AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

11:00am NZST

WINTER SCHOOL

Sunday July 5, 2026 11:00am - 3:00pm NZST

11:00-11:55. Inês Hipólito: Can one know something one doesn't care for? 'Knowing' in the Age of AI
12:00-12:55 Lunch
1:00-1:55 Jordi Fernández: Sartre on Why Existence Precedes Essence
2:00-2:55 Stephanie Collins: What is Structural Injustice?

Open to all Undergraduates, Honours Students, & Senior School Students.
Free ticketed event.

Organised by the AAP Undergraduate Committee, Winter School is a one-day event held alongside the AAP Conference.

Designed for undergraduate and senior secondary students with an interest in philosophy, Winter School provides an opportunity to hear from professional philosophers and learn more about philosophical study and research.

Speakers

Inês Hipólito

Macquarie University

Inês Hipólito is a lecturer of Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence at Macquarie University. researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/ines-hipolitoineshipolito.com x.com/ineshipolito... Read More →

Jordi Fernández

Adelaide University

Stephanie Collins

Monash University

Winner of the 2025 AAP Annette Baier PrizeStephanie Collins is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Monash University. Her work focuses on collective responsibility, collective agency, care ethics, and other topics in moral, social, and political philosophy. stephaniecollin... Read More →

Sunday July 5, 2026 11:00am - 3:00pm NZST
MSB1.02

WINTER SHOOL

12:00pm NZST

Relational Close-Mindedness

Monday July 6, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST

Can our epistemic environments render us closed-minded? This paper argues that they can. Drawing insights from feminist character theory, I examine two ways in which our epistemic environments can render us closed-minded. First, they can cause us to develop the intrinsic dispositions necessary for closed-mindedness. Our environments and their structures of power and our social locations in them can cause us to be unwilling or constitutionally unable to engage seriously with relevant alternatives to our beliefs. Second, closed-mindedness can also be relational: whether a person is closed-minded will partly depend on extrinsic features of her environment—on whether or not her environment supplies relevant intellectual options with which to engage. Drawing on relational accounts of autonomy and agency, I argue that just as one won’t have autonomy or agency in an environment that severely restricts freedom and opportunity, one won’t be open-minded in an environment that severely restricts intellectual options (e.g., an echo chamber). The absence of intellectual options renders one closed-minded, even when one has the intrinsic dispositions necessary for open-mindedness. Overall closed-mindedness (CMER) is an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options or to revise one’s beliefs.

Speakers

Heather Battaly

University of Connecticut

Monday July 6, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, In Person

2:00pm NZST

Sperm are from Mars, Eggs are from Venus: Generic Cognition and the Reification of Sex Essentialism

Monday July 6, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST

This paper considers whether apparently non-essentialist accounts of biological sex can avoid sex-essentialist uptake when expressed via generics. Recent work in philosophy of biology has defended realist accounts grounded in anisogamy as both empirically robust and compatible with diversity. I argue that Paul E. Griffiths' sex concept is the most compelling of these views and is not vulnerable to sex essentialism in itself. However, the generics literature shows that generic statements expressing biological generalisations can nonetheless have sex-essentialist uptakes. Drawing on Sterken's account of quantificational force and Leslie's cognitive mechanisms—characteristic dimensions and counterexample resistance—I argue that even Griffiths' carefully non-essentialist account gets processed as an absolute generic, erasing the nuance that distinguishes it from traditional gametic essentialism. Once essentialised at the level of cognition, these generics feed into broader social consequences: the assumption that biological sex determines behavioural dispositions, emotional capacities, and social roles. Generic expressions about behavioural dispositions, emotional capacities, and social roles inherit their apparent biological authority from realist sex concepts, lending scientific legitimacy to stereotypes that Griffiths' metaphysics was never designed to support. Ultimately, I argue that sex-essentialist uptake places significant constraints on the ability of realist accounts of sex to remain non-essentialist in practice.

