Friday, Feb. 15 and Saturday, Feb. 16

204 Longmire Alumni Building

Description

Ordinary objects have conditions of identity over time, but only a person can be said to have an identity -- in the sense that invites talk of identity crises, of questioning or changing one's identity, of discovering who one really is. 

Ordinary objects can remain selfsame despite changes in their appearance, but only a person can be (or fail to be) herself, be true or false to herself, have a "deep" self that may be different from the face she shows to others.

What do these words express, and what can they reveal about our concept of a person? Questions like these have been thematized in phenomenology, in psychology, and to some extent in analytic moral theory, but they have been given less attention by analytic philosophers of mind. The present conference will bring into conversation philosophers and psychologists who can approach questions of self and self-identity from a variety of perspectives.

SCHEDULE OF Speakers

The keynote will be held in Dodd Hall Auditorium, with a reception to follow. All other talks will be held in Longmire 204.

Friday, Feb 15

9:15    Opening Remarks
9:30    Christopher Moore (Penn State) "Heraclitus and the Origins of the 'Self'"
11:00  Ursula Renz (Klagenfurt) "Socratic Self-Knowledge and the Concept of the Human Self: From Phenomenology to Metaphysics"
1:40    Marya Schechtman (Illinois-Chicago) "Doing Me: a dynamic picture of personal identity"
3:30    KEYNOTE: Vincent Descombes (EHESS, Paris) "On First-Personal Being"

Saturday, Feb 16

9:00    John Schwenkler (Florida State) "The Concept of a Person"
10:30  Nina Strohminger (Penn) "Corporate Insecthood"
12:00  Joshua Knobe (Yale) "Identifying Persons (and Non-Persons)"
2:30    Andrea Westlund (Florida State) "Who Do We Think We Are?"
4:00    Matthew Boyle (Chicago) "The Transparency of the Ego"

Sponsored by the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Fund, and the Florida State University College of Arts and Sciences.

Contact information

Tucker Sigourney — tss17c@my.fsu.edu