草莓污视频导航

March 2, 2021

Dr. David Liebesman explains language, reality, and the relationship between the two

Calgary Public Library presents "Philosophy Now: What is a Book" on March 16, 2021
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The Department of Philosophy at the 草莓污视频导航 has partnered with the Calgary Public Library to present a series of online public talks. On March 16, 2021 (7 鈥 8:00 p.m.), Associate Professor of Philosophy Dr. David Liebesman presents 鈥淧hilosophy Now: What is a Book?鈥 [ until March 16, 2021, and you will need a to register].

We鈥檝e asked Dr. Liebesman a few questions to help us better understand the topic of his upcoming lecture.

Can you explain the title of your lecture 鈥淲hat is a Book鈥?  

Sometimes difficult theoretical problems can be brought to light by focusing on what may seem mundane. Books seem like ordinary, everyday objects, and our conversations about them seem clear and well-understood. However, let鈥檚 take a closer look. Imagine that you have two copies of The Handmaid鈥檚 Tale on your shelf. How many books are there? In one sense, there are two鈥攁fter all, if want to figure out whether you can fit every book on the shelf or in your backpack, you count both. In another sense, there is just one鈥The Handmaid鈥檚 Tale鈥攅ven though there are two copies of it. How can we make sense of language and reality such that both answers are correct? My goal in this lecture will be to raise a number of difficult questions about this example.

Could we get a sneak peek at what you鈥檒l present in the lecture?

Let鈥檚 begin with language. It is natural to say that the word 鈥榖ook鈥 can have two different meanings: one meaning picks out physical objects, while the other picks out abstract products of creative acts. From this perspective, the word 鈥榖ook鈥 exhibits a sort of flexibility. There is a similar flexibility throughout language; and yet, this flexibility seems to clash with our abilities. Without special effort, we can understand just about any other speaker of our language鈥攈ow can this be if language is so exceptionally flexible? 

Next, consider reality. In making sense of our two ways of talking about books, we mentioned physical books (the things on our shelves) and abstract books (the products of creativity). Physical books don鈥檛 seem particularly mysterious: they have familiar properties like mass, shape, and colour. However, what are abstract books? To put it another way, when you and I have read the same book, The Handmaid鈥檚 Tale, what is the thing we have both read? It can鈥檛 be a physical book, because we may have read two different physical books. Is this abstract thing independent of its physical copies? When does it come into existence? When does it go out of existence? Can I touch it?  

How does this lecture relate to your current research?

I presented this series of puzzles by focusing on books, but, as will be made clear in the lecture, the puzzles generalize far beyond books. Addressing them forces us to grapple with some of the most fundamental facts about language, reality, and the relationship between the two. I鈥檓 currently co-authoring a book (with Ofra Magidor from Oxford University) in which we address these questions. Our book follows a series of articles we鈥檝e written on the topic. I鈥檒l conclude the lecture by briefly mentioning some of our own views.