Conference on Raz on Reason and Value

The Institute of Philosophy in London are hosting an interesting-looking conference on Raz on Reason and Value on May 12th. The speakers include Niko Kolodny (Berkeley), David Owens (Sheffield), Mark Kalderon (UCL), John Gardner (Oxford), and the great man himself. For more details, click here.

Survey Article on Epistemic Value

I'm currently in the process of writing a survey of recent work on epistemic value, and now have a rather rough-and-ready draft to hand. I've posted this on the 'drafts' side-bar below, and you can also download it here. All comments gratefully received!

Hawley on Scepticism and Epistemic Value

Patrick Hawley (Hong Kong) has an interesting-looking paper posted on scepticism and epistemic value here. This is a topic that has received very little scrutiny in the recent literature, something that I find odd (and hope to do something about rectifying myself soon).

Smith on Lewis on Value

This is an old post from last year (by Dan Quattrone on his Doing Things With Words blog) that I stumped across which deals with Michael Smith's treatment of Lewis on Value. I thought it would be worth posting here anyway, however, especially given some of the posts on Lewis on value that have appeared in the blog-o-sphere recently.
Here's the link.

Kvanvig on the Value of Truth

There's a great discussion brewing over on Certain Doubts, prompted by a post on the value of truth by Jon Kvanvig. Here's the link.

Conference on Scepticism in Manchester

I don't know why I haven't thought to post details of this before, but there's a conference on scepticism taking place at the University of Manchester on the 27th May. The speakers are Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins) talking about Austin, Chris Hookway (Sheffield) talking about Quine, Peter Baumann (Aberdeen) talking about Moore, and myself talking about Wittgenstein. Chairing the sessions will be Marie McGinn (York), Michael Beaney (York), Thomas Uebel (Manchester), and Sven Bernecker (Manchester). For more details about the conference, click here.

First Blog Milestone

It's now nearly six months since this blog got started, and in that time it has grown beyond my expectations. We're now getting nearly 500 hits a week, from over 30 countries worldwide. Since we've now reached this milestone, it strikes me that this is a good time to get some feedback on ways that the blog can be improved. Any thoughts/suggestions, then either post them as a comment or, if you prefer, e-mail me directly here.

Carter on Open-Mindedness as a Virtue

Adam Carter, a grad student at Missouri, has posted some thoughts on open-mindedness as a virtue on the Show Me The Argument weblog. You can catch the post and the ensuing discussion here.

Weatherson on Lewis on Value

Brian Weatherson has posted some thoughts on Lewis's treatment of value on his Thoughts, Arguments and Rants weblog. You can catch the discussion here.

Millar on Disjunctivism and Scepticism

I've just posted a new paper by Alan Millar (Stirling) on Disjunctivism and Scepticism. This is forthcoming in the new Oxford Handbook to Scepticism that Greco is editing (which has a great line-up by the way). You can download this from the 'drafts' side-bar below, or by clicking here.

Grimm and Depaul on Kvanvig

Stephen Grimm (formerly at Notre Dame, but now in Montana), has sent me a long review he's jointly written with Michael Depaul (Notre Dame) on Kvanvig's book. I've posted it on the side-bar, but you can also download it here.

Contributing to this Weblog

Now that this weblog has been going for a while, I thought I'd make an announcement about how one should go about contributing to this weblog, for those not familiar with this sort of thing.

Commentating on a post is easy, and is open to all (though, naturally, any inappropriate comments will be deleted). If you've never posted a comment on a blogger blog before, then I think you need to register, but this isn't at all onerous.

If you want to be listed as a contributor to this weblog, and aren't already (see the side-bar), then just let me know (and why, briefly, you think you should be listed). We want to involve people in this project, so we're taking a very permissive line in this regard (so permissive that I think I'll need to find another way of listing the contributors fairly soon!).

Finally, if you want to post something yourself then you can either (i) send it to me and I'll post it for you, or (ii) ask for the access permissions so that you can post it entirely yourself. I've no problem with allowing contributors (see above) this access, though naturally I've not been giving it out unrequested.

I hope all that makes sense. If you've any questions, then just drop me a line.

Brown on Value Holism

Campbell Brown (Bowling Green) has posted an interesting paper on value holism (especially Moore and Dancy) on PhOnline. This should be of interest to any epistemologist working on the value problem, a debate in which, oddly, value atomism seems to be taken for granted. You can download the paper here.

