Hello! It seems I’m at it again, since no one I asked said blogging was a bad idea. Welcome to the review of the 13th Principia, old-school blogger style. The journey officially starts, just where it ends, at GRU, where I see Marcos Silva is on the same flight as I am. A quick hello as our seats are not close together, and a couple of hours later, we split an uber to have dinner with JM+. As I exit the airport, and smell the cold, I instantly regret some life decisions I’ve made. Buenos Aires was not that cold, you see, because I went there prepped for early-spring-Bergen, and over did it. This time, I traveled south to Floripa, then am going northward to Teresina (for the UFPI selection exam), so I have a wide range of weather conditions to cover in one 40L backpack. For those who don’t know, if you tell someone that has been to Teresina that you are going to Teresina, they will say “Have you ever been to Teresina?”. Now, I have been, briefly, so I reply “Yes, I stopped at the bus terminal there on my way to São Luiz, it was 35º and the sun had already set”. And they go: I’m actually curious what people would say if I reply that I’ve never been (will try this out next time – oh, geesh; hanging out with some people last week is making a liar out of me). And if you think there is no such thing as the smell of cold,* you are just wrong. You just have to learn to pick it up, just like learning to pick up the smell of cockroaches. Both useful skills to have. Thankfully, the week in Floripa was nice and sunny, so I actually regret nothing. * About 2 seconds after landing in Teresina, past 20:00, I discover there is such a thing as the smell of heat as well. We have dinner @ Kebab Faruk. The kibe was very well spiced, and they had cake juice, which was intriguing. Lemon and mint, for those who wonder; also suitably sweet. We chat about what it’s been like to live in Florianópolis, intradepartmental interpersonal conflict, and Marcos Silva's master plan for creating the doctoral program at UFPE and I’m nothing short of impressed. Afterwards, I get to the airbnb that I’m sharing with David (the second D is silent!) and Ednilson. David is my academic third-brother (I have three academic “fathers”; life is complicated). Ed I had yet to meet, and I’m sure I didn’t impress him very much because the fifth sentence I say is something like “philosophy of language sucks, I can’t even” (by this I mean only ideal language philosophy:* after the first study group I ever participated in which someone said “sense” and “reference” I knew that I needed to pick a corner of philosophy that was far away from this; of course, after almost 14 year in this churn I figured out that you cannot avoid Frege and Russell, unless one goes continental, and I was not willing to go that far). Once we start sharing tales of teaching, I think I make up for my initial mishap. Neither of them knew of the app Be Real, and I both shocked them and expanded their horizons. If you teach and you don’t know what this is, we gotta talk. * I worry about typing this, since I’ve discovered that there are lots of carnapians at UFSC, but bloggers gotta blog. Monday. David’s coffee was good but not ideal, and I mean no disrespect. Important disclaimer that was missing in the last post: I drink coffee with milk, so my taste scale is not reliable if you are a purist, as it makes some kinds of bad coffee slightly better, while also requiring a darker roast to be good. He and I set off early to register at the event, and he picks the quickest route through the outskirts of campus. I see people with matching t-shirts and I infer correctly that they can take us to the event venue. We grab our gear. Here’s the summary: good notepad (I do love a watermark), the folder was unnecessary (it was too large for the notepad!), the Bic was ok, but also probably unnecessary, and I did miss having a conference bag 😢 (but I do understand!). Our plan is to do some tourism in the morning before the conference officially starts, so after I say a quick hello to Jonas, we grab a coffee at the cantina (I thought it was ok and would drink again, but David hated the black coffee he had there) we try to figure out where the auditorium for the afternoon is. One of the monitors (I got no names, sorry!) offers to show us the way. We walk outside and he points to the Espaço Físico Integrado. David asks what is the best way to get there from where we are, the Centro de Filosofia e Humanidades. The monitor asks how we got to the CFH. And what I decide to say next might have pretty much changed the course of my life. I say “A gente veio pelas brenhas” and point to the left. And then the monitor goes: And I go: So I say “Y'all don’t speak brenha around here?” and he does a slow "no" nod. So then I’m both flashbacking to the sudestinos at CLMPST who did not know arrudiar, and thinking what else I say that won’t compile here, and how do they give directions around here if they lack arrudiar and embrenhar. This is me while my