Tuesday, June 26
11:15-12: 45
I. Folk-psychology as an amazing Intellectual Accomplishment
How our lives depend on our "theory" of mind
Basic categories: Feelings, cognitions, ideas
The "Propositional Attitudes"
Properties of the PAs
Causal
Phenomenological
How we report and describe them
15:15-16:45
II. Three theories of the attitudes
Frege's Picture of the attitudes: agents, times, relations, propositions (The Simple Content Picture).
Fodor's Picture of the attitudes: agents, times, and mental representations. (The Simple Representational Picture)
Representations and contents
The Complex Picture (Cognitions with Contents)
Wednesday, June 27
11:15-12: 45
III. Self-Locating Belief
Names, Descriptions and Roles
Role based-"modes of presentation".
Roles and Frege's picture
Roles and Fodor's picture
Roles and the Complex Picture
15:15-16:45
IV. Beliefs about the Self
Primitive self-belief
Beliefs about the Self
Self-notions
Self-notions, buffers, detached notions
Lewis's concept of "self-attribution of properties" confuses primitive self-belief and having beliefs about oneself.
Thursday, June 28
11:15-12: 45
V. The general theory of Content (Reflexive/Referential Theory)
Indexical content
Referential Content
Network Content and empty names
15:15-16:45
VI. Reporting Attitudes
Traditional Problems
The Crimmins-Perry Theory
The Thread Theory
The Lecturer
From the preface of Identity, Language, and Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of John Perry:
[John Perry's] approach is marked by three features: precision, clarity, and candor. The more than one hundred articles and books authored by Perry prove that these goals can be achieved with elegance and style. It is no wonder that John Perry inspired generations of students during his impressive career.
Having finished his PhD at Cornell University in 1968, he was appointed Assistant Professor at UCLA. At Stanford University, he became Associate Professor in 1974 and Full Professor in 1977. He also spent several months in 1971/72 as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Perry has received many academic awards and also spent the academic years 1991/92 and 1999/2000 in Europe, first as a Visiting Fellow at the Centre de Recherche en Epistémologie Appliquée in Paris, where he delivered the Jean Nicod Lectures (Nicod Prize 1999), and then as a Humboldt Awardee (1999/2000) at the University of Bonn. Perry essentially initiated and formed the famous Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) at Stanford University, and he is still one of the main figures in modern philosophy of mind and language.
John Perry is one of the most distinguished analytic philosophers of language, with important contributions to the study of communication and the semantics/pragmatics divide. In addition to his important contributions to the academic debate, Perry is (with Stanford professor Ken Taylor) also the co-host of PHILOSO?HY TALK, a radio programme in philosophy.
We are extremely glad that John Perry has accepted our inivitation to present the GOTTLOB FREGE LECTURES IN THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY this year. Everyone interested is invited to participate.
The Gottlob Frege Lectures in Theoretical Philosophy
Background
The Gottlob Frege Lectures in Theoretical Philosophy are named in honour of the German mathematician and philosopher Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege. We have chosen Frege as the patron for our lecture series as he is widely recognised for his clarity and unpretentious, no-nonsense style of dealing with philosophical problems. So are the lecturers we are honoured to host in Tartu.