The 49th International Meeting of Hongo Metaphysics Club

We The Philosophy Department of The University of Tokyo will hold the 49th International Meeting of Hongo Metaphysics Club by inviting Professor Nick Zangwill and Professor Roman Frigg. Everyone is welcome.

Programme (PDF)

• Shintaro Matsuura (The University of Tokyo)

  ‘Convention-Shifting in Conditionals and Mixed Quotation’

  Handout (PDF)

• Shun Iizuka (The University of Tokyo)

  ‘Implications for the Reductionism/Anti-Reductionism Debate on Testimonial Justification from Psychological Studies of Selective Trust’

  Handout (PDF) [updated: 14/2/2023]

• Prof Nick Zangwill (University College London and Lincoln University)

  ‘The Evolution of Miscommunication’

  Handout (PDF)

  ▼Abstract
  I argue that miscommunication is common in some areas of language. I begin from game-theoretical account of public language, according to which there are positive and negative payoffs for agreeing and failing to agree on the meanings (references to objects or properties) of linguistic symbols, and then I consider the extension of this account to the language for other minds. I argue that the mathematical structure demanded there is significantly different. Miscommunication may be and often is often an evolutionarily stable strategy. I then adduce empirical evidence in favor of the actuality of systematic miscommunication about matters of mind. I conclude that the model needed for the language of other minds is different from that which is appropriate for the language for non-minded objects and properties that surround us.

• Prof Roman Frigg (London School of Economics)

  ‘How Material Models Represent’

  Handout (PDF)