William G. Lycan (NHC Fellow, 1998–99)

Fellowship Work Summary, 1998–99

William G. Lycan finished writing his book, The Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction, a textbook in the Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy Series at Routledge (in press), and produced a complete draft of Real Conditionals to be submitted to Oxford University Press. He completed a chapter on "The Slighting of Smell (with a brief note on the slighting of chemistry," forthcoming in a volume on the philosophy of chemistry, edited by Nalini Bhushan and Stuart Rosenfeld (Oxford University Press), and wrote two journal articles,"The Case for Phenomenal Externalism," and "Moore against the New Skeptics." He presented a lecture entitled "The Case for Phenomenal Externalism," at a conference on "Perspectives on Consciousness" at the University of Arkansas; to the philosophy colloquium of Duke University; and to the North Carolina Philosophical Society in Winston-Salem. He presented a paper on "Moore against the New Skeptics," at the Thirty-Fourth Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy ("Skepticism and Contemporary Theory of Knowledge"), and as a public lecture delivered at the University of Miami and at Brooklyn College. He gave a presentation on "The Representational Theory of Qualia," to the philosophy colloquium of the University of Miami. At the Sixth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science at San Sebastian, Spain he presented a paper on "Cognitive Theories of Consciousness," conducted a workshop on "The Representational Theory of Qualia," and commented on Bill Brewer's "Externalism and Self-Knowledge," in a symposium. He served as co-editor of Noûs, and as chair of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Program Committee.