Selected works by recent participants

Katherine Thomson-Jones, "Aesthetics and Film" (2008)

George Wilson, Seeing Fictions in Film: The Epistemology of Movies (2012)

Mark Alfano, "Extending the Situationist Challenge to Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology" (forthcoming)

Abrol Fairweather, "Duhem-Quine Virtue Epistemology" (forthcoming)

Avram Hiller, "Duhem-Quine Virtue Epistemology" (forthcoming)

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, "It's Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations" (2005)

Katherine Thomson-Jones and George Wilson

Katherine Thomson-Jones (left) and George Wilson (right) on cinematic narration.

Some films feature voice-over narration, but most fictional films appear to lack a narrator. And it seems that a narrative requires a narrator. Yet film, like literature, is widely regarded as a narrative art—a story-telling art. So who (if anyone) tells the story conveyed by a film? Relatedly: Perhaps when we engage a fictional film, we imagine that we see the people, places, and events that make up the film’s fictional world. Yet we do not seem to imagine ourselves to be present in the film’s fictional world. (If it’s raining on screen, we do not reach for our umbrellas.) How can we imagine that we see events without imagining that we are present in the same world in which those events occur? In this conversation, Thomson-Jones and Wilson discuss these and other puzzles as they explore the nature and role of narrativity in film.

Continue reading Katherine Thomson-Jones and George Wilson

Michael Boylan and Charles Johnson

Michael Boylan (left) and Charles Johnson (right) on philosophy and literature.

Although philosophy has been presented in narrative form since Plato, today it is often regarded as being closer to science than literature. Should philosophers do more to cultivate their literary heritage? In this conversation, Boylan and Johnson examine the tradition of narrative philosophy and consider ways in which storytelling can enrich philosophical discourse.

Continue reading Michael Boylan and Charles Johnson

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