We're delighted to announce that the University of Edinburgh will host our 16th Annual Conference in 2012. Details of the conference, including a Call for Papers, will be announced later in the year.
The BPPA Annual Conference is an annual philosophy conference run by and for postgraduate students in the UK, as well as the occasional keen traveller from foreign parts. Spread over a weekend, it aims at philosophical rigour but seeks also to leaven the deep-furrowed ponderings with social frolicking and gambolling. In the time before time, our conference was previously known as the National Postgraduate Analytic Philosophy Conference. It is now known by a name of zen–like simplicity: The BPPA Annual Conference, or BPPC.
Typically, the BPPA Conference has 12-16 postgraduate speakers, plus a big-name keynote speaker from the host university. The atmosphere is always very friendly and helpful, and the conference is a lot of fun.
Past Conferences
BPPC 2011 - 15th BPPA and Inaugral BPPA Careers Day: University of Reading
You can listen to podcasts from our inaugural Philosophy Careers Day and see photos from the whole of BPPC 2011 here. We hope these podcasts will be useful for everyone preparing for, or even just contemplating, a career in philosophy.
Keynote Address
- 'My Life in Philosophy'
- Professor Jonathan Dancy (University of Reading and University of Texas at Austin)
- Preparing for the Job Market
- Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham) & Brad Hooker (University of Reading)
- Publishing
- Thom Brooks (University of Newcastle; also Chair of the Association of Philosophy Journal Editors and Editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy)
- Philosophy Beyond Academia: Philosophy in Culture and the Public Sphere
- John Cottingham (University of Reading and Heythrop College, London)
- James Garvey (Editor, The Philosophers' Magazine)
- Sean D. Kelly (Harvard University)
- Jonathan Rée (Royal College of Art)
- Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) roundtable discussion
- Jennifer Saul (University of Sheffield and Director, SWIP)
- David Archard (University of Lancaster)
- Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham)
- Thom Brooks (University of Newcastle)
- The Academic Career Path: Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies (PRS) Symposium
- Clare Saunders (Senior Academic Co-ordinator, PRS)
- David Archard (University of Lancaster)
- Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham)
Keynote Address
- 'Contemporary Semantics and the Nature of Context-Sensitivity'
- Emma Borg (University of Reading)
- 'Acceptance and Fair Play'
- Kory DeClark (University of Southern California)
- Respondent: Miroslav Imbrisevic (Hethrop College, London)
- 'Millianism, Ascriptions and Behavior: When Psychology is not Enough'
- Andrea Onofri (Arché, University of St. Andrews)
- Respondent: John Butterworth (University of Liverpool)
- 'The Extreme Demand and the Moral Requirements of Impartiality and Beneficence'
- Charlotte Wagstaff (University of Reading)
- Respondent: Owen Schaefer (St. Cross College, Oxford)
- 'Underdeterminacy and Attitude Reports'
- Thomas Hodgson (Arché, University of St. Andrews)
- Respondent: Hlynur Orri Stefansson (LSE)
Keynote Address
- 'We Are Not Human Beings'
- Derek Parfit (Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford & regular Visiting Professor to the Departments of Philosophy of Harvard, Rutgers and New York University)
- 'A Further Advantage of Ecumenical Expressivism'
- Alfred Archer (University of Edinburgh)
- Respondent: Richard Rowland (University of Reading)
- 'Effort and the Standard Story of Action'
- Michael Brent (Columbia University)
- Respondent: Nalini Elisa Ramlakhan (Carleton University, Ottowa)
- 'Realism and Procedural Value'
- Helena Wright (University of New York)
- Respondent: Ryo Chonabayashi (University of Cardiff)
- 'Why Beauty and Love belong Together: On Alexander Nehamas' Analytical Connection between Beauty and Love'
- Sarah Hegenbart (University of Leeds)
- Respondent: Sebastian Köhler (University of Edinburgh)
Keynote Address
- 'Alethic Relativism and Faultless Disagreement'
- Crispin Wright (New York University & the Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen)
- 'Contextualism, Epistemic Relativism and Disagreement'
- Robin McKenna (University of Edinburgh)
- Respondent: Ian M. Church (University of St. Andrews)
- 'On the Relation between the Appearances and Things in Themselves'
- Helen Robertson (University College London)
- Respondent: Katharina Kraus (Clare College, Cambridge)
- 'Active Externalism and the Mark of the Cognitive'
- Ken Pepper (University of York)
- Respondent: Peter Fazekas (University of Edinburgh)
- 'The Equivocation Objection to Priority Monism'
- Emily Thomas (Christ's College, Cambridge)
- Respondent: Jonathan S. Powell (University of Hertfordshire)
- 'The Puzzle of True Blue Simply Solved and Shown to be Anodyne'
- Pendaran Roberts (University of Nottingham)
- Respondent: Barry Glennon (University of Reading)
- 'A Physical Argument Against Composition'
- Jonathan Erhardt (University of Bern)
- Respondent: Alexandru Marcoci (LSE)
14th BPPC: University of Durham 2010
Details to follow.
