糖心TV

For this session participating staff will each prepare to give a five minute (or so) summary of their plans for one module in Term 1. Sessional/Graduate Teaching Assistants are warmly invited and welcome. The session is scheduled for one hour but the length may vary depending on how many people join in. A recording will be made available afterwards.

Please contact F.Niklas@warwick.ac.uk for further details. Places limited.

An online practical session with David Bather Woods

Session for History and Philosophy/Philosophy and GSD students

Joint Honours students meet course conveners.

Platonic Speed Dating (speed "friending" with a Platonic twist!)

Lunch Outside Oculus Building

During the workshop, we will explore 糖心TV’s values, what it means to be an active bystander, and how we might respond when something happens which is contrary to our values. You’ll also find out about ongoing opportunities to continue your journey as an active bystander and support a positive campus experience for all. Students will be off-camera with interactive participation via anonymous voting software.

More details to be announced

See the at King's.

Zoom link:

During the workshop, we will explore 糖心TV’s values, what it means to be an active bystander, and how we might respond when something happens which is contrary to our values. You’ll also find out about ongoing opportunities to continue your journey as an active bystander and support a positive campus experience for all. Students will be off-camera with interactive participation via anonymous voting software.

Guest Speaker: Sandra Shapshay (CUNY)

Title: 'Schopenhauer on the Moral Perception'

NB: Note the later start time of 4.15pm for this seminar.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Contact Thomas Williams for further information.

Below are the details for our first session of the academic year...

 Week 2: Friday 15 October 2021 - In Memory of Charles Mills (1951-2021) and in celebration of Black History Month: Charles Mills,

 For more information (and if you need help joining the Team), contact Eileen John (eileen.john@warwick.ac.uk).

Guest Speaker: Michelle Kosch (Cornell)

Title: 'Recognition After Fichte'

There will be a discussion of a paper by Ne?e Aksoy, who will be interviewed by Dino Jakusic.

Ne?e's Abstract:

Spinoza’s Conatus: A Teleological Reading of its Ethical Dimension

 In this article I examine how the teleological reading of Spinoza’s conatus shapes the ethical trajectory of his philosophy. I first introduce the Spinozistic criticism of teleology and argue contra many critics that Spinoza has a mild approach to human teleology. On the basis of this idea, I develop the claim that conatus is a teleological element pertaining to human nature. From the teleological reading of conatus, I draw the conclusion that Spinozian ethics has objective, humanistic and essentialist elements. In this sense, this paper emerges to be a challenge against the anti-teleological reading of conatus that is directly related to the subjectivistic, anti-humanistic and non-essentialist interpretation of Spinoza’s ethics. It mainly situates Spinoza in a traditionally teleological context where the human conatus is seen as an act of pursuing objective and essential moral ends that is distinctive to human nature.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

We meet in person, but people who are not able to come to campus are welcome to join via teams (With this link: )

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

2.00 – 2.30 Literature search skills and tools 

(Kate Courage, Academic Support Librarian)
2.30 – 3.00 Planning your MA (Diarmuid Costello)
3.30 – 3.30 Planning your PhD/MPhil (Diarmuid Costello)
3.45 – 4.30 Applying for PhD programmes and scholarships (Matt Nudds) 

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

Zoom link:

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

Getting Acquainted with Art 

By Matt Duncan and Hannah Nahas 

We learn from art. By viewing, hearing, touching, creating, performing, and in yet other ways interacting with art, we gain new knowledge—knowledge that we wouldn’t have had, and perhaps couldn’t have had, without encountering that art. That’s obvious. But what is less obvious is the nature, or structure, of this knowledge—what constitutes it. A standard assumption in contemporary analytic philosophy is that all knowledge is and must be propositional—that is, constituted by beliefs in propositions. However, this assumption, despite being standard, has come under attack in recent years. One front in this attack comes from aesthetics and philosophy of art, where some philosophers have claimed that some knowledge gained from art is non-propositional. In this paper we will fortify and expand this front by giving new reasons to think that some knowledge from art is indeed non-propositional and is instead “knowledge of things,” which is constituted, not by beliefs in propositions, but by awareness of properties and objects. We will also fill a gap in the contemporary literature by giving an account of this knowledge—of its nature, structure, and relation to other knowledge.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

Week 4: Friday 29 October 2021 - Charles Mills,

For more information (and if you need help joining the Team), contact Eileen John (eileen.john@warwick.ac.uk).

