Truth and Stereotypes

Our thoughts and our conversations are filled with generalisations. From everyday trivialities such as birds fly or trams are crowded to contested claims such as women are oppressed or Muslims are peace-loving, we think and communicate using generalisations and stereotypes. This way of understanding the world is useful and pervasive, but at the same time, it has significant limitations.

In this lecture, Professor Restall will explain some of the surprising features of these generalisations. Then he will apply some of the tools developed by philosophers of language over the last decades, in order to understand why generalisations and stereotypes are so pervasive; why they can behave so strangely and can sometimes lead us astray; and finally, to learn how we can use generalisations and stereotypes productively in our thinking and our communication.

Presenter

Professor Greg Restall, Professor of Philosophy

Greg Restall is Professor of Philosophy at The University of Melbourne. He received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 1994, and has held positions at the Australian National University and Macquarie University, before moving to Melbourne in 2002. His research focuses on philosophy of logic, formal logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of language, and even some philosophy of religion. He has published over 80 papers in journals and collections, and is the author of three books, An Introduction to Substructural Logics (Routledge, 2000), Logic (Routledge, 2006), and Logical Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2006; with Jc Beall). His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, and he is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.