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Charles Sheeler - Skyscrapers (1922)
Charles Sheeler - Skyscrapers (1922)
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Tobias Hansson Wahlberg: A Deflationary Truthmakers Account of Social Objects: The Cases of Corporations and Laws

Culture and languages

On Wednesday, April 15, 10.15, the seminar in Theoretical Philosophy features a presentation by Tobias Hansson Wahlberg (Lund University).

Seminar
Date
15 Apr 2026
Time
10:15 - 12:00
Location
Room J577, Renströmsgatan 6, Humanisten

Organizer
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science

Abstract:
In this talk, I’ll present sections from a draft chapter of a book manuscript on social ontology that I’m currently working on. The book aims to provide deflationary truthmakers accounts (drawing on work in general analytic metaphysics by people like David Armstrong, Hugh Mellor, John Heil and Ross Cameron) of various social phenomena, including institutional and non-institutional social properties, different types of social objects, and social causation.

Unlike standard analyses of these phenomena, deflationary truthmakers accounts are not phrased in terms of corresponding states of affairs, reductive identifications or ontological dependence relations.  The draft chapter that I’ll present focuses on social objects, and in the talk I’ll specifically discuss the sections about corporations and laws, which are institutional social objects.

My aim is to make the talk as self-contained as possible, so I won’t assume that attendees have read the draft.

You can use the contact card above to request the draft, if you wish to read it in advance.