Speakers

Maisie Belle Norton

Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Postgraduate Presentation Prize Shortlist

Monday July 6, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, In Person

3:00pm NZST

Moral Appreciation and Moral Virtue

Monday July 6, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST

This paper proposes a novel account of the conditions for moral virtue centered on an important but overlooked notion: appreciation. I begin by challenging an intellectualist tradition in the literature, which I call the Cognitive Requirement Thesis (CRT): that moral virtue requires the cognitive ability to explain why one’s action is right (Hursthouse 1999; Annas 2011; Hills 2009, 2015). Targeting Hills’s version in particular, I argue that CRT sets the cognitive bar too high, and propose instead the Moral Appreciation View: one is morally virtuous when and because one is able to appreciate the relevant moral features of a situation. By appreciation, I mean a distinctive kind of sensitivity manifested in three dimensions: (i) perceptual sensitivity: recognizing the presence of a morally relevant feature in a situation, (ii) normative sensitivity: capturing that feature’s normative significance, and (iii) affective sensitivity: being affectively moved and motivated in a way that is responsive to that feature. I further distinguish appreciation from knowledge and understanding, suggesting that it entails neither, and argue that it is necessary for virtue: an agent who appreciates the right-making features of situations is thereby disposed to perform right action in a reliable, non-lucky manner across a range of cases.

Speakers

Wenwen Li

PhD Student, UW-Madison

Monday July 6, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Ethics, Remote

4:30pm NZST

Andrea Dworkin's Sexual Ethics: A Pro-Sex Feminist After All?

Monday July 6, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST

Andrea Dworkin (1946 – 2005) is perhaps best remembered as the militant feminist who, in 1983—alongside feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon—drafted an ordinance defining pornography as ‘a violation of women’s civil rights’ for the City of Minneapolis. Though this ordinance was vetoed, Dworkin’s reputation as a porn-opposing, (cis-hetero) sex-negative feminist never died. Dworkin saw woman-hating everywhere, and she saw pornography—and intercourse more broadly—as a central site where this hate was realised. But does Dworkin’s opposition to pornography really rightfully earn her a ‘sex-negative’ reputation? This project proposes to undertake a close study of Dworkin’s oeuvre in order to reveal the contours of her views about sex. In bringing the nuances of her views about sex to light, I will argue that Dworkin’s observations may be central for an emancipatory feminist sexual ethics in the present.

Speakers

Louise Richardson-Self

University of Tasmania

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy & Gender Studies University of Tasmania

Monday July 6, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, In Person

11:00am NZST

Contrasting Defences of Gender Equality: Hobbes and Cavendish

Tuesday July 7, 2026 11:00am - 11:55am NZST

Hobbes has an unwavering account of gender equality. This is so on two counts. The first count is based on a physiological account of species equality influenced by the work of Harvey. Insofar as biology is destiny, women as bearers and rearers of children have the first experience of dominion. The second count asserts that even if inequality is natural, the dictates of reason enjoin a moral valuation of each as equal. Without this, no social contract, no peace, is possible. For Hobbes, gender equality inheres in what counts as a species being and what reason dictates for society.

Cavendish takes a different view. As Nature abounds with diversity and hierarchy, so do humans. Indeed, heterogeneity is the defining principle of matter, including human matter. But this principle means that there is no arbitrary or conventional barrier based on characteristics of sex (or gender). Her own society constrains women, but her imagined other worlds are populated with empresses, women who are military strategists, and all manner of varieties of humans. Diversity, for her, implies the absence of restraint on the grounds of sex, an equal opportunity approach that will by nature result in difference (inequality).

Speakers

Diane Zetlin

University of Queensland

Tuesday July 7, 2026 11:00am - 11:55am NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, Remote

12:00pm NZST

Whose Transmisogyny is it Anyway?

Tuesday July 7, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST

Will trans philosophy be sufficient for trans women’s liberation? And if not, what interventions are required? To explore this, I will be critically evaluating Talia Mae Bettcher’s Beyond Personhood (2025) in order to argue that a generalised account of trans oppression fails to give us the tools required to understand trans women’s specific gendered experiences. Instead then, I argue we should be looking toward transmisogyny as a site for analysis. To do so, I seek to answer the following questions: how should we understand transmisogyny? How do we come to be through social kinds? And what constitutes transfeminism itself?