Guest Speaker: Tuomo Tiisala (Helsinki)

Title: 'Truth, the Whole Truth, and Politics and Truth: Foucault on the Revaluation of Values'

Law and Morality in Early 20^th Century Marxism 

In this reading group, we examine the relationship of law and morality through the eyes of early 20th century Marxist literature. This was a time of acute crisis in Western political history. The workers’ movement was in tumult, with the ruination of the 2^nd International, the repression of revolutionary fervour in Europe, and the rise of fascism. As old powers crumbled and others arose, the moral status of law came into focus. A new radicalism asked out loud: Is there anything inherently good about the legal order?

In each session, we relate the selected literature to philosophical problems surrounding state, law, and morality. Among other things, we will discuss the critique of natural law, examine the link between history and moral judgments, and have a closer look at the Marxist notion of ideology.

No prior knowledge is required; open debate is highly encouraged. Each session will focus on one text (see below). Digital copies of the texts will be provided on Teams, some also in an abridged version (at least one week in advance). Ross or Simon will provide a brief introduction to each text, then there is roughly one hour for discussion.

1^st session: 3 November 2021

Karl Marx (1843): “On the Jewish question.” In Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 3, 146–174. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975.

Ross Ferrara (ross.ferrara@warwick.ac.uk)

Simon Gansinger (simon.gansinger@warwick.ac.uk)

Guest Speaker: Robert Brandom (Pittsburgh)

Title: 'The Fine Structure of Autonomy and Recognition'

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

This week the seminar group will be discussing a paper by Johan Heemskerk. The abstract is below:

Seeking the source: metacognition, introspection and abstract concepts

Abstract

This paper explores a puzzle which arises if one holds any kind of neo-empiricist doctrine of concept acquisition but is sensitive to evidence and arguments against direct-access accounts of metacognition. Specifically, I consider Carruthers’ argument against introspection for propositional attitudes. I argue that while we can grant much to Carruthers, his arguments do not, despite the prima facie challenge they present, disrupt the neo-empiricist project. In particular, Carruthers successfully argues against attributive metacognitive access to propositional attitudes but leaves open the possibility of evaluative metacognitive access. This is sufficient to ground propositional attitude concepts and hence serve as components in abstract concepts.

Please contact Johan Heemskerk for further information about joining the seminar.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

Week 6: Friday 12 November 2021 - , with an

For more information (and if you need help joining the Team), contact Eileen John (eileen.john@warwick.ac.uk).

2^nd session: 17 November 2021

Karl Korsch (1923): Marxism and Philosophy. London: NLB, 1970.

Guest Speaker: Johanna Oksala (Loyola, University of Chicago)

Title: 'The Subjects of Capitalism: From Marx to Foucault'

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

Speaker to be confirmed.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

This conference is an opportunity for Undergraduates present some of your best work, and to discuss it with leading academics, graduate students, and your undergrad peers from other universities. If you’re considering applying for graduate work in philosophy, this would be an excellent opportunity to get feedback on a potential work sample, or just to develop some of your ideas in conversation with other philosophers interested in the same topics as you (and let’s be honest, a conference talk on your CV won’t look bad!).

You don’t need to be applying for further study (in philosophy, or at all) to apply, of course – you might just fancy the opportunity to discover some new topics, to meet new likeminded people, to hone your presentation skills, or just to discuss, debate, and argue the day away (as it befits a philosopher to do). Philosophy conferences are one of the main ways in which professional philosophy ‘gets done’. So perhaps you’re just curious to see how they work, and to be involved in a conference at undergraduate level.