13th BPPC: UCL 2009
Keynote Address
- David Papineau (KCL)
- Phenomenal Concepts and Private Languages
Graduate Papers
- Era Gavrielides (London)
- What is wrong with degenerate souls in The Republic?
- Matteo Colombo(Edinburgh)
- Looking at the roots of cooperation through the brain, and what we find there
- Jong-Hun Kim (Seoul)
- Courage and knowledge in Plato's Laches
- Martina Fuers (Graz)
- The dilemma of Papineau's quotational account of phenomenal concepts.
- Georgios Patios (Liverpool)
- Kierkegaard’s concept of history: the certainty of uncertainty
- Alfredo Gaete (Manchester)
- What Makes the Mental Mental
- Simon Hewitt-Horsman (London)
- Abstract reference in trope theory
- Ian James Kidd (Durham)
- Virtue epistemology, metametaphysics, and the dangers of naturalism
- Ruth Boeker (St-Andrews)
- Why should Locke's account of personal identity be transitive?
- Kevin Lynch (Warwick)
- Theoretical versus pre-theoretical criteria for mental and natural kind
- Paul Giladi (London)
- Brandom’s Hegel: Squaring the ‘Phenomenology’ with Semantic Pragmatism
- Lisa Grover (Kent)
- Are character trait attributions to statements?
- Geoff Stevenson (Manchester)
- The possibility of quantifier variance: reply to Eklu
- Alisa Mandrigin (Edinburgh)
- Me, a name I call myself
- Julien Murzi (Sheffield)
- Carnap’s Categoricity Problem and the Meaning of the Logical Constant
- John Wright (London)
- An Evaluation of Thomas Pogge’s Central Arguments in World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms
- Benjamin Smart (Nottingham)
- Regularity theory and inductive scepticism; the fight against Armstrong
- Ioanna-Maria Patsalidou (Glasgow)
- God’s love and Eleonore Stump’s account of Hell
12th BPPC: Kent 2008
Keynote Address
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Professor Kenneth Westphal
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Reflections on Philosophy, Continental and Analytic
Graduate Papers
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Nigel Leary
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A Kripkean Dilemma
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Davide Rizza
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The Benefits of Radical Nominalization
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Julien Murzi
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Knowability and Bivalence
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Luca Incurvati
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Does truth Equal Provability in the Maximal Theory?
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Michael Campbell
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Philosophers and Poets in Plato’s Symposium
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Joachim Aufderheide
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Desire First! Reflections on Plato’s Philebus
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Phil Joyce
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Generalising the Knowledge Argument
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Mauro Rossi
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Mirror Neurons and Mindreading: a Theory Theory Perspective
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Kathy Butterworth
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The Possibility of a Decentred Autonomous Subject
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Craig Reeves
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Metacritique in Adorno: Marx, Nietzsche and the Natural History of Subjectivity
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Lisa Grover
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Are Character Traits to be Understood as Conditional Statements
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Micheal Tugby
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Dispositionalism and Causal Necessity
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Mike Burley
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Is There a Tension in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religion?
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Jussi Suikkanen
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Consequentialism and the Good-Relative-to: A Reply to Mark Schroeder
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Istvan Danka
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What is the First Dogma of Empiricism?
Keynote Address
- Dr. Charles Travis (Kings College, London)
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The Place Of Visual Experience Within Frege's Philosophy Of Mind
Graduate Papers
- James Kelly (Trinity IRE)
- De Which Re is a Modality De?
