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Philosophy in an Age of Science

A Conference in Honor of

Hilary Putnam's 85th Birthday

Harvard University

Emerson Hall

Hassenfeld Conference Center

Brandeis University

25 Quincy Street

Cambridge MA 02138

415 South Street

Waltham, Massachusetts 02453

May 31 and June 3 June 1 and 2

PROGRAM

TUESDAY, MAY 31

Emerson Hall, Harvard University

9:00-10:00am Registration, Coffee and ContinentalBreakfast

10-10:10am Opening remarks: Alan Berger10:15am-12:15pm Session 1 Truth, Ontology and

Skepticism

Richard Boyd, Cornell University

Epistemic values, true sentences and accurate maps:

How not to be afraid of correspondence truth

Gary Ebbs, Indiana University

How to Think About Whether We Are Brains in Vats

Steve Wagner, University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignConsistent, integrated systems of the world:

pragmatism, relativity, and Quine's ideals of reason

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12:1512:30pm Stanley Cavell, Harvard University,

On Remembering Hilary

12:30-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00-4:00pm Session 2 - Ethics and Science

Mario de Caro, University of Rome 3, Italy

Putnam's Liberal Naturalism and Ethics

Thomas Scanlon Jr., Harvard University

Facts and Values, Distinctions and Dichotomies

4:00-4:15pm Coffee Break

4:15-6:15pm Session 3 Philosophy of Perception

and Mind

Ned Block New York University

Attention and Perception

Hilla Jacobson, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Against Perceptual Conceptualism

Sydney Shoemaker, Cornell University

Functionalism and Causal Theories of Properties

6:15-9:00pm Reception for Registrants and

Participants at the Inn at Harvard

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1

Hassenfeld Center, Brandeis University

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9:15am Bus to Brandeis leaves from The Inn at

Harvard

9:30-10:00am Coffee and Continental breakfast

10:00-10:15am Welcoming Remarks: President Fred

Lawrence of Brandeis University

10:15-12:30pm Session 4 Philosophy of Mathematics

Geoffrey Hellman, University of Minnesota

On the Significance of the Burali-Forti Paradox

Harvey Friedman, Ohio State University

Putnams Contributions to Logic after Gdel

Charles Parsons, Harvard University (moderator)

Brief remarks on Putnam on realism in mathematics

12:30-1:45 pm Lunch

1:45-3:45pm Session 5 - Philosophy of Language

Nathan Salmon, University of California, Santa Barbara

How Things Have to Be

Alan Berger, Brandeis University, Visiting Harvard

Spring 2011

What does it mean to say, Water is necessarily H2O?

3:45-4:00pm Coffee Break

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4:00-6:00pm Session 6 Philosophy of Religion

Anat Biletzki, Tel Aviv and Quinnipiac Universities

Ethics without Religion

Paul Franks, University of Toronto, Yale University

Liberal Naturalism and Putnam's Atheistic Theology

Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago

Does a Decent Society Need a Civil Religion? John

Stuart Mill and Rabindranath Tagore

Lynne Baker, UMASS Amherst (moderator)

6:15pm Bus back to Cambridge

THURSDAY, JUNE 2

Hassenfeld Center Brandeis University

9:15am Bus to Brandeis leaves from The Inn at

Harvard

9:30-10:00am Coffee and Continental Breakfast

10:00-12:00pm Session 7 Philosophy of Physics:

Interpreting Quantum Mechanics

David Albert, Columbia University

TBA

Richard Healey, Arizona University

Quantum Theory: Realism or Pragmatism?

Tim Maudlin, Rutgers University

Quantum Theory and Metaphysical Realism

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12:00-1:30pm Lunch

1:30-3:30pm Session 8 Part A Realism,

Reductionism, and Naturalism

Maximilian de Gaynesford, University of Reading, UK

Faces of Realism: Some nips and tucks

David Macarthur, University of Sydney, Australia

Anti-reductionism and Liberal Naturalism

Maria Baghramian, University College, Dublin

(moderator)

3:30-3:45pm Coffee Break

3:45-5:45pm Session 8 Part B Reasoning and Its

Foundations (tentative title)

Charles Travis, Philosophy Department, King's College

London & The Institute of Philosophy, University of

Porto

Overflowing Bounds: Can We Naturalize Representation

and Reason?

Carl Posy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

"Realism, Reference and Reason: On Kant and Putnam

Warren Goldfarb, Harvard University (moderator)

6:00pm Bus back to Cambridge

FRIDAY, JUNE 3

Emerson Hall, Harvard University

9:00-10:00am Coffee and Continental Breakfast

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10:00-10:15am Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Tel Aviv

University, Israel

Poem about Hilary Putnam and its

analysis

10:15-12:00pm Hilary Putnam, TBA

12:00-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00-5:00pm Plenary Session 9 Hilary Putnam: The

Legacy of Hilarys Work: from Truth,

Ethics, Ontology, Twin Earth and

Doppelgangers to Brains in Vats.

Panel: Paul Benacerraf, Hilary Putnam, Tim Scanlon,

Charles Travis (tentative), with Q & A from audience