Philosophy

Laws of nature (or scientific laws) are central to the sciences, especially to fundamental physics. They provide the explanatory backbone of the sciences by grounding explanations, causal relations, predictions and counterfactuals. They are intimately related to natures of time, space, and objective probability. While it is the task of scientists to discover what laws there are, it is the task of philosophers to provide accounts of what laws are, i.e. what makes a generalization or equation express a law?

Science Studies in Budapest 2 is the second workshop of a series intending to bring together researchers in Budapest working on the history, philosophy and social studies of science and technology. At the one-day workshop, researchers will present their ongoing research in various fields of science studies. Students and faculty from any institution are welcome to attend. No registration is required for attendance.

For program and abstract, see event website: https://sciencestudiesinbudapest2.tumblr.com/

The notion of character has recently come under dispute. Skeptics about character (e.g. John Doris, Gilbert Harman) deny that there is anything like cross-situational consistent and temporally stable traits of character, while philosophers and psychologists who defend the significance of character (among them e.g. supporters of affection theory) often draw on what is taken to be an Aristotelian model of character and character formation. Against this background, my talk tries to pin down the key features of Aristotle’s notion of character and his account of character formation.

Talk Handout

Some Texts from the Ethics on Consciousness
Daniel Garber (Princeton University)

A common idea in the literature on free will and moral responsibility is that all that is needed for free action and for moral responsibility for an action is present in an agent’s internal condition at the time of action. Here, an agent’s internal condition at a time may be understood as something specified by the collection of all psychological truths about the agent at the time that are silent on how he came to be as he is at that time.