Topics

The conference is organised by the 糖心TV Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA). WMA is the centre in the 糖心TV Philosophy Department for research in the philosophy of mind and action, ‘broadly construed’, and interdisciplinary work with psychology. We take ‘broadly construed’ seriously! You are encouraged to apply to give a talk in any of the following areas of philosophy:

• philosophy of mind
• philosophy of action/moral psychology
• epistemology
• history of philosophy
• philosophy of psychology or psychiatry
• philosophy of language
• interdisciplinary work with all branches of psychology.

The plan for the day:

The undergraduate sessions

There will be 3 undergraduate sessions, each lasting 1 hour – 30 mins for the talk itself, and 30 mins for discussion.

‘Further study in philosophy’ information session

An optional session for delegates interested in further study in philosophy. The session is an opportunity to get a sense of the difference between the various higher degrees (MA, MPhil, PhD), what they each involve, what to think about if you’re keen to apply for any of them, how funding works, and so on. You’ll be able to ask any other questions you might have too.

Keynote lecture

A talk by a WMA academic, followed by discussion.

3^rd session: 24 November 2021

Evgeny Pashukanis (1924): “Law and morality.” In Law and Marxism: A General Theory, 151–165. London: Ink Links, 1978.

Guest Speaker: Kristin Andrews (York/Toronto)

Title: 'Do Animals Have the Mark of the Moral'?

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

2.00 - 2.45pm Writing MA/MPhil essays (Tom Crowther)

3.00 - 3.45pm Writing a MPhil/PhD thesis (Diarmuid Costello)

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

Week 8: Friday 26 November 2021 - Robin Zheng,  

For more information (and if you need help joining the Team), contact Eileen John (eileen.john@warwick.ac.uk).

Guest Speaker: Samantha Matherne (Harvard)

Title: 'The Normativity of Colour: Phenomenological Perspectives'

4^th session: 1 December 2021

Max Horkheimer (1930): “Beginnings of the bourgeois philosophy of history.” In Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings, 335–363 [section on “Natural law and ideology”]. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993.

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

Contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

We will be holding an information session with a Q&A about Postgraduate study in Philosophy. The session is open for everyone, whether you are in your final year or not, and even if you have not given the possibility of PG study of Philosophy much thought. We will cover: Why postgraduate study in philosophy? What PG courses in Philosophy are available in the Department and what are the differences between them? We will also give some information on how to apply. There will be an opportunity to ask the PG course convenors questions, as well as to hear from and meet some of our existing PGT students.

A sandwich lunch will be provided.

Please come along even if you have not given PG study in Philosophy much thought yet. We will be able to give you some further information to help you to think about your options.

5^th session: 8 December 2021

Walter Benjamin (1919?): “Critique of Violence.” In Selected Writings, vol. 1, 236–252. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2004.

Please contact Andrew J Paull for further information.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. This reading group will focus on a close-reading of Philosophical Investigations in the first term (where appropriate dipping into secondary texts in order to interpret certain sections.) Depending on how far we get in the first term, we will try to read another Wittgenstein text (up to the groups preference). We will be focusing on reading Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines. We hope to meet weekly, but want to be as flexible as possible. For the first week, we will try to read §§1-45. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Thomas Williams for further information

Thomas.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk

Please contact Andrew Cooper for further information.

Speakers:

• Elisabeth Camp
• Zoe Cunliffe
• Maria Jose Alcaraz Leon
• Hannah Kim
• John Gibson
• Alice Lagaay
• Anna Pakes
• Anna Christina Ribeiro
• Joy Shim
• Tzachi Zamir

For more information: /fac/soc/philosophy/people/simecek/revoicingwords/

Speakers:

• Elisabeth Camp
• Zoe Cunliffe
• Maria Jose Alcaraz Leon
• Hannah Kim
• John Gibson
• Alice Lagaay
• Anna Pakes
• Anna Christina Ribeiro
• Joy Shim
• Tzachi Zamir

For more information: /fac/soc/philosophy/people/simecek/revoicingwords/

Guest Speaker: Fabrice Teroni (Philosophy, Geneva)

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Guest Speaker: Nadine Elzien (糖心TV)

Title: 'Time Travel and Failed Assassinations: From Baby Suzy to Fidel Castro'

Sailee Khurjekar.

