"The specter haunting modern philosophy is not the ghost in a machine: it is solipsism". (Richard A.Watson)
This minimalistic philosophical view - according to some scholar manifestly false - has never been definitively overthrown. The task of our conference on Solipsism is to take a careful look at this view and to criticize it, or possibly reject it. We intend to approach this issue seriously and professionally.
Our goal is to try to answer the question whether philosophy is now able to solve the problem of solipsism at all, or whether we have to wait for better times, which we will owe to cognitive science in its broadest sense.
The conference will be held on May 10, 2019 in Kraków, Poland.
All talks will be given in English unless otherwise stated.
What is solipsism?
9.00 – 9.45
Subject-dependency of perceptual objects
9.45 – 10.30
An argument against solipsism. With Appendix: An easy introduction to nonstandard analysis
(in Polish and English)
10.30 – 11.15
11.15 – 11.45
Solipsism and philosophy of mathematics: a comparison among intuitionists
11.45 – 12.30
A logical solipsism
12.30 – 13.15
13.15 – 14.30
Was Brouwer a Solipsist?
(in Polish)
14.30 – 15.15
Ethical solipsism
15.15 – 16.00
This conference is organized by Department of Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics and Rhetoric, Faculty of Philosophy, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków and Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Jagiellonian University.
The conference will be held in the aula of Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków at Bernardyńska St. 3, Kraków, Poland.
Frank, a philosophy graduate student, was a solipsist. One spring break, all the other graduate students got together a collection, and funded an expensive vacation trip for him. One of the faculty was puzzled by this apparent display of altruism, and asked one of them why they funded a vacation for Frank. The response was: "If Frank goes, everybody goes."
A woman wrote to Russell: "I think solipsism is such an attractive position. I wonder why more people don't believe it."