life both past and future runs through my mind. We catch an uber towards downtown, and by the time we reach the largo da alfândega, I’ve decided I shall introduce linguistic diversity into these parts. We walk though the market, I buy postcards, then David needs a coffee break to deal with a work related google spreadsheets emergency. Coffee @ Miscelânea was very good (it was 3♡, of course). Then we check out Praça XV. The Museu Histórico de Santa Catarina was closed, so we visit the Museu de Florianópolis instead, as I rant about how come Natal doesn't have a SESC museum like this. During the last EBL, Sara and I went to the SESC museum in Salvador (which was about local cuisine) and it was super cute. We have lunch and head back to campus in perfect timing. I meet Gabriel for the first time in person (we've met at the UFMA study group) and follow him to the EFI because David and I have to clue yet where things are; ainda estamos nos embrenhando at this point. (We are later told the building next to the EFI is called The Labyrinth, no joke). I greet Eduarda, my favorite paraibana there, and Sara, my favorite gringa. I find a seat for the opening ceremony, where an important issue is addressed: how to pronounce "Principia". I take a minute to catch up with friends. At the opening talk, Amy T. says everything I ever wanted to hear about the relevance of language to metaphysics, the limits of metaphysics and what is left of it after we solve the language problem (not much, as it turns out!). And I absolutely love having the name for shifting grammatical categories. Take brenha: Eu vim pelas brenhas ≈ embrenhei-me. (For the non-nordestinês speakers, it’s like getting “I came through the forest”, and then you turn “forest” into a reflexive verb.) During the break I greet Jaimir Conte, who was actually one of my first professors @ UFRN back in 2010. I was his student in the last semester he taught there. What a privilege that was! I also catch up with Sofia, who claims she can guide us through the labyrinth, having been an undergraduate at UFSC. I go to the GT on Analytic Epistemology in room 3, where the skeptic challenge still haunts them, then we discuss whether critical thinking can be taught. Most importantly, I finally meet in person Paloma and Jéssica Caren! What a joy this is :) Next, I check out talks on philosophy of science, and leave the room convinced I am indeed a logician because I can define what a theory is and they can’t. And as such, I had a slides clicker with me which I let them borrow. Next up, we head over to the Centro Social da Cerveja, and since Sofia won’t be joining us to work on her presentation, we declare it a nordestinos only event (for a short while anyway!). On the way I meet Bruna and Rafael. As we walk, I teach them my favorite trick of the instrumental use of philosophy: you can temporarily work under the assumptions that determinism is correct, thus there is no point in being nervous about your presentation, because it has kinda already happened. I bully the recifences (a pessoa chega em Recife aí pronto, é logo uma catinga de esgoto da mulesta!), defend the idiom boy against their cultural theft, and I try about 5 sips of some kind of beer that does not taste like beer. Congratulations to those who stayed till 23:00, not a bad start! Tuesday. The morning was reserved for a quick tourism expedition, so Ed and I went up to Morro da Cruz, as per Jaimir’s recommendation. The view was pretty cool and I was glad to hang out with someone who can take photographs. I was mostly happy, though, to chew someone else’s ear about teaching logic. At the coffee break I chat with Ivan, say hello to Nara M. F. and Beatriz S. and show off to the other Lógicas Brasileiras that I’ll be hanging out with Sara for another week. At the SBFA round table Marcos Silva argues against tolerance 👀,* Bia makes me want to read more on ethics (and this is saying a lot!), and Nara gains me on enactivism, but loses me on ontology. * You kinda had to be there. Well, have you joined the SBFA yet? I have! In room 4, philosophy takes a dark turn as there is talk of stabbing during chess games and neuroscientists encouraging murder. Jonas takes us to lunch somewhere on campus, and coffee at Grão Café was the best of the trip (I know where I’ll be getting my coffee when I come back!). Back to room 4, Sofia talks about different ways of being a logical pluralist while not claiming to be a pluralist herself, and sweats a bit under Marcos Silva’s question of how to avoid arbitrarianism. Maybe she’ll pull another presentation out of his comment like I did. Next, I’m up to present and happy to have done so in a perfect 20 minutes. Marcos Silva asks me three tough questions and I’m really glad he was not like this during my PhD panel exam! As we say, alugou um triplex na minha cabeça. Sara and Jonas both defend that logicians are the primary practitioners of logic, which I should have seen coming, and I’ll promise to do better next time. Then