Sailee will present her paper, In Art We Trust: An Exploration into the Problem of Perfect Forgeries, in room S0.08. The session will be hybrid, so you can either join via Teams or attend in person. If the latter, please show your interest in advance by sending an email to our brand new email address (pgphil.wips@warwick.ac.uk), so we are sure to have enough space for everybody.

 Here is the abstract of Sailee’s talk:

This presentation focuses on referential forgeries and examines the loss of trust and abuse of power that occurs when an artwork is forged. I contextualise the problem of perfect forgeries in contemporary debates, comparing Sherrie Levine’s photographs of Walker Evans’ photography with art forger Yves Chaudron’s copies of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. I explain why I think that Levine is not a forger, while Chaudron certainly is. I raise some broader implications of this position for aesthetics as a discipline: The first concerns the role of lying in art and why it is problematic; and the second concerns the false understanding of culture when an artist appropriates a work from another culture and/or race. And so, I try to show how forgeries corrupt the observer’s understanding of a given artwork.

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Qiu Lin (Duke University), “Wang Daiyu 王岱舆 (1570-1660) on the Non-Ultimate (wuji 无极) and the Great-Ultimate (taiji 太极): an Islamic Makeover”

Guest Speaker: Mark Wrathall (Oxford)

Title: 'The 'Existential' verses the 'Modal' Interpretation of Heidegger's Conception of Death'

Guest Speaker: Deborah Laible (Psychology, Lehigh)

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@wawick.ac.uk)

For the Spring/Summer terms in 2022 CineMAP will be hosting a documentary film programme under CineMAPxDocs, featuring a range of documentary shorts and feature-length releases, nonfiction moving image works, poetic docs and essay films alongside observational films with an international focus.

These films will continue to be curated to depict observations on race, sex, gender and class, and will additionally look at topics surrounding environmentalism and ecological awareness as radical action.

To kick off the screenings we will start with Agnès Varda's 2000 poetic documentary 'The Gleaners & I':

"A documentary about finding value where others see nothing, this beautiful and eccentric work is the result of Agnès Varda spending a year touring France to find and talk to the people who forage and salvage what is disposed of by others. Ranging from those who salvage to survive, to artists, activists and workers who use scavenged goods, the film ably examines class and culture, and finds time to reflect upon the nature of cinema and mortality, too." (credit: ICA)

The screening will take place from 6pm on Microsoft Teams, and a discussion will follow.

To be added to the CineMAP Teams group, please email anna.titov@warwick.ac.uk

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Guest Speaker: Robyn Fivush (Psychology, Emory)

Title: “The Value of Family Storytelling". 

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

Camilla Pitton: ‘Re-examining Irigaray’s Feminist Philosophy of Nature: Problems with the ‘Duality’ Interpretation’

Abstract: This paper examines Luce Irigaray’s theory of matter and nature, as elaborated in The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger (1999), in order to reconsider the criteria under which any such theory can be of use to a feminist project. Specifically, I aim to demonstrate, by looking at the strengths and shortcomings of Irigaray’s work, that presenting a theory of nature as originally dual (composed by a feminine and a masculine part) is not simply, and quite obviously, antithetical to a feminism that wants to be non-essentialist; more fundamentally, speaking of a feminine and a masculine part of nature, understood doubly in the generality of matter not subjected to human production and in the specificity of natural bodies, will be shown to be philosophically flawed. This investigation will, consequently, diffractively provide some parameters under which the articulation of a philosophy of nature can (i) aid a project interested in theorising the freeing of feminised bodies from objectification, and (ii) be philosophically rigorous.

Details to be confirmed.

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Shih-Han Huang (Duke University), “Zhuangzi’s Playful Philosophy of Life”

Speaker: Gordon Finlayson (Sussex)

Title: Understanding Meaning in the History of Philosophy

Abstract:

I advance a new and mainly internal criticism of Quentin Skinner’s claim, first made in his seminal “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” (1969), and subsequently never retracted or weakened, that ‘there are no perennial questions in philosophy’, and that Cambridge school style historical interpretation should have sole custody over the proper meaning of texts and theories in the history of philosophy. I lay out two premises to which Skinner is committed: an Austinian conception of linguistic practice, and an Anscombian conception of ‘intention-in-action’. From these I argue that there are, and will continue to be, ‘perennial questions’ in philosophy in the very sense that Skinner denies. My overall aim is to limit Skinner’s conception of historical interpretation, to make room for methodological pluralism in the history of philosophy.

