29 March: Graeme A. Forbes (Kent) — “The Practical Rationality of Tralfamadorians”

Sala Enzo Paci, Via Festa del Perdono 7, h. 15:30-17:30.

Abstract: In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s novella Slaughterhouse Five, the alien civilisation the Tralfamadorians, perceive time as ‘we perceive a panorama of the Rocky Mountains’, so their attitude to different events in time is one of equanimity: ‘So it goes’. I will argue that, on certain views of practical rationality, the existence of the future can give rise to this sort of fatalistic equanimity, because it is irrational to intend anything.

29 March – Graeme A. Forbes (Kent) – “The Practical Rationality of Tralfamadorians”