Dolf Rami (Göttingen) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (21 January, 2016) titled "On Some Puzzling Features of Existential Discourse". Abstract: Existence is a very puzzling notion that bewitched philosophers since the beginning of Western Philosophy. In this talk, I will compare the three most popular general views on existence and I will point out their main advantages and weaknesses. These are (a) the often so-called second-level view of existence, (b) the Meinongian view of existence and (c) the Parmendian view of existence. I will try to show that the best overall view of existence is a version of the Parmendian view of existence that makes use of negative free logic.

Aaron Cotnoir (St. Andrews) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (4 February, 2016) titled "On the Role of Supplementation Principles in Mereology". Abstract: Mereology is the formal theory of parts and wholes. Despite the frequent claim that a certain class of `supplementation' principles are analytically true of the concept of parthood, students of mereology often find such principles tricky to understand. This is made more complicated by the supposed relation between supplementation and mereological extensionality. In this paper, I outline the algebraic role of supplementation and argue that, contrary to received opinion, extensionalists and non-extensionalist alike should accept them.

Matt Farr (Queensland) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (20 January, 2016) titled "Causation & Time Reversal". Abstract: What would it be for a process to happen ‘backwards’ in time? Would such a process involve different causal relations? On a standard interpretation of time reversal, time reversal symmetric theories radically underdetermine causal relations between events. This has led many to imply that time reversal symmetry motivates eliminativism about causation. This paper assesses the compatibility of time reversal symmetry with causation by asking whether causal relations ought to invert under the action of time reversal or remain invariant. I show that in neither case is there an incompatibility between time reversal symmetry and causation and hence time reversal symmetric theories pose no special problem for causality. I argue for a ‘non-causal’ interpretation of time reversal, whereby time reversal does not invert causal relations, and assess the consequences of this interpretation for the epistemology and metaphysics of causation.

Neil Barton (Birkbeck) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (14 January, 2016) titled "On the Relationship Between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Justifications". Abstract: Recent discussions of the justification of new axioms for set theory have often focussed on a distinction between two different kinds of justification. Intrinsic justifications argue that putative axioms are implied by an underlying mathematical conception, whereas extrinsic justifications concern the consequences of said principle. In this paper, we argue that intrinsic and extrinsic justification as it has been explained in the literature is unsatisfactory. In its stead we propose a new account of intrinsic and extrinsic justification, one which develops a harmony between the two notions and avoids the problems we see for extant accounts.

Margaret Morrison (Toronto) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (3 February, 2016) titled "Turbulence, Universality and Emergence". Abstract: Turbulent flows are paradigm cases of complex systems where multi-scale modelling is required. The fundamental problems in the field are strong fluctuations and couplings – problems that are also present in condensed matter physics (CMP) and field theory. Like the latter two areas of physics, renormalization group methods have been used to treat some of the theoretical difficulties with turbulent flows. However, unlike CMP where universality and emergence is, in some sense, reasonably understood, it is less than straightforward in cases of turbulence. I examine some of these issues, in particular the relation between multi-scale modelling and emergence, in an attempt to clarify how or even whether a notion of emergence might be applicable in the context of turbulent flows.

Anna Mahtani (LSE) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (16 December, 2015) titled "How (not) to make everyone better off". Abstract: he concept of ‘pareto superiority’ plays a central role in welfare economics. Pareto superiority is sometimes taken as a relation between outcomes, and sometimes as a relation between actions – even where the outcome of the actions is uncertain. Whether one action is classed as (ex ante) pareto superior to another depends on the prospects under the actions for each person concerned. I argue that a person's prospects (in this context) can depend on how that person is designated. Without any constraints on acceptable designators, then, the concept of pareto superiority is incomplete and gives inconsistent results. I consider various ways of completing the concept, and draw out the implications for debates in welfare economics.

Ethan Jerzak (Berkeley) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (17 December, 2015) titled "Non-Classical Knwoledge".

Hanoch Ben-Yami (CEU) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (16 December, 2015) titled "The Quantified Argument Calculus". Abstract: I present the principles of a logic I have developed, in which quantified arguments occur in the argument position of predicates. That is, while the natural language sentence ‘Alice is polite’ is formalised P(a), the sentence ‘Some students are polite’ is formalised P(∃S). In this and several other respects, this logic is closer to Natural Language than is any version of Frege’s Predicate Calculus. I proceed to discuss further features of this logic, the Quantified Argument Calculus (Quarc). For instance, the Quarc incorporates both sentential negation and predication negation. The use of converse relation terms and of anaphors vis-à-vis variables is also discussed. I then concisely introduce the proof system and semantics, and describe the system’s power and its metalogical properties. I conclude by extending the Quarc to modal logic and discussing its treatment of the Barcan formulas.

Daisuke Bekki (Ochanomizu University) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (2 December, 2015) titled "Anaphora and Presuppositions in Dependent Type Semantics". Abstract: Dependent type semantics (DTS) is a framework of proof-theoretic discourse semantics based on dependent type theory, following the line of Sundholm and Ranta. DTS attains compositionality as required to serve as a semantic component of modern formal grammars including variations of categorial grammars, which is achieved by adopting a mechanism for underspecified terms. In DTS, the calculation of presupposition projection reduces to type checking, and the calculation of anaphora resolution and presupposition binding both reduce to proof search in dependent type theory, inheriting the paradigm of anaphora resolution as proof construction. I will demonstrate how DTS gives a unified solution to benchmarks for presupposition and anaphora, including presupposition projection and filtering, temporal and bridging anaphora.

Nick Tosh (NUI Galway) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (2 December, 2015) titled "Ensemble Realism. A new Approach to Statistical Mechanical Probability". Abstract: “What we know about a body can generally be described most accurately and most simply by saying that it is one taken at random from a great number (ensemble) of bodies which are completely described.” So wrote Willard Gibbs in 1902, but with his fingers crossed, for he regarded ensembles as convenient fictions. A century later, they are still convenient, and we still have no settled account of the literal meaning of statistical mechanical probability assignments. My aim is to show how talk of ensembles might be taken seriously.