Charles Pigden talk

The Department of Philosophy is excited to welcome Charles Pigden all the way from the University of Otago (New Zealand) on Tuesday 31 October, who will be giving a talk on NOFI and Non-Cognitivism: the History of a Mistake. This special seminar will be hosted in Lenton Grove A19 and will run from 4-6pm. 

Abstract:

This is a pendant to some of my earlier papers in which I argue that you cannot derive non-cognitivism from Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is either by a deductive argument or via an inference to the best explanation. In ‘NOFI and Non-Cognitivism’ I develop an historical explanation of why so many mid-Century philosophers seem to have thought otherwise, wrongly supposing that non-cognitivism and NOFI were so intimately connected as to stand or fall together. As an adopted New Zealander I am mortified to confess that two New Zealand-based philosophers bear a large part of the blame. The supporting cast includes Reid, Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick, Russell, Wittgenstein and Carnap. Kant has a cameo.