Speakers

Rosalind Silver

Monash University

Tuesday July 7, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, In Person

2:00pm NZST

From Inner Light to Feminist Praxis: Catherine West

Tuesday July 7, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST

This paper argues that the Quaker concept of the Inner Light provides a neglected but powerful feminist account of moral authority—one that challenges both hierarchical epistemologies and the privatization of ethical life. Drawing on the political praxis of Catherine West, the paper reconceptualizes the Inner Light as a feminist moral epistemology grounded in relational responsiveness rather than abstract rationality or institutional legitimacy.
Against dominant feminist frameworks that locate moral authority primarily in social position, discursive recognition, or collective standpoint, this paper shows how Quaker ethics articulate an alternative model: moral authority emerges through embodied attentiveness to injustice and the obligation to translate inward discernment into public action. Through a three-stage analysis, the paper traces how the Inner Light functions as (1) a non-hierarchical epistemic source, (2) an ethical grounding for equality and conscientious dissent, and (3) a catalyst for feminist political praxis oriented toward care, testimony, and community accountability.
By situating West’s work within this ethical tradition, the paper contends that Quaker-inspired feminist praxis disrupts the private-public divide and reframes political agency as an extension of moral attentiveness, offering a distinctive contribution to feminist debates on epistemic authority, care ethics, and post-secular political philosophy.

Speakers

Hyung Jin An

University of Delhi

Hyung Jin An achieved BA Buddhist Studies degree from Dongguk University (2020), MA Philosophy degree from Hindu College, Delhi University (2022). Now currently researching East Asian Pure Land Buddhism and Hindu Bhakti philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Delhi University... Read More →

Tuesday July 7, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, Remote

3:00pm NZST

A Path Out: Considering Trans Ideal Theory and Ideal Trans Theory

Tuesday July 7, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST

This talk looks at the tensions between ideal and non-ideal theory through the lens of trans and feminist philosophy.
On the one hand, it seems important to visualise liberatory futures: what are we fighting for? On the other hand, it can seem pointless to build pristine abstract theories when the debris of the present is choking us: what can we do from here? Utopianism doesn't put a roof over anyone's head. For that reason, ideal theory is often thought of as out of touch with real concerns; perhaps any reasonable socially-engaged philosophy is necessarily non-ideal?
Hence, I aim to draw on trans philosophy to explore this tension explicitly in the pursuit of seeking broader ambitions for the field.

In discussing the ambitions of both ideal and non-ideal social theories, I shall consider what kinds of critique are most useful when building social futures for oppressed groups.
Drawing on trans metaphilosophy and elements of 1990s gender theory, I thus argue that we do need ideal theory, due to the limitations of non-ideal theory. In this way, I propose that the best emancipatory theories of gender already integrate both ideal and non-ideal theory to envision a more fruitful and liberatory perspective on trans futures.

Speakers

Simone Anders

Monash University

Tuesday July 7, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Feminist Philosophy, In Person

4:30pm NZST

Explanatory Pluralism and the Epistemic Status of Spiritual Frameworks in Psychiatric Knowledge

Tuesday July 7, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST

This paper argues that explanatory pluralism provides the most defensible framework for governing psychiatric knowledge, and that the continued privileging of biomedical monism requires philosophical justification it has not adequately received. I contend that psychiatric phenomena are ontologically complex in ways that resist reduction to any single explanatory scheme, and that the systematic marginalisation of non-biomedical frameworks reflects the politics of knowledge production rather than their epistemic inadequacy. To ground this argument, I draw on Australian mental health consumer activism as a case study in which spiritual frameworks functioned as genuine competing explanatory systems. These were not pre-scientific residues but coherent accounts of psychological distress with their own internal logic, evidential basis in lived experience, and practical explanatory success. Drawing on Ian Hacking's concepts of interactive kinds and classificatory looping, I examine how the medicalisation of spiritual experience creates self-reinforcing cycles that delegitimise alternative frameworks structurally rather than on epistemic grounds. The paper concludes that recognising spiritual and experiential frameworks as legitimate contributors to psychiatric explanation is not a concession to relativism but a consequence of taking ontological complexity seriously. This has direct implications for how epistemic authority is distributed in clinical practice and mental health care design.

