Rukavina Lecture Fall 2010

Dr. Randy Mayes of the University of California, Sacramento will deliver the fall Rukavina lecture on Friday, October 29th.

We will have the usual set of activities: lunch on Friday for faculty members, afternoon coffee for honors students or other students interested in graduate work or the topic of naturalism, the talk, a reception, and dinner with graduate students.

Dr. Mayes will be discussing the distinction between arguments and explanations. It is our hope that this will appeal to a wide range of students and faculty members.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the presentation and please advertise it to your students and our colleagues in other departments.

Friday, October 29th 4 p.m.

Wolff Auditorium in Jepson

Dr. Randy Mayes, UC Sacramento

Title: Not By Argument Alone

Paper Abstract:

In this paper I argue that key to overcoming the limitations imposed by the Cartesian view of knowledge and mind has been a gradual recognition that rational argument is not a stand-alone method for establishing truths. This insight is not the result of post-modern hostility to the concept of rationality itself, nor is it simply due to Hume's insight that there can be no a priori demonstration of the reliability of induction. Rather, it is due to the recognition that explanation is a distinct phase of rational inquiry, one that must occur successfully before the conclusions of arguments (deductive or inductive) can be accepted. I will show how a quite simple distinction between argument and explanation can be used to illuminate some of the classic debates in Western philosophy (skepticism, other minds, qualia inversion, primary and secondary qualities) as well as to represent the work of the modern philosophers as unequivocally progressive insofar as they laid the groundwork for productive scientific inquiry into human behavior and cognition.