Seminar Rationality and The Logic of Norms MA 2009

Rationality and the Logic of Norms

Pro-doc FNS seminar “Norms, mind, rationality and properties” spring 09
Pascal Engel, PO

Time and place

Université de Genève, Room B 108 Bastions, rue de Candolle.

Weekly from 19.02.09, Thursdays 14-16.

Links for documents and materials

Documents and material for the seminar are on Unige's dokeos page. You will need to use your university login and password.

You should get to a personal page. Click on the link "Inscriptions" on the right; then click on "S'inscrire aux espaces de cours".

Choose "Lettres", then "Département de Philosophie". In the list of courses that appears, look for:

probles d'éthique et d'epistemologie (2) the logic of norms and rationality
PRODOCMA3410032 - Pascal Engel

Click "S'inscire" on the right of the course title.

From then on, when you log into Dokeos, you should see the course webpage appear when you click on the tab "Mes espaces de cours".

Description of the seminar

Aims

The seminar (which is a sequel to the seminar on epistemology and ethics in autumn 08) is devoted to a set of questions relating to the norms of thought and the “oughts” of thoughts : are there such oughts and obligations? what is their logic ? to what extent can deontic logic help analysing these? In what sense are they related to the general requirements of rationality? What is their relation to reasons and to values ? We shall mostly examine these issues through a detailed analysis of recent work by John Broome. A seminar and a workshop on John Broome will end the seminar, which will also make room for papers given by guest and participants on these topics.

Basic bibliography

• Broome, J. 2000 “Normative requirements”, in Dancy, J. ed Normativity, Oxford Blackwell
• Broome, J. ‘Reasons’, in Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz, edited by Jay Wallace, Michael Smith, Samuel Scheffler and Philip Pettit, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Broome, J. ‘The unity of reasoning?’, forthcoming in Spheres of Reason, edited by Simon Robertson.
• Broome, J. ‘Is rationality normative?’, Disputatio, 11 (2008), pp. 153–71.
• Broome, J. ‘Requirements’, in Homage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, edited by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Björn Petersson, Jonas Josefsson and Dan Egonsson.
• Broome, J. ‘Does rationality consist in responding correctly to reasons?’, Journal of Moral Philosophy, 4 (2007), pp. 349–74.
• Hattiangadi, A. Oughts and Thoughts, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Kolodny, N 2004 “Why be Rational ?” , Mind 114:455 (2005): 509–63
• Wedgwood, R. 2007 The nature of Normativity, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Other relevant material will be given in the seminar.

Schedule

1. 19 february 2009 P.Engel: The scope and nature of normativity
2. 26 february P. Engel: Broome on "Normative Requirements" (2000)
3. 5 March P. Engel: Kolodny on "Why be rational?" (2005)
4. 12 March J. Dutant (Genève), "Knowledge, safety and methods"
5. 19 March J. Dutant (Genève), "Modals and Knowledge Attributions"; included within the eidos epistemology workshop organized by Gian-Andri Toendury
6. 26 March P. Engel Broome on reasoning
7. 2 April Mircea Dumitru (Bucarest), "Modal and deontic logic"
8. 9 April P. Engel, "Oughty Thoughts"
9. 23 April Olivier Massin (Genève) "Distinguishing values from norms"
10. 30 April Davide Fassio (Genève), "Detachment in deontic logic"
11. 7 Mai Maksymilian del Mar (Lausanne), "The regulation Problem: Straw People, Straw Lives: The Myths of Compliance and Motivation."
12. 14 May Jack Darach (Fribourg), "Normative Sensitivity"
13. FRIDAY 22 May Workshop with J. Broome (Oxford)