Speakers

Gemma Lucy Smart

PhD Candidate, University of Sydney

Gemma Lucy Smart is a PhD candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney, where she researches the history of mental health self-help, consumer activism, and Mad Pride's relationship to the disability and neurodiversity movements. She is a senior lived... Read More →

Tuesday July 7, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST
MSB1.02

Social Epistemology, In Person

11:00am NZST

Artwork as a Form of Indigenous Philosophical Communication

Wednesday July 8, 2026 11:00am - 11:55am NZST

This paper presents the artwork that was commissioned to represent my Doctoral thesis; "Reimagining Aboriginality: Deconstructing "Race", Aboriginality, And Other Colonial Myths". In this paper, I reflect on the inclusion of my artwork in my doctoral thesis as a core component of philosophical communication to the communities that are directly impacted by our philosophical work.
The artwork was developed through an ongoing process of conversation and collaboration with a Wiradjuri artist; the artwork reflects a deliberate attempt at decolonisation - a strategy meant to subvert the traditional Western academic template that has long dictated how knowledge is presented and legitimised in the academy.
I will discuss the question of what counts as philosophical work, and argue that incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing is an integral part of a wider effort to make space for Indigenous epistemologies within philosophy.

Speakers

Taylor-Jai McAlister

Research Fellow / Clinical Psychologist, Macquarie University

Wednesday July 8, 2026 11:00am - 11:55am NZST
MSB1.02

Indigenous Philosophy, In Person

12:00pm NZST

Beyond Relationality: Country as Warrant in Aboriginal Epistemology

Wednesday July 8, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST

Relationality is a significant theme across Western and non-Western frameworks, and its ‘relational turn’ has been a genuine achievement in dislodging atomistic, substance-based thinking. Yet even in radical formulations (e.g., Buber’s I-Thou and Whitehead’s process philosophy), relational ontology commonly presupposes participants that precede relation. This ‘participant presupposition’ reveals a deeper problem: relationality is not only a metaphysics but also a validity regime - it privileges what can be represented as relations between terms, and therefore misrecognises Aboriginal epistemological validity when its warrant is enacted rather than abstracted.
This paper reframes the issue by arguing that Aboriginal epistemological validity is constructed performatively through lawful enactment on/with Country, as exemplified in Songlines and ceremonial practice. Rather than opposing ‘verb’ to ‘noun’ as a familiar Western binary, I argue that Aboriginal knowledge-transfer trains an integrated capacity to hold action, place, law, story, and entity together in one enacted intelligence - where Country, protocol, and obligation are not ‘context’ but warrant. The paper closes by outlining what philosophy (and HDR evaluation practices) must become if Aboriginal knowledges are to be received without validity-destroying translation, including in contemporary debates about representing Indigenous knowledge in AI.

Speakers

Blake Stockton

Director for Indigenous Education, University of Queensland

Wednesday July 8, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Indigenous Philosophy, Remote

2:00pm NZST

Reframing Animal Ethics through Indigenous and Epic Wisdom

Wednesday July 8, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST

“Who is truly human—the one who reasons, or the one who recognizes kinship in all life?” This paper rethinks animal ethics by moving beyond dominant Western frameworks such as Sentientism and Biocentrism, which evaluate moral worth through anthropocentric criteria like sentience or biological life. Such models, while influential, neglect relational forms of moral engagement central to non-Western thought. Drawing on Indian Adivasi philosophies—particularly the Gond and Santhal traditions—this study foregrounds a worldview in which humans, animals, and forests exist as interdependent members of a shared moral community. Animals, here are treated as ancestral kin, their protection ensured through ritual, taboos, and negotiated reciprocity. This relational orientation resonates with Mahabharata’s account of Yudhishthira, whose loyalty to a dog surpasses the promise of celestial reward, extending moral concern beyond human boundaries. By integrating epic scripture with Adivasi philosophy, the paper proposes a relational animal ethics that centres co-existence, humility, and attentiveness. It positions interspecies relationships—not rational mastery—as the foundation of ethical life. Such an approach offers a transformative alternative to the alienation of the Anthropocene, framing morality as an ongoing negotiation of kinship with the more-than-human world, where ethical life emerges through care, respect, and shared becoming.