- Nigel Leary (Birmingham)
- Natural Kinds: (Thick) Essentialism or Promiscuous Realism
- Helen Frowe (Reading)
- Flagpoles, Wells, and Other Stories
- Julien Murzi (Sheffield)
- The Paradox of Idealization
- Alfredo Gaete (University of Manchester)
- What is a Category Mistake?
- Alex Steinberg (University College, London)
- Lowe and Indeterminate Identity
- Robert Schwartzkopff (Oxford)
- Idioms: A Problem for Figuralism
- Jonny Blamey (Kings College)
- Degrees of Certainty
- Moritz Schulz (Oxford)
- Nested Conditionals
- Mauro Rossi (London School of Economics and Political Science)
- The Meaning and Measurement of Preference Satisfaction
Keynote Address
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Professor Bill Brewer
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Realism in the Phenomenology of Perception
Graduate Papers
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Michael Fenton (Warwick)
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Knowledge of Contextualism in Context
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Helen Frowe (Reading)
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Defending the Moral Distinction Between Killing and Letting Die
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Philip Meadows (Durham)
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The Geometry of Visual experience and Direct Realism
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Timothy Chan (Oxford)
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Belief, Assertion and Moore’s Paradox
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Marie Lundstedt (Umea, Sweden)
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Why Reasons Need not be Conceptual
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Anil Gomes (Balliol, Oxford)
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Conceptual How Possible’ Questions
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Charlie Pelling (Reading)
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Against Williamson's Anti-Luminosity Argument
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Mauro Rossi (LSE)
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Two Platitudes for Interpersonal Comparison
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Ian Phillips (All Souls, Oxford)
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Context and Perceptual Content
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Alexandre Erler (East Anglia)
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Coherence and rationality
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Julian Fink (Corpus-Christi, Oxford)
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What is Practical Reasoning?
Keynote Address
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Tom Baldwin (York)
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Moore’s Paradox, Thought, and Assertion
Graduate Papers
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Russell Downham (Macquarie, Australia)
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The living past remembered
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Nick Jones (Nottingham)
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Remembering, imagining, and mosaic states
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Michael Blome-Tillmann (Oxford)
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Epistemic contextualism and the error-theory objection
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Brandy Burfield (Houston, USA)
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The fallacies of fine-tuning
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Daniel Elstein (Cambridge)
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Utility, equality and resources
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Martin Godwyn (University of British Columbia, Canada)
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Who’s afraid of cognitive bloat?
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William Kilborn (Western Washington, USA)
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A topologic argument for substantivalism
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Brian King (Cambridge)
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The problem with plenitude
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Janne Mantykoski (King’s College, London)
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Are there untranslatable languages?
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Elizabeth McKinnell (Durham)
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Are future people our equals?
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Bence Nanay (Berkeley, USA)
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Imagining seeing and imagining kissing: an objection to Walton’s theory of depiction
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Georgia Testa (UCL)
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It stands to reason that we should save the greater number?
