2022

TT22, Week 5 (22nd -  28th May)

If you have entries for the weekly Digest, please send information to admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk by midday, Wednesday the week before the event. 

Notices - other Philosophy events, including those taking place elsewhere in the university and beyond

The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society | 6:00-7:45pm | Online

Alexander Mourelatos (Texas-Austin): 'Parmenides of Elea and Xenophanes of Colophon: the Conceptually Deeper Connections' 

Chaired by Robert Stern (Sheffield)

Free of charge and open to all!

The Aristotelian Society will be holding this meeting online via Zoom. To join the presentation and discussion period for the talk you will need to follow this link. If you have any problems or concerns about the software, please contact mail@aristoteliansociety.org.uk. You do not need to have a Zoom account or to download anything in advance but we have found that the software works better on Google Chrome or Firefox, rather than other browsers. Please log into the “waiting room” at least 5 minutes in advance of the talk.

View the Draft Paper | View the 2021/22 programme

 

The Faraday Institute Research Seminar series | 1-2pm | Online and in person

''Randomness in Philosophy and Theology''

A link to watch online will be made available the morning of the seminar. For more information please visit https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/events/seminars/


Hegel Reading Group 

The reading sessions have now finished for this term, but we will be holding a one day workshop on 'The social subject: intersubjectivity, psychoanalysis and Hegel' on July 2. See hegelinoxford.wordpress.com for details.


'Better to do something that will almost certainly fail?' | 6:00pm | The HB Allen Centre, 25 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN

Effective Altruism Oxford presents a talk by philosopher Hayden Wilkinson of the Global Priorities Institute, based on his paper 'In Defence of Fanaticism'

Consider a decision between: 1) a certainty of a moderately good outcome, such as one additional life saved; 2) a lottery which probably gives a worse outcome but has a tiny probability of a far better outcome (perhaps trillions of blissful lives created). Which is morally better? Expected value theory (with a plausible axiology) judges (2) as better, no matter how tiny its probability of success. But this seems fanatical. So, we may be tempted to abandon expected value theory.

But not so fast - in this talk, Hayden argues that denying all such verdicts brings serious problems. It is better, he will argue, to accept fanaticism than the troubling philosophical implications of the alternatives. 

All are welcome. No registration required. 

Oxford Society of Metaphysics - Talk Series 'Conceptions and misconceptions about time'| 8:00pm | Fitzhugh Auditorium, Cohen Quad, OX1 2HE (Exeter College, Oxford)

L. Bonetti (Oxford): 'Temporal perception and brain: insights from music'

The Oxford Society of Metaphysics (OSM) aims to promote interdisciplinary events (introductory courses, seminars, workshops, and lectures) with high-profile experts for undergraduate and graduate students in different disciplines. The society has been created to encourage students to explore the foundational aspects of their own discipline, with its highest goal being to stimulate interdisciplinary collaborations at different levels - to have more information about the society, please visit our fb page

The OSM is delighted to invite you to its talk series 'Conceptions and Misconceptions about Time'. For our fourth talk, we are happy to welcome Dr. Leonardo Bonetti (Linacre College, Oxford) who will give a talk about how the brain processes temporal patterns and information evolving over time.

Leonardo is a Junior Research Fellow at the Center for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, mainly interested in the whole-brain mechanisms underlying encoding and recognition of temporal patterns. Previously, he completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, an MSc in cognitive applied psychology and an MSc in classical guitar at University of Bologna.

Time is a central constituent of the physical world and several pieces of information available in the environment becomes meaningful only when sequentially arranged over time. Thus, the main aim of his research is to understand and mathematically model how the healthy brain processes temporal patterns and information evolving over time. To do so, he uses state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques such as magnetoencephalogray (MEG) and (functional) magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in connection with sequences of stimuli arranged over time and presented either via auditory or visual channel.

 

Philosophy and Economics Conference | 2:00-6:30pm | Anniversary Building G09, St Hilda's College 

This Philosophy and Economics Conference on the topic of Bounded Rationality will celebrate the publication of The Routledge Handbook on Bounded Rationality, edited by Professor Riccardo Viale.

Program
Chair: Anita Avramides (St. Hilda's College, University of Oxford)
2:00 p.m. Riccardo Viale “ For a Post Cartesian Bounded Rationality” (University of Milan Bicocca and Herbert Simon Society)
2:30 p.m Teppo Felin “Generative Rationality in Uncertain Ecologies” (Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University)
3:15 p.m. Barbara Fasolo “Choice overload or Bounded Choice?” (London School of Economics)
Tea break
4:30 p.m. Anders Kock “(Sub)optimal Experimentation'' (St. Hilda's College, University of Oxford)
5:15 p.m. Richard Povey "Bounded Rationality and the Limits to Altruism" (Hertford College, University of Oxford)
6:00 p.m. General Discussion

For more information please visit this page.