Speaker: (Chicago)

Title: 'The Development of Ryle's Conception of Logic'

Abstract: Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that has come under pressure from intellectualists like Jason Stanley, who claim that knowledge-how is simply a species of knowledge-that. Stanley argues that Ryle’s famous regress argument for the distinction shows that Ryle conceives of propositional knowledge as “behaviorally inert,” and that appreciating this shows that Ryle’s regress argument is impotent against “reasonable intellectualism.” However Ryle characterizes knowledge as dispositional in character in The Concept of Mind. This seems to support Stephen Hetherington’s “practicalist” view that knowledge-that is a form of knowledge-how, and puts into question whether Ryle can really rely on the regress argument for his distinction. In this essay I address such questions as: how is the regress argument connected to his distinction? what conception of knowledge-that is implied? does the regress argument survive if we do not think of knowledge-that as involving acts of acknowledging-that, of contemplating propositions and judging them to be true? I approach these questions through examining the development of Ryle’s thinking about knowledge, from his life-long insistence that knowledge and belief are generically distinct, through his early rejection of a dispositional conception of knowledge and belief, his later development of the distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that, including a dispositional characterization of knowledge-how, and his introduction of a distinction among dispositions between capacities and tendencies, with knowledge (both -how and -that) on the capacity side and belief on the tendency side. I argue that his initial formulations of the regress argument and the knowledge-how/knowledge-that distinction come from an earlier stage of his thought before he had drawn the capacity/tendency distinction and located knowledge as a capacity. As a result, his formulation of the regress argument even in The Concept of Mind sits poorly with his view of knowledge and belief there. I conclude by discussing whether the regress argument can be reformulated in a way that fits Ryle’s conception of knowledge as a capacity, and meets Stanley’s objections. Along the way I discuss Ryle’s relationship to a number of other historical figures, including Cook Wilson, Prichard, MacDonald, Ayer, and Vendler, as well as the contemporary philosophers Stanley and Hyman.

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Details to be confirmed

Guest Speaker: Tobias Krettenauer (Wilfrid Laurier University) will be speaking to us at the "Autobiographical Memory, Value, and Moral Identity" seminar series hosted by the 糖心TV Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA). The talk is entitled “Conceptualizing Moral Identity as a Goal Motivation". 

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

Jonny Clarke-West, ‘Memory and Imagination: The Production of the Absolute in Proust's A La Recherche du Temps Perdu’

This week we will host the talk with a hybrid format. As usual, the room is S0.08 and on MS Teams.

Abstract:

In this paper I interrogate the roles of imagination and memory at what I take to be the culmination of Proust’s project in the Recherche – where he develops a moment of pure literature. Proust writes the Recherche in order to bring into being a truth that he first discovers (but cannot articulate) in the prologue to Contre Sainte Beuve. In and through the production of the Recherche, Proust is able to realise what previously eludes him. The truth that Proust seeks is resistant to philosophy and the powers of the intellect – it requires the powers of the imagination and the production of literature. The root of literature – the production of truth – is therefore connected to the formation (or Bildung) of Marcel in whom, over the course of the novel, Proust develops the requisite sort of imaginative being. The deep connection between these projects of the novel crystallises at what I take to be its zenith when, in Le Temps Retrouvé, Marcel receives an ultimate revelation following a series of involuntary memories. It is at this juncture that the Absolute of the Recherche can be understood to be brought into being.

