A new Philosophy Bites podcast by Emma Borg, on Language and Context, is now available:
http://philosophybites.com/2014/01/emma-borg-on-language-and-context.html
(In the nine days since its release this podcast has been downloaded nearly 30,000 times!)
http://people.ceu.hu/gergely_csibra
‘Non-verbal generics’
All human languages allow for making generic statements about kinds, which fosters the acquisition of generic knowledge by linguistic communication. I present recent findings that suggest that non-verbal ostensive communication may also induce the expectation of generic content already in pre-verbal infants. In particular, our studies demonstrate that, when the objects are deictically referred by a communicator, 9-month-old infants, like adults, tend to encode kind-relevant properties, like shape and colour, of the objects while ignoring their incidental properties, such as location and numerosity. These findings suggest that non-verbal demonstratives are expected to refer to the object kind, rather than to the particular objects present in the scene. In a further series of studies using electrophysiological measures we have found that as soon as infants start to learn words for objects, they assume that verbal labels refer to object kinds rather than to individuals or object features. Furthermore, our evidence suggests that seeing pictures of familiar objects activate the representation of the corresponding kind concepts in the infant brain only when the objects are presented in an ostensive-referential context. I propose that these phenomena reflect an expectation of genericity elicited by ostensive communication, and such a bias assists the learning of generic knowledge from others
Prof. David Oderberg is running this term’s Graduate Class on The Metaphysics of Good and Evil. The schedule can be found here. The class runs on Thursdays in HumSS 73 from 2-4pm.
We have a great line up of Philosophy Society speakers this term, all at 2pm in HumSS 301:
Tuesday 21st Jan, Robbie Williams (Leeds), Rational Illogicality
Tuesday 4th Feb, Antony Duff (Stirling), Emotion-based Criminal Defences: Fear, Anger – Compassion?
Tuesday 18th Feb, Stephen Neale (CUNY), Determining Meaning
Tuesday 4th Mar, Catherine Wilson (York), The Puzzle of External Reasons
For more information, contact Farbod Akhlaghi f.akhlaghi@student.reading.ac.uk
Prof. David Oderberg is interviewed by David Edmonds (one of the producers of Philosophy Bites) on his new article ‘The Morality of Reputation and the Judgment of Others’ in the Journal of Practical Ethics 1 (2013).
Wednesday 16 October 2013
8.00 – 9.30pm – Palmer Building, Whiteknights Campus, Reading University
Professor David Owens Department of Philosophy
Since the dawn of civilisation most human societies have allowed one adult human being to own another. We now think slavery is morally abhorrent, but what is actually wrong with it? Is it that slavery causes misery? Is it that slavery is based on racism? Is it that claiming to own another person involves denying the dignity of that person? This lecture will explore the social and philosophical questions of slavery.
Part of Reading Black History month
You can watch a short video about David’s talk here.
We hope you will be able to join us for what promises to be a very interesting day.
Tuesdays 2-4pm. Including meetings of the Philosophy Society, Work in Progress Seminar, and Research Seminar. Details here: Speakers Programme Autumn 2013.
Prof. David Oderberg is organizing the autumn term Staff-Student Reading Group, meeting on Thursdays at 1pm in HumSS G10. The book this term is A. Marmodoro (ed.) The Metaphysics of Powers: Their Grounding and Their Manifestations (Routledge, 2010).
The Centre for Cognition Research at Reading will host an inaugural conference on “Semantics and Science: What Can Experimental Work Tell Us about Meaning?”, 21st-22nd March 2014. Speakers will be as follows:
Prof. Richard Breheny (UCL, Linguistics)
Prof. John Collins (UEA, Philosophy)
Prof. Bart Geurts (Nijmegen, Philosophy)
Dr. Nat Hansen (Reading, Philosophy)
Prof. Kristen Syrett (Rutgers, Linguistics)
Further information on the programme will be posted on the CCR blog and website when it becomes available. Please do subscribe to the CCR blog (available on the homepage of the CCR website) if you would like to keep up to date with CCR events.