We desire lots of things. But what are desires? Despite receiving standard mention in many different contemporary debates, the question of the nature of desire is rarely asked. The aim of this conference is to redress this imbalance.
In the recent literature, several accounts of desires have been defended. For some, values are essential to understand desires. For others, the relation desires bear to motivation and action is essential. Others construe desires as essentially related to norms. Finally, for some, the key to understanding desires lies, respectively, in rewards or in needs.
This conference will discuss these different views by addressing questions of the following sort. Are desires essentially experiences as of the good? Are they essentially dispositions to act? Do they involve a specific mode under which content is represented? What is the relation between the nature of desire and their peculiar direction of fit? How are we to make sense of the normativity of desires? Are there Moore’s Paradoxes for desires and what do they reveal about desires?
Venue & directions
The conference will take place at UniMail (Boulevard du Pont-d’Arve 40, 1205 Genève), room MS050, in the basement (map).
To get there from the airport, the simplest and quickest way is to take a train to Geneva main station (7 minutes from the airport to the main station). Just before going out of the arrival - luggage hall and moving towards exit, there is a machine which distributes free tickets to passengers arriving, for a one hour ride all over Geneva in all public transports. (Anyway, a single ticket for one hour costs CHF 3.50.) Follow the sign "Geneve - Centre" at the airport train station and take any train, they all stop at the main train station (first stop). Then take the tram as indicated below.
To get there from the train station, take tram 15 at the tram station, in front of the railway station, direction ‘Palettes’ and get off at ‘UniMail’. (5 stops, 10 minutes, ticket 3.50 CHF to be bought at the tram stop.)
To move around in Geneva, the simplest way by far is to use public transportation. The hotel has to provide you with a free day pass for all public transportation, do not forget to ask for it. The public transport company (TPG) has a useful route planner.
Please contact the organisers, Federico.Lauria@unige.ch or Julien.Deonna@unige.ch for any question.
This conference is organized by the research group Thumos, the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, and sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
