MTL Schedule Of Events:
Friday, October 13th:
All talks on Friday will take place in the Rutgers Philosophy Department Seminar room. Directions below.
10:00am - 11:30am – “Misuses of Mereology”
by Kit Fine (New York University)
11:45am - 1:15pm – “Intuitions About Mereology and About Volume”
by Peter Forrest (University of New England)
It is intuitive that any things of a kind have a mereological sum. Or at least, it is intuitive if the things are not scattered. We also have intuitions concerning the quantity of things. Finally the Axiom of Choice is intuitive. I shall illustrate the consequence of these intuitions in the case of regions of Space , but what I say can be adapted to portions of stuff rather than regions of Space, or to regions of Spacetime. First I make a case for what I have called the Grit or Gunk dichotomy. Either Space is discrete or it is just atomless gunk. Moreover, and this may come as a shock, no intuitively permissible gunk theory is classical .Hence, the only place for classical mereology is if Space is discrete. If you assert, contrary to my claim, that classical mereology is itself required by intuition, then our intuitions lead to one quite drastic conclusion: Space is discrete.
1:15pm - 2:45pm – Lunch
2:45pm - 4:15pm – “Identity, Indiscernibility and Number”
by Katherine Hawley (University of St. Andrews)
What would a counterexample to the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles look like? I distinguish between hopeless and more promising putative counterexamples, then consider three ways in which the defender of PII may respond to the more promising cases. These defences have a problem in common: they use illegitimate considerations in addressing mereological questions.
4:30pm - 6:00pm – “Omnipresence”
by Hud Hudson (Western Washington University)
According to the tradition of western theism, God is said to enjoy the attribute of being everywhere present, but what is it, exactly, for God to manifest ubiquitous presence? In the present essay I discuss the 'being present at' relation that figures so prominently in the divine attribute of omnipresence, on both occupation and non-occupation readings of that relation, and on a host of philosophical problems that arise for each reading. The essay is divided between a discussion of the historical positions of Anselm and Aquinas, a note on the controversy stirred up by the modern contributions of Hartshorne, Swinburne, Taliaferro, and Wierenga, a brief glance at two curious and overlooked approaches, and an investigation of the promising prospects for further inquiry afforded by new work on theories of location relations.
Saturday, October 14th:
All talks on Saturday will take place in Murray Hall, room 210
10:00am - 11:30am – “Decomposition”
by Ned Markosian (Western Washington University)
So far most philosophers working on the mereology of physical objects have considered two main questions: Under what circumstances is an object a mereological simple? and Under what circumstances do some objects compose a further object? In this talk I want to turn to a pair of related mereological questions that have to do with what I will call "decomposition". Whereas composition involves the building up of composite objects from simpler parts, decomposition involves the (conceptual) breaking down of composite objects into their simpler parts. One reason for investigating decomposition is that it is interesting in its own right. Another reason is that if, as I have argued elsewhere, there is no true and informative answer to The Special Composition Question, then understanding the nature of decomposition may be our best hope of gaining insight into the nature of composite objects.
11:45am - 1:15pm – “Structure-Making”
by Kris McDaniel (Syracuse University)
D.M. Armstrong is a friend of structure-making. Friends of states of affairs and structural universals appeal to a relation, structure-making, that is allegedly a kind of composition relation: structure-making "builds" facts out of particulars and universals, and "builds" structural universals out of unstructured universals. D.M. Armstrong endorses to interesting thesis concerning composition. First, structure-making is a composition relation. Second, it is not the only (fundamental) composition relation: Armstrong also believes in a mode of composition that he calls mereological, and which he takes to be the only kind of composition recognized by his philosophical adversaries, such as David Lewis. Armstrong, accordingly, is a kind of pluralist about compositional relations: there is more than one way to make wholes from parts. Given this, there is more than one way that objects can fail to be distinct. In this paper, I critically evaluate these claims.
1:15pm - 2:45pm – Lunch
2:45pm - 4:15pm – “____”
by Josh Parsons (Otago University)
4:30pm - 6:00pm – “Location, Location, Location”
by Jonathan Schaffer (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
What is the relation between material objects and spatiotemporal regions? I will defend the 'super-substantivalist' view that objects just are regions by another name. There is the spatiotemporal manifold, and the fundamental properties of the world are pinned directly to it.
Sunday, October 15th:
All talks on Sunday will take place in Murray Hall, room 210
10:00am - 11:30am – “Where It's At: Modes of Occupation”
by Peter Simons (University of Leeds)
There is more than one way in which objects can occupy locations. Of course whether the locations in question are places, times, or spacetime regions makes a difference, but even within a single type of location there are different modes of occupation. Whereas a continuant such as a chair occupies each time at which it exists intensively, as a whole, an occurrent such as a football game occupies its time extensively: it is spread out over the time at which it occurs, with different temporal parts occurring at the different times. Both continuants and occurrents occupy space extensively, but types or universals occupy space intensively. It is instructive to ring the changes. And there may be items which are extensive occupants, spread out, but not in virtue of their parts. Order may be brought into this apparent chaos by considering various equivalences and their invariants over a basis of extensive occupants of spacetime regions.
11:45am - 1:15pm – Lunch – “Pointless Gunk?”
by Gabriel Uzquiano (University of Oxford)
How are mereological relations on material objects related to counterpart mereological relations on spatial locations? I will suggest that, under plausible background assumptions, the apparently attractive hypothesis that they are perfectly aligned places stringent constraints on the mereological structure of the domain of material objects.
2:45pm - 4:15pm – Cancelled
by Achille Varzi (Columbia University)
Directions to the sessions:
The Rutgers Philosophy Department Seminar Room
The Rutgers Philosophy Department is located in Davison Hall, at 26 Nichol Avenue in New Brunswick, NJ
Rutgers has several campuses in the area; the Philosophy department is on the Cook/Douglass Campus
There are free campus busses that can take you to the department. Among them:
The EE stops at the Hyatt, which is the official conference hotel
The F stops one block away from the Hyatt
To walk there from the Hyatt (1.1 miles):
Turn right as you exit the hotel, onto Albany Street
Turn left on Albany, and walk until you reach George Street
Turn left on George, and continue walking until you reach Nichol Avenue/Chapel Drive
Turn right on Nichol Avenue; Davison Hall will be the 2nd building on the left
(here is a map, with a slightly different route highlighted)
Murray Hall, Room 210
Murray Hall is located at 510 George Street, on the Rutgers College Avenue Campus (map)
To walk there from the Hyatt (1/2 mile), simply:
Turn right as you walk out of the hotel, reaching Albany Street
Turn left on Albany, and walk until you get to George Street
Turn right on George, and walk past Hamilton Street
Half a block past Hamilton, Murray Hall will be on your left
(here is a map with the route highlighted)