Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Mind Research Interest Group Talk (Annina Loets, Wisconsin-Madison)

The Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Mind Research Group welcomes as guest speaker Annina Loets, an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Loets’s research interests lie in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language. Currently she is working on a larger research project on agentive possibilities such as abilities, opportunities, and options. More generally, she is interested in the metaphysics of ordinary objects, persons, and the social world, as well as the kinds of questions about identity, modality, reference, and vagueness to which such things give rise.

Talk Title

Fission as Division

Talk Abstract

Could a person divide? And if so, what would happen to them in the process? While so-called “fission cases” in the literature on personal identity are often introduced as cases in which a person divides, the idea that fission would leave one literally divided is usually dismissed outright. The aim of this talk is to argue that this dismissive stance is premature. Properly developed, what I call the “Division View” of fission offers a serious alternative to extant accounts in the literature and sheds new light on questions about what matters in survival.

About the Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Mind Research Group

One of six departmental research interest groups, the Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Mind Group undertakes research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, traditional and formal epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language.