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Paul Winstanley (Durham)
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Conceivability, possibility, and 2-dimensional semantics
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Elia Zardini (Arché, St Andrew’s)
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A paradox of higher-order vagueness
Keynote Address
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Dr. Onora O'Neill, University of Cambridge
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The Ethics of Communication
Graduate Papers
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Beau Branson, University of Notre Dame
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Laws of Nature
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Daniel Elstein, University of Cambridge
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Reconsidering Minimalism and Expressivism
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Jason Ford, University of California, Irvine
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Tye-Dyed Teleology and the Inverted Spectrum
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Michael Garnett, University of Toronto
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Agent Identification
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Mahlet-Tsige Getachew, University of York
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Chasing the Wind: Fiction, Metaphor and the Search for Meaning
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Sune Holm, University of St Andrews
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Materialism and Personal Identity
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Mark Jensen, University of Notre Dame
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Civil Society and the Problem of Stability
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Christopher Kane, Brown University
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Paying the Price for the Transitivity of Causation
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David Liggins, University of Sheffield
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In Defence of Modal Fictionalism
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Ofra Magidor, University of Oxford
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Another Note on Zeno’s Arrow
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Richard Price, University of Oxford
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Experiencing Colours and Shapes
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Seth Shabo, Syracuse University
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Reasons-Responsive Structuralism and the Problem of Induced Desires
Keynote Address
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Professor Gregory Currie, University of Nottingham
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Delusional thinking, Fictional thinking, Religious thinking
Graduate Papers
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Jorn Sonderholm, St. Andrews
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A New Objection to Blackburn's Treatment of the Frege-Geach point
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Julian Kiverstein, Edinburgh University
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The body as subject
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Neil Sinclair, University of Cambridge
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Non-cognitivism and the Practicality of Moral Judgements
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Julia Markovits, University of Oxford
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Complying with the Formula of Humanity
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Mark Whitsey, University of Nottingham
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Shifting the First Person
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Anders Nes, University of Oxford
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Demonstrative Concepts and Phenomenal Sorites
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Enzo Rossi, Pavia/Washington
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Making Sense of Liberal Pluralism
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Asuncion Alvarez, Madrid
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Darwinian Deconstruction: the Evolutionary Roots of Rorty's Antirepresentationalism
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Aisling Crean, Edinburgh University
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Dispositionalism, Megarianism and Modality
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Eugenio Lombardo, University of Nottingham
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Conservation Laws without the Global Kind
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Mahlete-Tsige Getachew, University of York
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Scrooge's Redemption
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Philip Ebert
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The Traditional Connection Reconsidered
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Till Gruene
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Explaining with Motives
Keynote Address
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Professor Keith Graham, University of Bristol
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Altruism, Self-Interest and the Indistinctness of Persons
Graduate Papers
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Stephen Brown, Sussex University
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A Defence of Monological Reasoning
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Ross P Cameron, Glasgow University
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The Contingent A Priori and Two-Dimensional Modal Logic
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Tamas Demeter, University of Cambridge
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Supervenient Causation and Programme Explanation
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Joseph Diekemper, St. Andrews
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The Symmetry of Time
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Richard Dietz, University of Oxford
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Does Vagueness Violate the Laws of Classical Probability?
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Iwao Hirose, St. Andrews
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Scanlon on Aggregation
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Sune Holm, St. Andrews
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Special Concern and Personal Identity
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Kent Hurtig, St. Andrews
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Internalism and Accidie
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Robert Northcott, LSE
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Two Kinds of Political Philosophy
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Joel Smith, UCL
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What's all this Fuss about Immunity to Error…
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Graham Stevens, Southampton
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Analytical Philosophy After Wittgenstein
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Samantha Vice, University of Reading
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Iris Murdoch and the Inner Life
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Ioannis Votsis, LSE
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Overcoming Newman's Objection
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Anne Whittle, UCL
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Two Intuitions about Causation
Keynote Address
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Professor Jonathan Dancy, University of Reading
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Particularism in the Theory of Meaning
Graduate Papers
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Dario Glasso, Birkbeck College, London
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Towards an Anti-Essentialist Account of Tragedy
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Simon Prosser, University of Warwick
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Two Types of Immunity to Error Through Misidentification
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Jeremy Watkins, Herford College, Oxford
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Forgiveness and its place in Ethics
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Douglas Farland, University of Reading
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Supervenience, Naturalism & Normativity
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Christopher Wraight, University of Birmingham
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The Concept of Pleasure
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David Effird, New College, Oxford
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Semantic Disjunctivism
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Stephen Butterfill, St. Catherine's College, Oxford
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Why should awareness of our own beliefs concern us?
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Julien Kilverstein, University of Edinburgh
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Representation and the First Person
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Maria Kasmirli, University of Sheffield
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I need to find myself a Suleiman
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Andrew Reisner, Worcester College, Oxford
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Why Substantive Theories of Rationality are False
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Alex Voorhoeve, University College, London
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A Critique of Roemer's Version of Equality
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Anna Sheratt, University of Sheffield
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Imagining Unicorns
Keynote Address
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Professor E.J. Lowe, University of Durham
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The Nature of Metaphysics: An Analytic Perspective
Graduate Papers
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Sophie Allen, University College, London
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A Space Oddity: McGinn on Consciousness and Space
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Nafsika Athanassoulis, University of Reading
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Kant, Moral Luck and the Neo-Kantians
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Stephen Butterfill, University of Oxford
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False Belief in the Theory of Mind
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Massimilano Carrara, University of Padua
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Counting Objects in a Room: Some Remarks
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Alison Creese,University of Bristol
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Emotion and Weakness of the Will
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Julien Deonna, University of Bristol
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Are Emotional Contagion, Empathy and In-his-shoes Imagining Ways of Understanding Other Peoples Emotions?