Speakers

Priya Gupta

PhD Candidate and Senior Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

Priya Gupta is Senior Research Fellow pursuing PhD Research from the Department of Philosophy, University of Lucknow. Her graduation is from Miranda House and post graduation is from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her area of research pertains to Ethics of Animal Use. Through her research... Read More →

Wednesday July 8, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Indigenous Philosophy, Remote

3:00pm NZST

Reconciliation as a Philosophical Project

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST

This panel brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the Australasian Association of Philosophy’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) Working Group to reflect on the establishment of the upcoming RAP, the role of reconciliation within philosophy as a discipline, and the possibilities and challenges of institutional and intellectual change. Drawing on the perspectives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous philosophers working on this project, the panel explores reconciliation and how we can engage in it as a structural practice.
The session will discuss the process of developing the AAP RAP and the questions that continue to emerge throughout this work: What does reconciliation mean within a discipline historically shaped by colonial institutions and Eurocentric intellectual traditions? What might genuine reconciliation look like within teaching, research, governance, mentoring and the disciplinary culture of philosophy?
The panel aims to contribute to broader conversations around the future of philosophy in Australasia by examining reconciliation as both a practical and philosophical project.

Speakers

Taylor-Jai McAlister

Research Fellow / Clinical Psychologist, Macquarie University

Kaz Bland

University of Western Australia

Director, Eurekamp Oz!; Ethics Project Coordinator, Constable Care Foundation; Coordinator, WA Philosothon

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Indigenous Philosophy, In Person

4:30pm NZST

A Direct Argument for B-Series Fatalism

Wednesday July 8, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST

There has been concern that B-series eternalism could imply fatalism about future objects and events. That is, if B-series eternalism is true, then propositions concerning our future should not be considered differently from those concerning our past; they must have a definite truth value. This was exemplified by Russell’s account of Cambridge change. If a poker is hot at t1 and cold at t2, it will always be so. If all future propositions are true or false, our free will is threatened. In a similar fashion, van Inwagen’s direct argument threatens moral responsibility if determinism is true. This paper offers a construction of eternalist fatalism in a similar fashion, utilising the same structure of Van Inwagen’s argument. I will start by introducing the B-series and eternalism, before explaining the direct argument and resistances to its validity. I will then formulate a similar argument for fatalism using eternalism, overcoming the charge that the B-series does not entail necessary future truths, therefore it does not imply fatalism. I shall conclude with the conditional that if eternalism is true, fatalism is true, whilst remaining neutral on whether this should be used in a modus ponens or a modus tollens.

Speakers

Zak Parsons

Graduate Student, University of St Andrews

Wednesday July 8, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST
MSB1.02

Truth, Remote

11:00am NZST

Worthless Science: Against the Equivalence of Pursuits

Thursday July 9, 2026 11:00am - 11:55am NZST

Despite the recent interest surge in the topic of pursuitworthiness within philosophy of science, Philip Kitcher's claim that science is, by its very nature, a significant pursuit has yet to be challenged within the literature. I argue in favor of the relevance of the category of worthless science, by establishing that it is irreducible to non-pursuitworthiness in the standard sense. I introduce a distinction between the internal epistemic aims constitutive of a research program and its external (or collateral) aims, those objectives satisfiable across disciplinary boundaries as a byproduct of internal inquiry. I then propose three jointly sufficient desiderata for worthless scientific pursuits: small research community size, minimal goal-set overlap with other scientific communities, and relative absence of achievable external aims, and formalize them within a utilitarian expected-utility framework. I subsequently address the principal challenge to this account raised by the Feyerabendian equivalence principle of pursuits, as recently discussed by Shaw, arguing that it collapses prescriptively into absurdity. I then identify two paradigmatic instantiations of worthless science: self-referential classificatory inquiry and speculative exploratory modeling, providing some case studies. I conclude by examining institutional mechanisms, as offsetting arrangements and better-structured interdisciplinary collaboration, capable of minimizing worthless pursuits without foreclosing epistemic pluralism.