Sofia stabs me between the ribs asking why I don’t like pluralism as a solution for the question of the correctness of logic. The next speaker doesn’t show up, so we have instead a class on Tópicos Especiais de Corredor. At the main conference, I shudder to see that I didn’t get there in time to offer my slide clicker and Eduarda is there skipping slides by the computer. I feel like I have failed my logician duty. I confess I didn’t pay much attention to Eleonora O.’s talk, because, well, of my philosophy of language issue. I regret this almost instantly because the questions were super cool and everyone was talking about her presentation for days. Afterwards we head over again to the CSC and I’m set on hanging out with Eduarda. At about this point in the conference, after having asked about half the people “Você sabe rebolar no mato?” and discovering that only people from PB, RN and CE know this expression, I decide to start writing a list of things we say in the northeast, and also to demarcate these expressions geographically. Not only by state, but also by the sertão/litoral threshold. Who knew language was this fascinating? At some point also, I started keeping trash in my pocket to give to Sofia rebolar no mato. After the early crowd leaves, I catch up with Guilherme A. C. (who I’ve known since the 2014 EBL!) and meet André A., and the conversation goes like this. He asks where I’m from. “Natal”. Then he says, and I kid you not, “Ah! So are you Evelyn’s student?”. I’m a bit stumped. Evelyn doesn’t have students. But then, if I learn something, does it count as me having taught myself, and thus I am my teacher and my student at the same time and I should answer “yes”? Instead of this better answer, I just say “I am Evelyn” and he looks back like: So then he makes the witty comment of this being a philosophically interesting circumstance, and explains that he heard of this logician coming from Natal for a postdoc @ UFSC, but I guess most people did not expected that this would be me: After I discover he is paraibano, he becomes my favorite person in there (Eduarda had already left), and as we talked I’m sure I sat at the right corner of the table because he also rents a triplex in my head. My reading list has 3 more books in it and I check the “changing your mind 3x about something” item from the conference checklist, as Marcos Silva pulled me towards pragmatism, Sofia’s talk on pluralism pushed me to monism (via disjunctive syllogism by assuming a probably false dichotomy), and now André has me pondering relativism. What a day. Wednesday. Ed makes coffee which I will not rate because the only milk available was lactose-free, and well. It was alright, tho, because I actually drank 2 cups of it. I skipped the event to deal with important issues. First I listen to the preview of David’s talk, and discover that I have become someone’s Latex wizard. (More evidence that I am a logician indeed?). I taught him \pause, \color and fixed compiling issues with \begin{block}. I’m surprised that it takes so little to impress someone, but I’ll take it. Next on schedule, I listen to Jessica’s preview and she did amazing; I only fixed some typo on her slides. Then the most important task: a meeting of the SBL 💅. They are absolutely the best people, and I’ll tell you why. There is no whatsapp group, if it can be an email, it’s an email, and in a one-hour meeting, everything gets settled. I think I’ll start an advanced checklist for conferences and “attend a meeting” will be the first addition. I’ll also like to take this moment to acknowledge and thank the boys for all the great soap-dispenser-filling work that they’ve done for me: they did the shopping, the coffee, took out the trash (mas a que custo?), made sure I ate all my meals and didn’t walk through the brenhas at night. Also thanks for bearing with all the “Do you know amofinar?”* kind of questions! * They both do. Through the brenhas again, we reach campus and catch up with Jaimir waiting for the lunch break. My afternoon starts listening to Paloma talk about hinge propositions and their role in one’s belief system, and makes me wonder if this can solve the Achilles and tortoise problem. I head over to room 2, to hear from metaphysicians. The session starts with talk of “propositions” and “inference” and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but there is no time for my question. The next talk has “and/or” in one slide, on a topic of philosophy of logic, no less. I don’t know if you know this, but everytime someone uses “and/or” a fairy dies. After the break, it’s room 5 for me. The first speaker doesn’t show up, which is good because there is no computer in the room. At first I just sit and watch people trying to solve this issue, and wonder how many philosophers it takes to project slides on a screen (I'll remind you that all Plato needed was a campfire!). It took five, one computer and one extra projector. But then there is no connection to the internet, so I take pity on