Department of History and Philosophy of Science will hold the 42nd Tokyo Colloquium of Cognitive Philosophy. Everyone is welcome.

Date & Time: July 4th (Thu), 2013, 18:00-20:00
Venue: the 14th Building, Room 710 on the 7th floor, Komaba Campus

Presenter: Rie Iizuka (University of Tokyo)
Title: In Defence of Character

Abstract:

Character traits have played an important role in our understanding of others and us. In practice, we attribute various characters to others, even praise or blame them accordingly. Since 1960’s, the nature of character traits has been the subject of discussion in psychology, but it was only recently that researchers called situationists raised an objection to virtue theories in philosophy, which are also dependent on character. They are skeptical about character traits and apparently indicate that people do not possess consistent character across situations on account of recent moral psychological findings. However, in precisely what sense is character devastated? Recently, the adherents of virtue reply to situationism on various grounds. Are they properly supported? In this presentation, I would like to argue against situationism and try to defend viability of character.