WMA » Events Calendar

30/04 2pm-4pm: WMA Talk - Carol Rovane (Columbia University) 'Some Perplexities about Consciousness'

Chenwei Nie — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:33:13 GMT

When: 2pm - 4pm, Thu, 30 Apr '26

Where: S0.20

WMA Seminar
Carol Rovane (Columbia University): 'Some Perplexities about Consciousness'

Abstract:

Some decades ago, I offered novel interpretation and defense of Locke’s distinction between personal identity and human (animal) identity. Locke himself had equated personal identity with “sameness of consciousness”, and then argued that sameness of human (animal) life is neither necessary nor sufficient for sameness of consciousness. I granted for the sake of argument that Locke was wrong about this, but then argued for a version of his distinction anyway, on the ground that a person is a rational agent, and there can be single group agents that span many human lives as well as multiple agents within a single human life. Each such individual agent has its own first person point of view, which is the rational point of view from which it deliberates and acts and engages in interpersonal relations with others. Yet this is not the same as the phenomenological point of view from which a subject of experience has access to phenomena in consciousness, by virtue of what they are like. This distinction between two different kinds of point of view forces us to look harder at what role consciousness might play in mental life. We may no longer be sure whether consciousness is an essential and defining feature of mental phenomena, or if so, why; but secondly, even if we retain that conviction, we should find it curious that the unity of consciousness is neither necessary nor sufficient for the sort of rational unity that defines what it is for an individual agent to be fully, or ideally, rational. I want to emphasize that my arguments do not proceed from standard sorts of functionalist considerations, but from purely normative considerations to do with agency.

04/06 4pm-7pm: WMA Talk: Dorit Bar-On (University of Connecticut): 'Four Milestones in the Evolution of Human Pragmatic Communication’.

Chenwei Nie — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:47:08 GMT

When: 4pm - 7pm, Thu, 04 Jun '26

Where: S0.20

Dorit Bar-On (University of Connecticut): 'Four Milestones in the Evolution of Human Pragmatic Communication’.

Abstract:

So-called Protolanguage is a theoretical construct designed to help explain the phylogenetic emergence of human language from animal communication systems. In Expression, Communication, and Origins of Meaning (forthcoming, OUP), I argue that Protolanguage ought to be conceived as pragmatically (and therefore psychologically) intermediate, and this places certain substantive constraints on the psychological capacities with which we can credit our nonlinguistic ancestors. In particular, we should not credit them with a capacity for Gricean mindreading and the ability to entertain language-like thoughts.

In this talk, I describe four proposed hypothetical milestones on our ancestors’ path toward a pragmatically intermediate Protolanguage (“PIP”), relying on a combination of empirical and theoretical considerations. These milestones can be used to describe a phylogenetic trajectory leading from an ancestral communication system that resembled existing forms of animal communication to PIP. Clarifying the character of – the fourth milestone – and of the preceding three milestones, should, I believe, also shed some light on our ancestor’s progression from PIP to human linguistic pragmatic communication.

03/06 10am-1pm: WMA & PKEP Collab - "Agency" Workshop

Chenwei Nie — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:04:50 GMT

When: 10am - 1pm, Wed, 03 Jun '26

Where: TBC

03/06 2pm-5pm: WMA & PKEP Collab - "Letting Be" Workshop

Chenwei Nie — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:04:37 GMT

When: 2pm - 5pm, Wed, 03 Jun '26

Where: TBC