them and lend my flash drive. It’s also the first time I see someone present with Google Slides, and a non-logician having a clicker, and thus wonder how this fits into my demarcation criteria. I love Andre’s talk about “wh- questions”, because this was literally one of my slides: And then here he is talking about how to answer “what” questions 🤯 I’m left wondering if I can swallow contextualism; but more importantly, why do I resist it so much. Am I maybe an exceptionalist about logic afterall? Next, Marcos Fanton starts to present and only then I realize that Lógicas Brasileiras have been exchanging emails with him for a while about his research (yes, I definitely am keeping up with everything 😥); and also then understand Valeria’s comment that logic is in a difficult place to analyze. It turns out that by the modeling he did, there are very few Logic PhD theses defended in Philosophy overall, so we don’t even get our own category in the grand scheme of things and end up falling into Philosophy of Science. (The anti-exceptionalists will be happy to know!) Then I head out with Sofia and Rafael to have café sem farinha before the last talk of the day. At this point in the conference, my heart is open to philosophy of language so I pay attention to M. Ruffino’s talk like I’ve never done before in my life. This is what I got out of it: Here’s the link to get your very own card next time you need it! (Disclaimer: I did remix the expressions with the talks of thursday morning, to make sure the bingo works on all of them.) Now I’m really trying here, but when he shouts “What time is it?”, instantly: Summer time! And when he says “Listen to this declaration”, immediately: We hold these truths to be self evident! Summing up the day: André saved epistemology, Ruffino saved philosophy of language and metaphysics could not be saved. I’m down for this. Afterhours it’s the CSC again, where I occupy Ed’s place of speech and teach people the vaia cearense, as part of their language education. I get accused of being a flat earther in a discussion of philosophy of science (which is nothing new, of course), then Sofia’s friend shows up and I run my expressions by him. And you can just see the spark in his eye when he understands rebolar no mato, bater as pestanas and botar uma coisa debaixo da venta. He is the only one to catch the poetry of all this. Paraíba is afterall, the land of poets. Then we get told there has been a noise complaint from a neighbor and she threatened to call the police. The vaia cearense is too powerful. Thursday. Ready to listen more to talks on language, Roberta P. O.’s talk does not disappoint. We hear about how fascinating natural languages are, consider marrying Chico Buarque, and try to decide how to express in portuguese that maybe there was a bird in the bush. She ends her talk with Ailton Krenak and wins my heart. Then in the Q&A she dismisses metaphysics and I’m about ready to become a linguist (sorry, mother!). During the coffee break I go talk to her to say the most appropriate expression is “se pá era um pintassilgo” and she cheerfully says she has a student working on the “se pá” expression, and says she herself is not a se-pa speaker. Which makes me think that I am a se-pa speaker and feel really cool about it. It got me wondering about “e se sesse” and “só sendo mesmo”. Up next, there is Otavio B.’s talk, where we discuss referring to unicorns and the orbits of planets. He is a skeptic three times over and I do relate. Then during questions, my theory of UNICAMP logicians is corroborated, and I feel like the world is ready for it (after Sara made public my theory on the demarcation of logicians, it's all fair game). Here it goes: it is guaranteed that if there is a logician from UNICAMP in the audience they will ask about how what was just presented relates to paraconsistent logics. During lunch break, I make two mistakes: forget to go to the post office (desculpa, Bernardo!) and take Sara to lunch in the churrascaria instead of the other place that was suggested (I’m sure she is super tired of latin american meat-eating habits). Then we go to the botanical garden, to keep tradition alive, and talk about the methodology of philosophy. This time around, the theme of the visit is “Sara takes pictures of things”. This is how our afternoon went. Well, it was a small garden (and I sure don’t have the character count for the full tour!). Then we’re off to the urban jungle to look for capybaras and alligators. She does not have dehydration or a heatstroke, so all is good. I run, suada que só a bexiga pois o dia um calor da gota serena, to room 3 to catch Jéssica present. She does wonderfully and I’m impressed to listen to an almost completely different talk than the one she gave me the day before. Very well done! Sofia, of course, drops her “But are you a pluralist?” question. Next up, is Débora O. S., talking about referring to unobservables and I get a strange feeling I’ve heard about this before (but now I like it