The Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal and the Philosophy Department of McGill University are pleased to present “On Sorting out Simples from Gunk”, conference by the Italian philosopher Achille C. Varzi.
Saturday, April 7, 3pm Free Admission
Leacock Building, Hall 927
855, Sherbrooke West
Conference in English
One good thing about mereology is that it is in principle neutral with respect to the question of atomism: it admits of models in which everything is ultimately composed of simples as well as models in which everything is made up of atomless gunk that divides forever into smaller and smaller parts. Standard wisdom, therefore, says that if we have views on such matters, we must rule out the undesired models by means of special axioms over and above the ones that are meant to fix the formal properties of mereological composition. In this talk, Varzi will take a closer look at this idea, arguing that it is less straightforward (and more problematic) than we usually take it to be.
Achille C. Varzi is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York (USA), where he has taught since 1995. A graduate of the University of Trento (Italy), he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto (Canada). His main research interests are in logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of literature. Among his numerous books are Comedia Metaphysica (with C. Calosi, 2014), Il mondo messo a fuoco (2010), Insurmountable Simplicities (2006), Ontologia (2005), An Essay in Universal Semantics (1999), Parts and Places (with R. Casati, 1999), and Holes and Other Superficialities (with R. Casati, 1994). He also writes for the general public and contributes regularly to some Italian newspapers, and is currently teaching for the Prison Education Program sponsored by Columbia University’s Justice-in-Education Initiative.
Reservation no longer available