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David Efird, Edinburgh University
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Negative Existentials, Structured Propositions and Ontological Dependence
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David Hemp, University of Sheffield
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Plantinga on the Evidentialist Objection
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Simon Kirchin, University of Bristol
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In Defence of Particularism
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Mental Realism and Supervenience
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Luca Malatesti, University of Stirling
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Stefanie Richter, St. Andrews University
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Future Individuals
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Constantine Sandis, University of Reading
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Primitive Actions and Individuation
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Jonathan Webber, University College, London
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Naive Realism, Causation and Explanation
Keynote Address
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Professor David Bell: Sheffield University
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Kant, Judgement and Mereological Analysis
Graduate Papers
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Nafsika Athanassoulis: Reading University
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Is Fidelity a Virtue?
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Anjan Chakravartty: Cambridge University
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Is the Very Notion of Causation Incoherent?
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Annalisa Coliva: St Andrews University
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Immunity to Error Through Misidentification and the Dilemma about the Self
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Michael Lacewing: Oxford University
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On Deliberating Well
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Tim Lewens: Cambridge University
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The Objectivity of Colour
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Ewan McEachran: Sheffield University
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The Route To Non-Reductive Physicalism
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Duncan McFarland: Birmingham University
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Colour, Mind-Dependence and the Conditional Fallacy
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Martin O'Neill: Oxford University
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Three Problems with Kymlicka's Multicultural Liberalism
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Duncan Pritchard: St Andrews University
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Wright on Dreaming Scepticism
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Michael Rich: Cambridge University
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Why the Realist Explanation of Scientific Success Fails
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Bart Streumer: Reading University
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Disposition Accounts in Evolutionary Theory, Rational Choice Theory, and Ethics
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Jonathan Tinker: University of Reading
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Cognitive Illusions: An Important Empirical Prediction of Evolutionary Psychology's Massive Modularity Hypothesis
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Ben Young: Edinburgh University
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Nativism, Indefeasibility and A Priori Knowledge
Keynote Address
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Professor Peter Carruthers, Sheffield
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Sympathy and Subjectivity
Graduate Papers
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Timothy Chan, Oxford
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Is Semantic Reductionism Self-Refuting
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Reply: Keith Frankish, Sheffield
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Ben Young, Edinburgh
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A Priori Warrant, Fallibility And Defeasability
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Colin Farrelly, Bristol
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Public Reason, Neutrality and Civic Virtues
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Reply: Simon Kirchin, Sheffield
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Duncan Pritchard, St. Andrews
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Scepticism, Rationality, and HInge Propositions
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Otavio Bueno, Leeds
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Truth, Minimalism and Assertibility
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Chris Lindsay, St. Andrews
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Mind, World And Active Experience
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Reply: Sally Perry, Sheffield
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Anjan Chakravartty, Cambridge
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Causal Properties and Laws of Nature
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Reply: Simon Bostock, Sheffield
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Jim Stuart (Birmingham)
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Kripke's Wittgenstein and Self-Knowledge
Keynote Address
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Professor Chris Hookway, Sheffield
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Naturalism, Norms and Analytic Philosophy
Graduate Papers
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Otavio Beuno, Leeds
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Modal Fictionalism, Possible Worlds Semantics and Quasi-Truth
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Zena Childs, Balliol College, Oxford
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Moral Regret
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Sean Crawford, Exeter College, Oxford
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The Explanatory Necessity of Relational Psychological Attributions/span>
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Stephen Ferguson, St. Andrews
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Frege as a Realist Again
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Richard Gray, Edinburgh
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Scientific Realism and Phenomenal Worlds
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Iain Law, Birmingham
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The Hierarchical Model of Autonomy
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Silvio Pinto, King's College London
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Empiricism and the Existence of Norms
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Sarah Sawyer, King's College London
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Introspective Knowledge of the World
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Keith Frankish, Sheffield
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Philosophy at the Edges (Endpiece)