Propositions, Predicates and Maps

Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers), Directrice d’Etudes Invitée de l’EHESS, donnera trois conférences dans le cadre du séminaire de Roberto Casati Mental Maps, Paper Maps, e-Maps, et interviendra au Colloquium de l’Institut Nicod.

13 juin 2019, 13h-17h : EHESS salle 2, 105 bd Raspail

Representations, Vehicles and Structures 

Why do we care about the structure of representations? How do we identify what structure a representational system employs? How do distinct structures affect the implementation, expressive range, and use of different representational systems?Propositions, Predicates and MapsWhat does it mean to claim that maps have either propositional or predicative structure? Why should we think they do have such structure? Why think they don’t?

20 juin 2019, 13h-15h : EHESS salle 2, 105 bd Raspail

Continuous Cartographic Compositionality

How can we extend standard notions of compositionality, articulated in the service of a theory oflinguistic meaning, to maps, including especially maps that employ marks with potentially continuous syntactic and semantic variability? What form would a distinctively cartographic semantics take?

28 juin 2019, 11h30: Jean Nicod Colloquium, Salle Ribot, 29 rue d’Ulm

Agency in Understanding: Perspectives, Complicity, and Complacency

In politics, art, science, and ordinary life, we often employ "framing devices", such as metaphors and just-so stories, to express and coordinate perspectives.But can such frames help us achieve genuine understanding? If they merely manipulate associative patternsof thought, then the Gestalt click of "getting" a frame offers a dangerous illusion of epistemic value. I argue that framing devices can support a robust and epistemically distinctive access to the world; identify some norms for assessing their epistemic aptness; and explore ways to achieve the sort of critical engagement needed to combat their attendant risk of epistemic complacency.