WCPA Conference

60th Annual Meeting

27-29 September 2024
University of Saskatchewan 

This year the WCPA will be held in conjunction with 9^th annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Environmental Philosophy/ Société Canadienne de Philosophie Environnementale. 

The University of Saskatchewan Philosophy Department’s Annual Murray Lecture, will also be delivered on Friday, 27 September. 

Keynote Speakers 

Murray Lecture: Mohan Matthen, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto 

Friday, September 27
5:30-7:00 PM
Neatby-Timlin Theatre (ARTS 241)

Matthen, Mohan: “The Perceptual Emergence of the Self”

 The great French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Insisted that neither the self nor the external world are inferred from perception—“The world is there,” he wrote, "prior to every analysis I could give of it.” What does this mean? I’ll begin this talk with a live demonstration designed to give an intuitive grasp of the difference between perceptions in which “the world is there” and sensations in which there is no such appearance. In the former the self appears as one thing and the external world as another. My aim is to explore this perceptual distinction. To this end, I’ll show first that plants have elaborate sensory capacities, but that that these do not admit the difference between self and other. Then I will argue, echoing Kant, that animals sense the outside world in a spatial framework. This is how they represent “the world as there.” Why do they have this spatial framework? Presumably because they move and find their way around their environment. So, it seems, our sense of self originates in perceptions we share with animals—perceptions that aid movement.

 WCPA Lecture: Ishtiyaque Hussein Haji, Professor, University of Calgary 

Saturday, September 28
4:30-6:00 PM
Neatby-Timlin Theatre (ARTS 241)

Haji, Ishtiyaque: “Forgiveness, Blameworthiness, and Impermissibility”

Regarding forgiveness, there is disagreement on the following “contrast pairs.” (i) The victim (the person who forgives) forgives the offender (the person who is forgiven) for doing something only if it is morally wrong for the offender to do this thing; or even if she has done no wrong, she forgives the offender only if she takes herself to have done wrong. (ii) The victim forgives the offender for doing something only if she is blameworthy for doing this thing; or even if not blameworthy, she forgives the offender only if she takes herself to be blameworthy for doing this thing. In this paper, first, I appeal to “Frankfurt examples” to argue that the belief options—the second members—of each contrast pair are more tenable. Second, I discuss why even these belief options threaten forgiveness if determinism is true in virtue of determinism’s undermining wrongness.

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Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Corporate Rate Code: 1260324

• Alt Hotels Saskatoon
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Amigos Cantina, 806 Dufferin Street

Saturday, September 28, 8:00-11:00 pm

ART AND MUSIC THIS WEEKEND

 Nuit Blanche – link: https://www.nuitblanchesaskatoon.ca/

Break Out West – link: https://breakoutwest.ca/