Speakers

Luca Molinari

PhD Student, Nanyang Technological University

Thursday July 9, 2026 11:00am - 11:55am NZST
MSB1.02

Philosophy of Science, In Person

12:00pm NZST

Gaston Bachelard's Non-Kantian Philosophy of Science in the Philosophy of No

Thursday July 9, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST

Gaston Bachelard has received increasing interest in analytic philosophy (Massimiliano Simons and Matteo Vagelli, 2021; Brenner, 2015; Chimisso, 2024), yet it remains controversial whether Bachelard simply develops the neo-Kantian philosophy of science (Tiles, 1984; Guo, 2019; Panero, 2021) or breaks with this tradition to establish a novel approach (Souto, 2022). In this paper, I argue, through a reading of The Philosophy of No (1940), that Bachelard’s philosophy of science is best understood as a movement away from Léon Brunschvicg’s neo-Kantian critical idealism towards a phenomenological account of science inspired by Edmund Husserl. First, I contrast Brunschvicg’s and Husserl’s divergent modifications of Kantian doctrines, principally regarding the cognitive capacity to grasp noumena. Second, I trace in The Philosophy of No how Bachelard inherits Brunschvicg’s neo-Kantian concerns for the autonomy, progress, and demystifying role of science while adapting these commitments into a variation of Husserl’s metaphysics of history. With this background in mind, I argue that Bachelard’s philosophy of science constitutes a pedagogical doctrine primarily aimed at transforming those initiated in Kantian doctrine into practitioners of a phenomenology of science.

Speakers

Jacob Ritz

University of Queensland

Jacob Ritz is a casual academic in German and mathematics and a PhD student at the University of Queensland, where he studied German, French, and pure mathematics. His current research interests lie in nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and French metaphysics, particularly at... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Philosophy of Science, Remote

2:00pm NZST

An Evolutionary Debunking Argument Against Theoretical Parsimony

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST

There is disagreement over why theoretical virtues are good for theories to have. On the one hand, they may be epistemic; they may be guides to the truth. On the other hand, they may be pragmatic; they merely facilitate inquiry. I present an evolutionary debunking argument against the view that parsimony is an epistemic theoretical virtue. Our disposition to prefer simpler theories over more complex theories is at least partly explained by our evolutionary history. We evolved a preference for parsimony due to constraints imposed on our evolutionary ancestors arising from the costs of cognitively demanding tasks. We also have no independent explanation of why parsimony should track the truth. As such, we have some reason to doubt that parsimony is a purely epistemic theoretical virtue, and more reason to think that parsimony is a pragmatic theoretical virtue.

Speakers

James Vlachoulis

Australian National University

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Philosophy of Science, Remote

3:00pm NZST

Structuralism in Loop Quantum Gravity

Thursday July 9, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST

I investigate the viability of ontic structural realism (OSR) in loop quantum gravity (LQG) (in both its canonical and covariant formulations). This is done through the introduction of two tests for the viability of OSR: the intrinsic properties test and the intrinsic identity test. A list of candidates for the fundamental structure of LQG is identified. The application of the aforementioned tests demonstrates that structuralism is possible in each of the options for fundamental structures in LQG. This establishes a prima facie case for ontic structural realism in LQG. I then discuss potential objections to OSR in LQG. These objections include the problem that the existence of highly symmetric structures poses for OSR, as well as an objection based on the status of the Immirzi parameter (a key parameter in LQG). I argue that, with some caveats, OSR has the resources to address these objections.

Speakers

Aiden Meyer

Phd student, University of Melbourne

Thursday July 9, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Philosophy of Science, Remote

4:30pm NZST

Mental Disorders, Symptom Networks, and Dispositions

Thursday July 9, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST

On the Symptom Network Theory (SNT), a mental disorder is a network of symptoms, not an underlying condition that causes symptoms. The SNT offers an intriguing alternative to views that try to make mental disorder just like physical disorder, on the one side, and views that reject the whole idea of mental disorder, on the other. I suggest that there are counterexamples to the SNT: there can be mental disorders without networks of symptoms, and there can be networks of symptoms without mental disorders. But, I argue, those counterexamples can be avoided if mental disorders are conceived not as symptom networks, but as dispositions to display symptoms in certain patterns. I offer a theory of mental disorders as dispositions as a sympathetic amendment to the SNT. The goal is to retain the attractions of the SNT while retaining a conceptual distance between mental disorders and their symptoms.

Speakers

Simon Keller

Te Herenga Waka │ Victoria University of Wellington

I am presently working on the philosophy of mental health and disorder. I've previously written on topics in ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. I'm the author of The Limits of Loyalty and Partiality, and a co-author of The Ethics of Patrioti... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 4:30pm - 5:25pm NZST
MSB1.02

Philosophy of Science, In Person