GOTTLOB FREGE LECTURES IN THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY 2022

DANIEL D. HUTTO (Wollongong): WHY I AM NOT AN ENACTIVIST?

The Lecturer:

Daniel D. Hutto is the Senior Professor of Philosophical Psychology and the Head of School of Liberal Arts at the University of Wollongong. His research area is mainly philosophy of mind and psychology. In his recent work, he has developed a distinctive version of naturalism, called “relaxed naturalism”, and has endorsed the enactive and embodied approach to cognition.

He is the author of The Presence of Mind (John Benjamins, 1999), Beyond Physicalism (John Benjamins, 2000), Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), Folk Psychological Narratives (MIT, 2008), and with Erik Myin, Radicalizing Enactivism, (MIT Press, 2013) and Evolving Enactivism (MIT Press, 2017).

The Lectures:

Enactivism has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in today’s philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Asking us to rethink cognition, at root, enactivists also promote ways of conceiving of nature and our place in it that, if accepted, would have seismic implications beyond the philosophy of mind. Many proponents of enactivism are keen to say how we might, by adopting their frameworks, re-shape our thinking about metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and even ethics and politics. The overarching theme of this lecture series is to scrutinize and challenge these proposals. These Frege lectures, organised under the theme ‘Why I Am Not An Enactivist’, critically examine the signature, core commitments of various contemporary versions of enactivism – on topics such as sense-making, vital norms, objectivity, naturalism, concepts, truth, ethics and politics. The analyses provided seek to show why such commitments are problematic and why they ought to be resisted and rethought. In the end, what we are left with, after these philosophical labours will either be a modest but stronger version of enactivism or, depending how one carves things up, something that does not properly warrant the label enactivism at all.

Times and Venues:

September 13 – Jakobi 2-114

10.15-11.45: Reaffirming Presence, Experience, and the World.

14.15-15.45: The Matter with Mattering.

September 14 – Jakobi 2-336

10.15-11.45: A Positively Relaxed Naturalism

September 15 – Jakobi 2-114

10.15-11.45: Concepts in Our Midst: Artefacts, Institutions and Folk Philosophies.

14.15-15.45: The Truth of (Radical) Enactivism.

September 16 – Jakobi 2-226

16.15-17.45: Public Lecture: Truth, Justice, and the Enactive Way.

The event is related to the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies (European Union, European Regional Development Fund)

Until 16 Sep