Logic List Mailing Archive

Reasons: Action, Belief, Perception

10-12 Oct 2013
Saarbruecken, Germany

CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference "Reasons: Action, Belief, Perception"
in Saarbruecken, Germany, October 10-12, 2013

Invited speakers:
Terence Cuneo (Vermont)
Gerhard Ernst (Erlangen)
Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck)
Asbjrn Steglich-Petersen (Aarhus)

The aim of the conference is to bridge the gap between reasons in action
theory/ethics and reasons in epistemology, particularly with respect to the
distinction between motivating and normative reasons. Main questions are:
What do reasons for actions and reasons for belief have in common? Are
reasons of both kinds normative or motivating or explanatory in the same
sense? What can be learned from reasons of the one kind for understanding
reasons of the other kind, for example with respect to their ontology? Are
reasons of both kinds facts, states of affairs, or propositions? If there
are normative reasons for belief, are they evidence, truth-makers, mental
states, or their contents? Can our understanding of reasons for belief be
improved by transferring the conceptual apparatus of action theory to
epistemology (or the other way around)? Could distinctions from action
theory be fruitfully put to work in the debate between intentionalism and
disjunctivism in the epistemology of perception?

Call for papers:
We invite papers for talks of up to 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of
discussion. Deadline is March 31st 2013.
Strong preference will be given to papers explicitly devoted to connections
and/or differences between reasons for action and epistemic reasons. Papers
concerned only with reasons of one of these types will be considered only if
some open slots cannot be filled otherwise. Please send an abstract with no
more than 1500 words to conference.reasons@gmail.com. Please state your full
name, address, institutional affiliation, as well as your current status
(PhD student, post-doc, professor, etc.). Up to seven presentations can be
accepted. We intend to fill at least half of the slots with speakers in
early stages of their career, if possible. We will try to acquire some
funding for travel and accommodation of speakers who cannot raise sufficient
funds at their home institution, but how much we can do remains to be seen.

Organization
Eva Schmidt
Susanne Mantel
Universitt des Saarlandes, Philosophisches Institut,
http://www.uni-saarland.de/fachrichtung/philosophie.html

Supported by the Doctoral Programme of the Philosophy Department (Saarland
University), the Chair of Philosophy of Mind (Saarland University), and the
Chair of Practical Philosophy (Saarland University)