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Having initially called for papers to fill two slots of contributed talks, the great number of high quality proposals we received led us to accept the following three contributed talks.
Sarah Fine (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
Sarah Fine (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
Title: The Windrush Scandal and the Right to be a First Class Citizen
Abstract: ‘The Windrush Scandal’ refers to the widespread wrongful treatment of Black Britons of Caribbean origin who fell victim to the UK government’s ‘hostile environment’ migration control policies. In 2018, the Home Office commissioned an independent review into the causes of the Windrush Scandal. The review concluded that the scandal was ‘foreseeable and avoidable’, and it described various immigration and nationality policies as clear contributing factors.
In this paper, I explore Michael Dummett’s arguments in On Immigration and Refugees (2001) and in his wider writings on racism to reflect on the history and politics behind the Windrush Scandal. As Ann Dummett highlighted, Michael Dummett’s long years of experience as an antiracism campaigner and advocate for migrants, combined with his philosophical expertise, make for a ‘unique’ contribution to the critical analysis of nationality policies and migration controls.
Dummett’s research on the relationship between racism and migration control underscores how and why a largescale injustice along the lines of the Windrush Scandal was both ‘foreseeable’ and ‘avoidable’. I also draw on Dummett’s work to identify the distinctive nature of the injustice embodied in the scandal. In particular, I reconstruct and develop his defence of ‘the right to be a first-class citizen’. This serves to illustrate what has gone wrong in successive immigration and nationality policies, and offers a route towards addressing a core feature of the injustice.
Antonio Scarafone (Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich)
Antonio Scarafone (Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich)
Title: Language and thought: the role of commitment-sharing in infant communication
Abstract: Michael Dummett claimed that language ought to enjoy explanatory priority in philosophical accounts of thought. An important contemporary challenge to this claim comes from developmental psychology, where it is often argued that prelinguistic infants, to communicate as they do, must reason about propositional attitudes (chiefly, knowledge states, intentions, and beliefs). In this talk, I argue that the mainstream approach renders a distorted picture of infant communication. I outline an alternative approach, based on the commitment sharing view of communication defended by Bart Geurts. This alternative approach, I argue, honours Dummett’s injunction while doing better justice to the reality of infancy.
Wesley Wrigley (London School of Economics)
Wesley Wrigley (London School of Economics)
Title: Indefinite Extensibility and Intensionality
Abstract: According to Dummett, a concept is indefinitely extensible just in case we can, for any definite totality of its instances, construct a more inclusive such totality. In this paper, I distinguish two distinct interpretations of indefinite extensibility. According to the extensional interpretation, a definite totality is something extensional, such as a set or a plurality. According to the intensional understanding, a definite totality is something intensional, such as a conception or characterisation of a set or plurality. I go on to argue, contrary to the prominent accounts of indefinite extensibility in the literature, that we should adopt the intensional interpretation.
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