I examine the deep connection that Proust develops between involuntary memory and imagination in the production of the Absolute of his novel. Critical to this connection are two intertwined sets of conditions by which the unlived side of life – that time which always accompanies us but that we have not lived as such – can be brought to life in literature: firstly, a chance encounter hosted by the present; secondly, the production of an imaginary space into which the unlived can form as memory. What emerges from this is that the present as we know it is shown by Proust to be only a region of time. There is more that can be discovered, and this is what Proust accesses for literature. For literature to obtain a purchase upon this excess, Proust has to expand the field of the imagination. At the zenith of the novel, imagination becomes the site of certainty. The experience of literature – the production of truth – is the experience of the unfolding of the imaginary. The common distinction between truth and creatures of the imagination is dissolved. As Proust develops a moment of pure literature, the unimaginable – that which in the prologue to Contre Sainte-Beuve he could not articulate – transforms into the product of imagination.

Please contact Raffaele Grandoni for further information.

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Details to be confirmed.

Alice Simionato (Nanyang Technological University), “Meanings of Li 理 in the Cheng Brothers”

Guest Speaker: Marya Schectman (Philosophy, Illinois at Chicago)

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

Mostyn Taylor Crocket’s ‘Towards a Genealogy of Modernity: Time and History in Althusser, Balibar and Foucault’.

Abstract

In this paper I investigate the possibility of a genealogical study of modernity. Foucauldian genealogy is an important historical approach but is one that has, I argue, been unable to properly analyse what I call combinatory phenomena (e.g. modernity or capitalism). I suggest that this inability stems from genealogy’s rejection of totalization. I claim that turning to Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar’s contributions to Reading Capital can provide us with a way of understanding ‘combinatory phenomena’ which does not lapse into a totalization. I show how their critique of traditional historical periodization and their theory of ‘heterogenous temporalities’ allows us to understand the social formation as constructed out of multiple times and histories. Finally, I show how this can serve as the theoretical basis of a method which investigates the connections between genealogies in producing ‘combinatory phenomena’, taking Foucault’s genealogies as my examples.

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

This internet forum is organised by Bart Geurts (Nijmegen) and Richard Moore (糖心TV), and takes place every last Friday of the month from 15:00 to 16:30 (CET) / 2pm to 3:30 pm (UK). If you would like to attend, contact Richard Moore or contact both organisers at evoprag@gmail.com.

Note: exceptionally, this talk is from 17:00 to 18:30 (CET)

Simon Gransinger and Bernardo Ferro will present their papers on 'Hegel on the hierarchy of rights: Civil society and the state in modern political life’, at the PG Work in Progress Seminar. Please, find the abstract below. 

This session will build on a dialogical presentation of two papers. In order to give enough time to both of the speakers and have some time for a Q&A, the seminar will last until 6.30pm. After that, there is a table waiting for us at the Dirty Duck!

Be aware that the WiPS will now take place in the room S2.77 (next to the common kitchen on the second floor). For those of you who wish to attend online, .

 Abstract:

In the Philosophy of Right, GWF Hegel encourages us to think of society as a hierarchical order: the family, the market, civic associations, property-rights—all of this is normatively subordinate to the state. If we follow Hegel's mature political theory (and if we oppose some of its liberal interpretations), the political whole takes absolute precedence over the various interests of civil society.

Against this background, Bernardo focusses on the Philosophy of Right’s economic dimension. He argues that Hegel’s views on modern political economy can only be fully grasped in light of the speculative logic that animates his work as a whole, and which most economic interpreters tend to ignore.

Simon examines the implications for a theory of law. For Hegel, the enforcement of legal rights is conditional on their minimal compatibility with the interests of the state. Thus understood, courts do not articulate the law in a political vacuum. Legal reasoning is a species of political reasoning.

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Anders Sydskj?r (University of Bern), “Saying what the Way is and Knowing what to do in Xunzi ‘Undoing Blindness’”

Guest Speaker: Andrew Huddleston (糖心TV)

Title: 'The Idea of a 'Religion of Art': The Case of Wagner'

Speaker: Andrew Huddleston (糖心TV)

Title: The Idea of a "Religion of Art": The Case of Wagner

Date: Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Time: 5.30pm-7.15pm (UK time)

 Abstract:

This talk draws on a wider project of mine considering a theme in the aesthetic theorizing and art-making of the post-Kantian period, especially pronounced in German Romanticism, and going through the 19th century, and into the 20th century to certain key segments of artistic, literary, and musical modernism. An oft-expressed ambition is that art will somehow step in and fill the void left behind by waning religion. In this talk specifically, I use Richard Wagner’s theoretical writings (and some responses to his works and his agenda) as one lens for better understanding this exalted ambition for art and the limitations of this ambition. 

