Dartmouth Events

45th Annual Francis W. Gramlich Memorial Lecture

Jenann Ismael (Columbia University). "Time, Totality, and Transcendence" Free & open to all. Reception follows

Wednesday, April 24, 2019
4:00pm – 6:00pm
Haldeman 41 (Kreindler Conference Hall)
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars
ABSTRACT:
Time, totality, and transcendence (Or why the problem of determinism is really fatalism, warmed over)

There are two problems commonly associated with the idea of human freedom.  One is the problem of determinism.  The other is the problem of fatalism. The common wisdom is that these are two different problems. One has to do with physical laws, the other with time. One can be a fatalist without being a determinist, and one can worry about determinism without being moved by the fatalist arguments. I will discuss a connection between these two problems that comes into focus in the setting of classical physics. The connection has to do with a link between determinism and totality, on the one hand, and totality and a transcendent view of time, on the other.  I will explore this connection and say what I think it suggests about the right way to understand this whole cluster of issues.

Jenann Ismael is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton, and her areas of specialization are philosophy of physics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of mind. She is the author of numerous articles as well as How Physics Sets Us Free (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Situated Self (Oxford University Press, 2009), and Essays on Symmetry (Garland Press, 2001).

The Francis W. Gramlich Memorial Lecture is funded by the Department of Philosophy's Francis W. Gramlich Fund.

For more information, contact:
Marcia Welsh
(603) 646-3738

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.