Visiting speaker seminar

Edinburgh staff seminar

Speakers: Dave Ward and David McNaughton

David McNaughton, "The Janus nature of forgiveness"

Abstract: On the one hand, the paradigm case of forgiving someone seems to be the most private of acts. It requires only a change of heart, and its occurrence may never be mentioned to anyone, even the perpetrator. It is because of its inward nature that one can forgive the absent, the dead, and those who deny wrongdoing and would reject forgiveness with scorn.

On the other hand, the paradigm case of forgiving someone might be understood as a certain form of public communication - in saying ‘I forgive you’, or performing some other action with the same communicative intent, the victim does thereby forgive the perpetrator. Moreover, the normative relations between them change. It is not simply that a perlocutionary effect of the speech act may be to change the psychological nature of the relationship. It is that, in declaring the wrongdoer forgiven, the forgiver forswears the expression of certain hostile attitudes in the future, with all that that entails.

In an irenic mood, one may attempt an account that does justice to the inner and outward facing aspects of the concept. Indeed, I have attempted to do so elsewhere. What interests me, and what I hope my audience will help me with, is to understand what it is about forgiveness that gives it this double nature, and whether there are other concepts that exhibit similar traits.

Dave Ward, "What is it like to be a battalion?"

Abstract: Can groups have emergent conscious states? That is, is there something it's like to be some groups, over and above what it's like to be any of their constituents? I'll argue that a necessary condition for group consciousness is perspectival unity - a defender of group consciousness needs to explain the way in which conscious states are integrated into a unified perspective that can be properly attributed to the group. I'll argue for a particular way of meeting this unity condition - unity as intentional access to the contents of conscious states - and show how this condition can be met by a suitably organised group. Distributed artificially intelligent cyborg spaceships will be involved. Supplying sufficient conditions for group consciousness involves solving the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness. If time permits, I will do that too.