Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk › Academic
Description
The notion of power (also called capacity, disposition, or potentiality) enjoys increasing popularity in contemporary philosophy. It forms part of a general move away from the Hume-inspired empiricism that has dominated analytic philosophy for a long time. In this talk, I examine the idea of a power, which leads to the articulation of a range of interrelated varieties thereof. These varieties of power elucidate the metaphysical differences between inanimate and animate nature; between the vegetative and the conscious; and between animality and rationality. In particular, the varieties of power to be presented give rise to corresponding 'grades of normative involvement' (to paraphrase Prior's paraphrase of Quine).
Period
18 Oct 2016
Event title
Philosophy Lunch Lecture: Lunch lecture series of the OFR department at UU