Information
The SNSF Starting Grant project 'Metaphysics We Can Believe In' is delighted to announce a three-day conference on the metaphysics and epistemology of the first person.
Attendance is free and open to all, but registration is required. To register, please send an email Giovanni Merlo
Speakers
- Alexander Geddes (Oxford)
- Marie Guillot (Essex)
- Adrian Haddock (Leipzig)
- Caspar Hare (MIT)
- Maik Niemeck (Marburg)
- Eylem Özaltun (Koç)
- Léa Salje (Leeds)
- Will Sharp (Geneva)
- James Shaw (Pittsburgh)
- Matheus Valente (Lisbon)
Organizer
Giovanni Merlo (Geneva)
Schedule
Wednesday 18.06.2025
14.30-16:00
Alexander Geddes
The First Person and the Preservation of Mind'
16.15-17.45
Marie Guillot
I think I’m special but I’m not an egoist: Lessons from Bernard Williams
Thursday 19.06.2025
09:00-10.30
Matheus Valente
Evidence de dicto and de se
10.45-12.15
James Shaw
Imaginative Resistance and the De Se
14:30 – 16: 00
Will Sharp
De se skepticism and the Intention Inventory Model
16:15 – 17:45
Caspar Hare
This before I
Friday 20.06.2025
0:9-10.30
Adrian Haddock
The First Person
10.45-12.15
Eylem Özaltun
Paralogisms Revisited: Transcendental Object as Arbitrary Object
14.30-16:00
Léa Salje
Mythomania and the Sense of Self
16.15-17.45
Maik Niemeck
Towards a Pure Impure Intentionalist Account of Subjective Character
Reading Group
There is an informal reading group taking place this semester about the same topic and organized by Giovanni Merlo!
The idea is to discuss a mix of classical texts and contemporary papers dealing with various puzzles raised by, e.g., indexical thought, de se beliefs, self-knowledge etc. Here you can find a tentative list of possible readings:
- Anscombe's “The First Person'
- Evans, G. 'Self-identification' (ch. 7 of The Varieties of Reference)
- Haddock, A. 'I am NN”: A Reconstruction of
- Ismael, J. 'Me, Again'
- Johnston, M. 'The impossibility of my own death'
- Morgan, D. 'The essential indexical research program'
- Nelson, M. 'Time and person in thought'
- Shoemaker, S. 'Self-reference and self-awareness'
- ...
If you think you might be interested in participating, please feel free to get in touch with Giovanni Merlo!
The First meeting was this week (March 3d) and the group is meeting once a week, in Geneva.