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From the 15th to the 20th of June 2020, Philip Pettit will give the Rotelli Lectures.

08 June 2020
The University

Philip Pettit will give a series of six talks on the theme “How Language Powers the Mind”.

From the 15th to the 20th of June 2020, Philip Pettit will give the Rotelli Lectures at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. The theme for this year’s Lectures will be “How Language Powers the Mind”.

Philip Pettit is L.S.Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values at Princeton University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University.

He has worked in a range of areas, including ethical and political theory; the theory of collective and corporate agency; and the philosophy of mind. He has published a number of books in those areas, including over the last decade: The Common Mind (OUP 1996), Republicanism (OUP 1997), A Theory of Freedom (OUP 2001), Rules, Reasons and Norms (OUP 2002), Penser en Societe (PUF, Paris 2004), Examen a Zapatero (Temas de Hoy, Madrid 2008), Made with Words: Hobbes on Mind, Society and Politics (PUP 2008); On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (CUP 2012);  Just Freedom: A Moral Compass for a Complex World (W.W.Norton 2014) e The Robust Demands of the Good: Ethics with Attachment, Virtue and Respect (OUP 2015).

He gave the Tanner Lectures in Human Values in Berkeley in 2015 (published in 2018 as The Birth of Ethics: A Reconstruction of the Nature and Role of Morality with Oxford University Press) and the John Locke Lectures in Philosophy in Oxford 2019.

For the Rotelli Lectures, Philip Pettit will give a series of six talks on the theme “How Language Powers the Mind”. The theme of the lectures is the constitutive dependence of characteristic mental capacities on the ability to communicate in words or similar signs, and the social life it makes possible. Philip Pettit will explain that language is more or less bound to generate certain distinctive mental capacities, which are not themselves presupposed to having language. Over the six planned lectures, Philip Pettit will argue that minds with words will more or less inevitably 1) decide about how to judge and what to think; 2) control their thinking by rule-based reasoning; 3) enjoy a special perceptual consciousness; 4) make commitments and form community; 5) assume responsibility for what they do; and 6. constitute persons and selves.

Lectures calendar:

  • 15 June 2020, 9.00 am – 11.30 am
    Lecture 1. Minds with words decide how to judge and what to think
    Discussant: Alfredo Tomasetta (Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS – Pavia)   
  • 16 June 2020, 9.00 am – 11.30 am
    Lecture 2. Minds with words control their thought by rule-based reasoning     
    Discussant: Raffaele Ariano (UniSR)
  • 17 June 2020, 9.00 am – 11.30 am
    Lecture 3. Minds with words enjoy a special perceptual consciousness        
    Discussant: Elisabetta Sacchi (UniSR)
  • 18 June 2020, 9.00 am – 11.30 am                                               Lecture 4. Minds with words form commitments and community
    Discussant: Francesca De Vecchi (UniSR)
  • 19 June 2020, 9.00 am – 11.30 am
    Lecture 5. Minds with words assume responsibility for what they do     
    Discussant: Bianca Cepollaro (UniSR)
  • 20 June 2020, 9.00 am – 11.30 am                                               Lecture 6. Minds with words constitute persons and selves
    Discussant: Francesca Forlè (UniSR)

The event will be host on Microsoft Teams and will be open to everyone. For all those who are not San Raffaele University’s students or academic staff, registration is required. In order to register, please send an email to favara.greta@unisr.it. Prior to the event, instructions for accessing the event will be sent via email to all those who have registered.

 

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