The seminar will be held in hybrid mode: in person (room R1.13) and online on MS Teams.

Guest Speaker: Matthew Soteriou (King’s College London) will be speaking to us at the "Autobiographical Memory, Value, and Moral Identity" seminar series hosted by the 糖心TV Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA). The title of the talk is "Temporal and Evaluative Perspectives on Self and Life”.  

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

Rachael Burgoyne, will be coming in (virtually) to speak about her experience of working as a philosophy teacher. Please contact Barnaby Walker for more information about the event.

Johan will present his paper, Which Measure of Information?, in room S2.77. The session will be hybrid, so you can either join via Teams or attend in person. If the latter, please show your interest in advance by sending an email to (pgphil.wips@warwick.ac.uk), so we are sure to have enough space for everybody.

Here is the abstract of Johan’s talk:

 Abstract

Teleosemantics is a discipline which aims to explain how meaning arises from natural processes. According to informational teleosemantics, the content of a mental representation is constrained by the information available to the representing system. Authors who adopt an informational version of teleosemantics, such as Martínez (2013) and Shea (2018) develop statistical formulae which capture, for any given environmental item, whether some representational state carries information about that item. Content is then restricted to only those items that the representational state carries information about. In this paper I argue that we should concern ourselves with how much information a representational state carries about some environmental item, rather than merely whether information is carried. A natural tool for this purpose is Claude Shannon's measure of mutual information. I argue that calculating mutual information allows for a novel solution to one variety of the indeterminacy problem for mental content, the so-called “specificity problem”. Armed with a measure for the quantity of mutual information, one can further constrain mental content according to which item maximises mutual information. 

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

For the Spring/Summer terms in 2022 CineMAP will be hosting a documentary film programme under CineMAPxDocs, featuring a range of documentary shorts and feature-length releases, nonfiction moving image works, poetic docs and essay films alongside observational films with an international focus.
These films will continue to be curated to depict observations on race, sex, gender and class, and will additionally look at topics surrounding environmentalism and ecological awareness as radical action.
To kick off the screenings we will start with Agnès Varda's 2000 poetic documentary 'The Gleaners & I':
"A documentary about finding value where others see nothing, this beautiful and eccentric work is the result of Agnès Varda spending a year touring France to find and talk to the people who forage and salvage what is disposed of by others. Ranging from those who salvage to survive, to artists, activists and workers who use scavenged goods, the film ably examines class and culture, and finds time to reflect upon the nature of cinema and mortality, too." (credit: ICA)
The screening will take place IN PERSON in S0.13 and on Microsoft Teams at 5.30pm, followed by dinner at drinks at The Dirty Duck.

To be added to the CineMAP Teams group, please email anna.titov@warwick.ac.ukLink opens in a new window

The theme of cheerfulness in Nietzsche's philosophy has recently been at the centre of an important debate in the literature between Robert Pippin (2010) and Lanier Anderson and Rachel Cristy (2017). Engaging with these scholars, I will consider three major questions: (1) What is cheerfulness? (2) What is its value for philosophy? (3) Is Nietzsche a cheerful thinker and writer? If yes, in what sense? As insinuated by the title of this presentation, I propose that it is possible to argue that starting from his middle writings Nietzsche thinks and writes cheerfully in some of his works, including a number of significant ones.

In person and on Teams:

Guest Speaker: Kristin Lagattuta (University of California, Davis) will be speaking to us at the "Autobiographical Memory, Value, and Moral Identity" seminar series hosted by the 糖心TV Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA). The title of the talk is "Developing a Life History Theory of Mind: Children’s and Adults’ Awareness that the Mind Learns from the Past to Imagine the Future”.  

