Saturday, May 1, 2010

Volcanos and Reference to Species

I was in Tilburg (in the Netherlands) at the Sydney-Tilburg Future of Philosophy of Science Conference a couple of weeks ago when Mt. Nooneexceptperhapsicelanderscanpronounceit went off and marooned me in the beautiful city of Amsterdam for four extra days during a period of unseasonably warm spring weather in Europe. (The conference was very good, by the way.)

This, unfortunately, precipitated a good week of missed classes back home. I felt compelled to cancel my trip back to the 13th Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference (the INPC), a conference I've helped organize before. Luckily, the organizers were game to have me present remotely. Here's a video of the presentation:

My INPC2010 Presentation from Matthew Slater on Vimeo.

Ugh: tell me I say 'um' less when when I'm not talking in a room by myself. . . . Better, perhaps, to simply read the paper (draft here). I think my session went well. I was able to take questions (even though I couldn't see anyone in the session) and got some good feedback. Since I'm not exactly a philosopher of language, if anyone with more familiarity with this material has any comments — or any references to things that I really ought to read (that I may have overlooked) —, I'd be most grateful to hear them (either via email or comments here).