EFAK X, the Tenth Estonian Annual Philosophy Conference, will take place in Tartu, from September 25 to September 27, 2014, organized by the Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics of the University of Tartu. This year's topic is "disagreements".
Nelson Vargas Photo
People agree and disagree about a lot of things: what happens around them, what to do, matters of taste, and more generally, world views, values, policies, theories etc. Whether they resolve those disagreements and how they do so is consequential. Disagreements can function as catalysts of progress as when lawyers battle out interpretations of a crime in the courtroom, or scientists hash out viable interpretations of experimental data. We can learn more about what we should believe through the disagreements we have with others. But disagreements can also be misconceived. A disagreement might be irresolvable in principle even though it's genuine-as some believe to be so with religious and moral disputes. A disagreement might turn out to be a merely verbal dispute and so not genuine and not worth having. And even when a disagreement is resolved, that can be done fairly or unfairly (e.g. the jury is biased). The nature of disagreement, the implications of disagreement for the possibility of objectivity and the ways in which we should rationally react to the existence of disagreement are currently central and hotly-debated topics in semantics, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and these will also be central topics of EFAK X.
Confirmed keynote speakers: prof. Esa Diaz Leon (University of Manitoba / University of Barcelona); prof. Christopher Gauker (University of Cincinnati),