Update: Lynch on Expressivism and the Value of Truth

Michael Lynch posted a very interesting paper on Expressivism and the Value of Truth a few days ago, which is prompting some interesting discussion on Certain Doubts. To see the discussion, click here. To see the original post on this blog, click here.

Conference on Wittgenstein and Reason

This is somewhat late notice, but readers of this blog might be interested in this one-day conference on Wittgenstein and Reason that Reading is hosting on April 20th, with talks from Crispin Wright, Jane Heal, Hans-Johann Glock, and Joachim Schulte. Here's the webpage.

Royal Institute of Philosophy Epistemology Lectures

The Royal Institute of Philosophy lecture programme this coming academic year is on epistemology. The final programme isn't posted yet (when it is, it'll appear here), but I have a copy of the *provisional* programme that readers of this blog would no doubt be interested in, since it's a great line-up (if I do say so myself):

Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Lecture Series 2006-2007

13th October 2006--Bill Brewer--Perception and Knowledge
20th October 2006--Duncan Pritchard--Knowledge and Value
27th October 2006--Richard Samuels--Rationality and Psychology
10th November 2006--Alvin Goldman--Social Epistemology 
17th November 2006--M G F Martin--Perceptual Knowledge
24th November 2006--Scott Sturgeon--Epistemic Factualism
19th January 2007--Timothy Williamson--TBA
26th January 2007--Miranda Fricker--Moral Perception
2nd February 2007--Jose Zalabardo--Scepticism
9th February 2007--TBA
16th February 2007--John Hawthorne--TBA
23rd February 2007--Quassim Cassam--What is Knowledge?
2nd March 2007--Elizabeth Fricker--TBA

Sellars Conference in London

The School of Advanced Study in London is hosting a conference on Sellars that might interest readers of this blog. Click here for more details. Speakers include Robert Brandom, John McDowell, Michael Williams, Paul Snowdon and Jay Rosenberg.

More Epistemology Conferences

Here are two conferences that might be of relevance to readers of this blog.

The first, to be held in Aberdeen this summer, is on Moral Contextualism. Click here for more details.

The second is on Keith Lehrer's epistemology, and is due to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Click here for more details.

Central APA

Jon Kvanvig has posted a summary of epistemology-related talks at the Central APA on Certain Doubts. Click here. Assuming that he's caught all the epistemology-related events, here are the non-epistemology-related events that I've spotted which might be of interest to readers of this blog:

GROUP AND COMMITTEE SESSIONS, THURSDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING
Session GIII: 7:30-10:30 p.m.
GIII-9: American Society for Value Inquiry
Chair: G. John M. Abbarno (D’Youville College)
Speaker 1: David Schrader (Washington and Jefferson College)
“Naturalizing Value Theory”

FRIDAY, APRIL 28
II-D. Author Meets Critics: Jonathan Dancy, Ethics without
Principles
9:00 a.m.-Noon
Chair: Russ Shafer-Landau (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Critics: Margaret Little (Georgetown University)
Michael Ridge (University of Edinburgh)
Sean D. McKeever (Davidson College)
Author: Jonathan Dancy (University of Reading/University of Texas–Austin)

III-K. Colloquium: Virtue
1:45-2:45 p.m.
Chair: Heidi Malm (Loyola University Chicago)
Speaker: Judith Andre (Michigan State University)
“Facets of Honesty”
Commentator: Jon Garthoff (Northwestern University)
2:45-3:45 p.m.
Chair: Thomas L. Carson (Loyola University Chicago)
Speaker: Matthew A. Tedesco (Beloit College)
“Indirect Consequentialism, Suboptimality, and Friendship”
Commentator: Eric Wiland (University of Missouri–St. Louis)

SATURDAY, APRIL 29
IV-E. Author Meets Critics: Nomy Arpaly, Unprincipled Virtue
9:00 a.m.-Noon
Chair: Douglas Lavin (Harvard University)
Critics: Robert B. Pippin (University of Chicago)
Author: Nomy Arpaly (Brown University)

V-G. Colloquium: Aristotle
3:30-4:30 p.m.
Chair: Gabriel Richardson Lear (University of Chicago)
Speaker: Kevin Sharpe (Purdue University)
“A Neglected Premise in Aristotle’s Argument for the Unity of the Virtues”
Commentator: Miriam N. Byrd (University of Texas–Arlington)