|
Cambridge Pragmatism: a Research Workshop
31 May — 1 June, 2012 :: Winstanley
Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge
Themes
Pragmatists approach philosophical problems by
enquiring about the practical role of disputed
notions — truth, causation, value, or necessity,
for example — in human life. Over the past
century, many distinguished Cambridge philosophers
have been pragmatists in one sense or another.
Most famously of all, the remarkable shift in
Wittgenstein's views when he returned to Cambridge
in 1929 is distinctly pragmatist in nature: it
focuses on the many things that we humans do with
language. In the same period, many of Frank
Ramsey's contributions to topics such as
probability, belief, causation and laws have a
deeply practical character. Later, it is easy to
identify pragmatist strands in von Wright’s views
of causation, Anscombe’s writings on indexical
thought, Mellor’s work on tense and on success
semantics, and Craig’s view of knowledge, to name
just four of the more prominent examples. And in
this century, to date, Simon Blackburn and Huw
Price are self-avowed pragmatists about a range of
philosophical topics.
This research workshop aimed to explore this
distinctive Cambridge philosophical tradition: its
origins in the 1920s in the Cambridge
of Bertrand Russell and G E Moore; its
common themes; and its links and influences, in
both directions, with other prominent figures,
movements and schools in international philosophy.
Video and audio recordings
Recordings of talks and discussions at the
workshop are available here: http://upload.sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/1265209.
Programme
|
Thursday
31 May |
|
10:15—11:00 |
COFFEE
|
|
11:00—12:30
|
Cheryl Misak
(Toronto)
|
The Origins of Cambridge
Pragmatism
|
|
LUNCH |
|
| 1:15—2:45
|
Dorothy Edgington
(Birbeck)
|
Ramsey and Pragmatism
|
| 3:00—4:30 |
Sami Pihlstrom
(Helsinki)
|
A Pragmatist Perspective on
Wittgenstein and von Wright |
|
TEA
|
|
| 5:00—6:30 |
Robert Brandom
(Pittsburgh)
|
From German Idealism to
American Pragmatism, and Back
|
7:30
|
DINNER
|
Allhusen
Room, Trinity College. [Please note
that this dinner is for speakers and invited
guests, and participants who paid separately
for dinner on registration. Bookings for
dinner are now closed.]
|
|
Friday
1 June
|
|
9:30—11:00 |
Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins)
|
A Pragmatic Approach to Knowledge
|
|
COFFEE
|
|
| 11:30—1:00 |
Chris Hookway
(Sheffield)
|
Pragmatism, Beliefs, and
Propositions |
|
LUNCH
|
|
| 2:00—3:30 |
Simon Blackburn
(Cambridge)
|
Teleology and Justification
|
|
TEA
|
|
| 4:00—5:30 |
Huw Price
(Cambridge)
|
'Here' is the Tip of the
Iceberg |
|
CLOSE
|
|
Organisation and support
The workshop was organised by Fraser
MacBride and Huw
Price. We gratefully acknowledge financial
assistance from the Cambridge
Humanities Research Grants Scheme and the
Pragmatic Foundations Project at the Centre
for Time, University
of Sydney. We are also grateful for
administrative assistance from CRASSH.
Faculty of
Philosophy|University
of Cambridge
|
