Taller in Girona

Today I have learned that my paper has been accepted at the IX Taller d'Investigació en Filosofia, to take place at the University of Girona on 8-9 January 2007. I'm very pleased, because the previous "Talleres" have been very enjoyable, and this one looks to be even better! The TIF (as it is usually known) is a small but very fruitful graduate workshop organized in Spain every year, just after the Christmas break, in some University in Catalonia or Valencia (whose philosophy departments have people involved in either Logos or Phrónesis, two very active research groups in Spain).

This year, the talks look very interesting: a lot of philosophy of mind and language, and above all, lots of friends! It seems that the TIF is becoming more and more international, and that's great! I can't wait!

My talk will be entitled ""Do you know what it feels like for a girl?" (Defending the Phenomenal Concept Strategy)", and it is part of my long-going project of using lines from Madonna's songs as titles for my papers (or whatever). ;-)
My first attempt was, of course "We are living in a material world (and I am a material girl)". There, I argued that Madonna herself is a materialist. In this new paper, I argue that, since she seems to have doubts about the possibility of inferring phenomenal truths (such as what it feels like for a girl to do X) from a physical description of the world, she must be a type-B materialist! Which is great, because type-B materialism just needs a big icon to become more popular.

(A bit) more seriously, my paper is a reply to Stoljar's "Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts", and again, my aim is to defend the phenomenal concept strategy from his objections. Well! I am so fond of that strategy, and it is usually so misunderstood...

Maybe tomorrow I'll say a bit more about the paper (and the content).