The Metaphysics of Evolutionary Naturalism
12-14 May 2011
Habib Aziz Maamari Autorium, Business School, AUB
Registration is free and all are welcome to attend. Please contact rb60@aub.edu.lb if you have any queries.
From the perspective of the history of philosophy, evolutionary theory raises some very fundamental questions indeed. How can one be a naturalist after Darwin? On the ancient teleological naturalist picture, namely that of Aristotle, the goal of the study of the physical world, organic and inorganic, was to reveal the ultimate purposes of things. This teleological world-view was then coupled with the belief in a unified deity, and resulted in the belief that the study of the physical world offers a window into the mind of God.
Darwin completed a revolution in the sciences that was begun by Galileo. Galileo's mathematization of physics removed Aristotelean final causes from the inorganic part of the natural world. Darwin's theory of natural selection removed those final causes from the organic part of the natural world as well. Quite literally, there really is no point to life.
The implications of such a radical shift in world-view are still vague, especially the implications concerning metaphysical commitments. Given all the advances in science, it seems that we cannot answer the traditional philosophical problems concerning consciousness, freedom or even religion but through this new Darwinian naturalist lens. Also, ethical questions must now be examined through this new lens, but how can one have naturalistic justification for normative claims?
What, then, ought we to say about all these metaphysical and normative questions in this new light?
Speakers
Tim Crane (Cambridge) 'The Disinterested Search for Truth: a Naturalistic Approach'
Daniel Dennett (Tufts) 'Reasons and Having Reasons: Anthropocentrism and Explanation'
Ellen Fridland (Berlin School of Mind and Brain) 'Cognition and Learning: Finding a Way Through the Wilderness'
Güven Güzeldere (Duke) tbc
Muhammad Ali Khalidi (York University) 'Naturalism about Natural Kinds'
Ruth Millikan (Connecticut) 'Biological Purposes, Human Purposes, Crossing Purposes'
David Papineau (Kings College) 'Intentionality and Cognitive Design'
Peter Railton (Michigan) 'Does Darwinism Pose a Dilemma for Moral Realism?'
Alex Rosenberg (Duke) 'Disillusioned Naturalism'
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Source/Fonte: American University of Beirut
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