Philosophy Meets Cultural Diversity, 13-14 March 2015 at University of Pittsburgh

This conference should be of interest to anyone working on issues in comparative thought and philosophy. A terrific lineup of speakers and panelists (if I do say so myself). -HS

Over the last decade, the newly emerging field of “experimental philosophy” has posed a challenge to the claim that professional philosophers’ judgments about philosophically important thought experiments are universal. Rather, in a growing number of studies, it has been shown that people in different cultural groups – Asians and Westerners, males and females, people of high and low socio-economic status, people with different personality types, people of different ages, people with different native languages, etc. – have different intuitions about cases designed to explore what people think about knowledge, morality, free will, consciousness and other important philosophical issues. However, the extent and sources of this variation remain by and large unknown. The goal of this conference is to bring together anthropologists, psychologists, comparative philosophers, and experimental philosophers in order to further our understanding of the similarities and differences in the lay understanding of, on the one hand, knowledge, and, on the other, agency and person across cultures. Furthermore, we hope to sketch new avenues of research for philosophically sophisticated cross-cultural studies of the concepts of knowledge, person, and agency.

Invited Speakers

Miri Albahari (on-line), University of Western Australia, Philosophy
Michael Chandler, University of British Columbia, Psychology
Eve Danziger, University of Virginia, Anthropology
Martin Fortier, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociale
Stephen Phillips, University of Texas at Austin, Philosophy
Igor Grossmann (on-line), Waterloo, Psychology
Shinobu Kitayama, Michigan, Psychology
Hagop Sarkissian, Baruch College, CUNY, Philosophy:
Winnie Sung, Nanyang Technological University, Philosophy

Invited Panelists

Clark Barrett (on-line), UCLA, Anthropology
Amita Chatterjee, Jadavpur University, Philosophy
Jonardon Ganeri (on-line), NYU, King’s College London, Philosophy
Will Gervais, University of Kentucky, Psychology
Kaori Karasawa, University of Tokyo, Psychology
Hackjin Kim, Korea University, Neuroscience
Ron Mallon, Washington University, Philosophy
Richard Nisbett, Michigan, Psychology
David Rose, Rutgers, Philosophy
Eric Schwitzgebel (on-line), Riverside, Philosophy
Anand Vaidya, San Jose State University, Philosophy

13-14 March 2015
Center for Philosophy of Science
817 Cathedral of Learning
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA USA

Advance registration is appreciated, but not required.
To register, email Joseph McCaffrey (jbm48@pitt.edu)

FULL PROGRAM DETAILS HERE

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