Everyone is welcome to attend this always wonderful conference in Alnmouth, organised by Newcastle’s own, Michael Bavidge:
Philosophy Workshop
Sponsored by the PSE Northern Group
Of Sound Mind
Saturday, 6th October, 2018
10.30 am – 6.00 pm
Methodist Hall, Alnmouth,
Northumberland
If you would like to join us please enrol by contacting
Michael Bavidge, 6 Craghall Dene Avenue,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE3 1QR m.c.bavidge@ncl.ac.uk
Fee: £15 payable on the day
Timetable
10.00 am Coffee
10.30 am Context and Constraints Ian Ground
11.40 am Coffee
11.50 am The Space of a Shared Life Michael Bavidge
1 pm Lunch
2.00 pm Participants’ workshop
3.00 pm Cetaceans and Conceptualisation Ian Ground
4.15 pm Tea
4.30 pm Betraying animals Michael Bavidge
5 pm General Discussion
6 pm Close.
Ian Ground is a Teaching Fellow in the Fine Art Department at Newcastle University. He has published on animals minds and has recently edited the formidable Portraits of Wittgenstein.
Michael is President of the Philosophical Society of England. He was a lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University. He struggles with theories of mind – human (adult and child) and brute.
Ian’s Discussions
A default position in our ordinary thought, the philosophy of mind and to an extent, the cognitive sciences, is that while we may now think that at least some, perhaps many other animals are” minded”, still the character of their mindedness not only is but must remain mysterious to us. In these two discussions, I try to confront default mainstream positions about animal mindedness with empirical results, in particular the known facts about the dolphin sonar system: ensonfication. My aim is not to defend a thesis but only to offer some reflections on how some mainstream constraints relating to concept possession fare when faced with the ethological findings.
Mike’s Discussions
In 1998 Ian and I wrote Can We Understand Animal Minds? The first chapter was entitled ‘The Shared World’. We inhabit the shared world as humans, but that does not mean it is an exclusively human space. In my talks I will examine the contours of our shared life. I hope to show how our world is impoverished and our philosophical theories are distorted when we forget or downgrade the mindedness of animals.