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Christopher Yorke submits PhD then criticizes supervisor

Congratulations to doctoral student Christopher Yorke, who submitted his dissertation on the work of the philosopher Bernard Suits at the end of September. He will also be presenting a paper on Suits to the Atlantic Region Philosophers Association conference hosted by St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. His title: ‘A Suitsian Critique of Pike’s Account of Sport’ (that is to say, Jon Pike).

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Visiting speaker: talk on AI and poetry (Oct 3rd 2018)

Philosopher Jonathan Phelan will be a guest speaker on Wednesday October 3rd 2018, at 2pm-4pm in Room 006 of Gardiner Building 1. Everyone interested is very welcome to attend.

Title: ‘A. I. Richards’: can artificial intelligence appreciate poetry?

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (artificial eloquence) ‘writes’ poetry but can A. I. critically appreciate poetry? This talk looks at the prospect of ‘artificial interpretation’. By ‘interpretation’ I have close reading in mind, which, in broad terms, can be divided into four stages: first reading, close analysis, the forming of an overall interpretation of a work and a final evaluative judgement. I shall argue, along with Lamarque, that emotional responses to poetry are not integral to literary critical interpretation and so not crucial in any debate about artificial interpretation. On the positive side, A.I. can detect patterns such as rhyme schemes and repeated words, as well as make illuminating links to etymology, allusion and historical context. Artificial interpretation may also be able to register self-reference, guess at neologisms and identify absent detail through comparison with similar poems. The problem is that A. I. has no way of detecting what matters in a poetic work i.e. a sense of significance is lacking. I offer this by way of an answer to the question ‘Can A. I. appreciate poetry’ and by way of a challenge.

Please contact Sheree Barbateau for information if intending to come (e.g. in case of an unexpected change to schedule).

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‘Brilliant Darkness’ in Hanover, 9th October 2018

David Roden (Associate Lecturer on several philosophy modules, as well as a global figure in thinking about posthumanity) will be giving at talk in the Sprengel Museum in Hanover on October 9th. The event, entitled ‘Brilliant Darkness’ will involve David’s talk, a performance and a multimedia presentation. The theme will involve ‘different aspects of darkness in terms of things inaccessible for our thinking or possible strategies of thinking the unthinkable’. David’s talk will explore posthuman theory as an experimental practice, as opposed to a metaphysical theory of posthumans.

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Transwomen and Adoptive Parents

The OU’s Sophie-Grace Chappell has written a blog post exploring the merits of an analogy she draws between transgender women and adoptive parents. Here is the start:

Maybe we should think of it like this: Transwomen are to women as adoptive parents are to parents. There are disanalogies of course, and the morality of adoption is a large issue in itself which I can’t do full justice to here. Still, the analogies are, I think, important and instructive.

For the rest, go to the philosophy blog, Conscience and Consciousness.

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In a perfect world, what would we do?

Open University Philosophy PhD student Christopher Yorke was interviewed recently by the blogsite Philosophical Disquisitions. You can hear him in an interview with John Danaher, in which he talks about utopias, games, and the relation between the utopias and games. If we lived in a world in which all our instrumental needs were met – a world in which we had no need to do anything describable as ‘work’ – what would we do? Play games, perhaps? Chris is not convinced…

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Raamy Majeed’s new paper on Gestalt Effects and Aesthetic Perception is out now in Analysis

Raamy Majeed’s paper, ‘Do gestalt effects show that we perceive high-level aesthetic properties?’ is out now in Analysis.

ABSTRACT: Whether we perceive high-level properties is presently a source of controversy. A promising test case for whether we do is aesthetic perception. Aesthetic properties are distinct from low-level properties, like shape and colour. Moreover, some of them, e.g. being serene and being handsome, are properties we appear to perceive. Aesthetic perception also shares a similarity with gestalt effects, e.g. seeing-as, in that aesthetic properties, like gestalt phenomena, appear to ‘emerge’ from low-level properties. Gestalts effects, of course, are widely observed, which raises the question: do gestalt effects make it plausible that we (sometimes) perceive high-level aesthetic properties? Contra Stokes (forthcoming), this paper argues that they don’t. This is interesting in its own right, but it also points to a more general lesson, namely we should resist the temptation to appeal to gestalt effects to argue for high-level perception.

You can access the full article here

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