much more!). Sure enough, she presented at the first Brazilian Meeting of Female Analytic Philosophers. The second edition of the EBFA is happening in October. Do check us out! This feels like a good point to say that the ratio of talks I listed to broken up by sex was 40/60 again, and I feel like if I avoid metaphysics all together, I can do much better. During the coffee break, we exchange resenhas, then head over to hear the closing conference. Sara tells the auditorium my joke of demarcating logicians by using beamer + having a clicker for the slides and about 5 people laugh, so the room had about 5 logicians in it. Her talk is great as always and I will definitely do the homework! During the Q&A, the first person who asks a question makes her write something down in her notebook, and I’m like, I want to be able to do that too! Turns out I ask her about Aristotle’s Poetics (I hope to have redeemed myself, mom!) and she does just that, so a goal is instantly achieved. The closing remarks were short and sweet, and if there was a perrengue I did not catch a sniff of it. I think everything ran very smoothly, the event was great and I can’t wait for the next one! (I’m an EBL veteran, but this was my first Principia.) After a pitstop to run some laundry, I go with Sofia to the beiramar. We talk about academic angst, she tells me that in Argentina everyone knows about Pipa (!), and she gives away our dinner to a homeless man who then proceeds to try to apply a Pix scam on us. Floripa is rough. She also dares to order coconut water in front of me. I instantly ask the waiter “does it come in a plastic container or in a coconut?” and he says “coconut, but not green” and I think “it’s gonna be a gringo coconut, for sure”, and I’m intrigued how there will be water in it. This is how it went. O pobre imunda é um meme, não se assustem. We hit midnight, but were not inimigas do fim because the Recife crowd won (there are stickers, do hit me up if interested). Friday. I meet Otávio B. and Marcos Silva in the airport, and get to say goodbye to them in person. As we part ways, I remember that I forgot to apply my nordestinês test on him! So then since I have all this free time here waiting for the result of the first part of the selection exam, and I love nothing more than producing quality content, here is the vocab list I compiled during the event. If you test your knowledge, do let me know how it went! ☙ ❧ During the flight I gather some last thoughts from my Principia experience. The accent from Minas sounds better than the one from Recife, porque o R é bom e não chiam o S (o chiado está no T, mas não me ofende). The word "espetinho" is excellent to figure out where someone is from (thanks Juliany for this insight!). I thought the new drill for exiting the aircraft was fuleragem, but I heard someone from the crew say what it's because if the front people leave first then the plane tips back (!?). Cacti growing outside demarcates latin american, saguis demarcate Brasil. In the real world the intersection of logic and analytic philosophy is smaller than I thought; UFRN me acostumou mal. Florianópolis has adequate air humidity, good coffee and wonderful people, so I think I'll thrive there.
7 Comments
Laila
22/8/2023 20:14:29
Wonderful story, there's nothing I like more in knowing more brazilians than comparing idioms. You know, I though "correr com gosto de gás" was easily understandable but I was wrong. Proud Nordestina here knowing all vocab, also grandma loves saying: agora fosse to doubt people I stole that for me.
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Rafael
22/8/2023 21:15:31
facilmente melhor blog que já li
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Sara
23/8/2023 05:19:21
Awww, I'm your favorite gringa!
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Sofia
23/8/2023 12:06:34
I’m always impressed by Evelyn’s blog skills AND I keep finding the trash she gave me to “rebolar no mato”. I’m starting to think this is bullying… but since I’ve learned so much and I still want my Natal citizenship, ok. It was an amazing time!
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JM
23/8/2023 22:07:08
Estiiiiga, Evelyn!
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25/8/2023 10:54:45
what a delight to read such funny, witty, well written review of an event--a Logic one for that matter! Makes me miss my Philosophy BA and wonder have I gone to the wrong side of academics by embracing Literature, though every semester I do teach Aristotle’s Poetics faithfully (to subvert his plot requirements, but still do it)? I would never guess I my Philosophy student days Logicians are so… funny… alive… friendly & … creative Forgive the abuse of ellipsis: poetry is my baby To all Logicians in Principia: 💕
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Paloma
26/8/2023 12:08:25
Que divertido ter uma visão do Principia através das lentes de Evelyn hahaha. Melhor blog. 💜
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