The talk will take place between

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

Wittgenstein Reading Group. We are continuing our reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations where we left off (which is at §172) and we welcome anyone to join in – whether you have read Wittgenstein before or not. This term we also plan to look into some secondary literature by Stanley Cavell, John McDowell and Saul Kripke. All interested students and staff are welcome. We meet on Fridays from 1-2.30pm and – for the time being – online on Teams.

Wittgenstein is one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers and the source of many divergent reactions and interpretations. In this reading group, we focus on a close reading of Philosophical Investigations and on discussing Wittgenstein's philosophy in itself, rather than his relation to other thinkers and disciplines.

For the first week (14 January), we will try to read §§172-197. We suggest the dual language Revised Fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, but feel free to use whatever copy is available to you.

Please contact Aline Rickli for further information. Aline.Rickli@warwick.ac.uk 

Francesca Puglia (University of Bern), “Cosmology and Cosmogony in Early China: The Taiyi Sheng Shui and Related Texts”

Drinks and discussion at the Dirty Duck after the film!

Guest Speaker: Christoph Hoerl (Philosophy, 糖心TV)

Please contact Daniel Vanello for further information (D.Vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk)

This internet forum is organised by Bart Geurts (Nijmegen) and Richard Moore (糖心TV), and takes place every last Friday of the month from 15:00 to 16:30 (CET) / 2pm to 3:30 pm (UK). If you would like to attend, contact Richard Moore or both organisers at evoprag@gmail.com

10.15–10.30: Welcome and coffee

10.30–12.00: Guy Longworth (糖心TV)– title TBC

12.15 – 13.45: Speaker TBC

13.45–14.45: Lunch + coffee

14.45–16.15: Matt Parrott (Oxford), with commentary from Anil Gomes (Oxford) – title TBC

16.15–16.30: Coffee etc.

16.30–18.00: Beri Maru?i? (Edinburgh), with commentary from Jane Heal (Cambridge) – “Interpersonal Reasoning”

18.00–19.00: Drinks

19.00: Dinner

The workshop will be in-person at the University of 糖心TV. Please email wma.philosophy.events@gmail.com to register, including ‘TKOM attendance’ as the subject of the email.

Further Info: https://philevents.org/event/show/97294

9.30–10.00: Coffee etc.

10.00–11.30: Lucy Campbell – “Non-Linguistic Meaning, and Knowledge of Other Minds”

11.45–13.15: Anita Avramides “Exploring a Duality in the Problem of Other Minds”

13.15: Closing remarks

The workshop will be in-person at the University of 糖心TV. Please email wma.philosophy.events@gmail.com to register, including ‘TKOM attendance’ as the subject of the email.

Further Info: https://philevents.org/event/show/97294

This is a collective-creative project, taking place as part of the 糖心TV Resonate Campus Festival. The Dinner Party is a showcase for concrete presentation of ideas, questions, and speculation about food and meals, past, present and future. Contact eileen.john@warwick.ac.uk for more information about how to participate.

Guest Speaker: Shaun Nichols (Philosophy, Cornell)

Shaun Nichols will be speaking to us at the "Autobiographical Memory, Value, and Moral Identity" seminar series hosted by the 糖心TV Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA). The title of the talk is "Reidentification by memory and perception”.

Mark Eli Kalderon, Sympathy in Perception, Chapter 1: Grasping

Contacts: Tom Crowther (T.Crowther@warwick.ac.uk) and Guy Longworth (G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk).

Everyone welcome!

Speaker: Professor (Glasgow)

Talk: 'Resistance to Evidence and the Normativity of Inquiry'

Abstract: This talk looks at a puzzle affecting views that take epistemic norms to be zetetic norms - i.e. norms of inquiry: since garden variety epistemic norms and straightforward norms of inquiry often come in conflict, and since it is implausible, for any given normative domain, that it should be such that it is peppered with internal normative conflict, it cannot be that epistemic norms are inquiry norms. I look at three ways to escape the puzzle, I argue that they don't work, and put forth my own account. On this view, one is only the subject of epistemic normativity proper insofar as one is in a position to know. As such, I argue, normative conflicts do not arise in situations in which one is not in a position to know that p in virtue of inquiring into whether q.

Mark Eli Kalderon, Sympathy in Perception, Chapter 2: Sympathy

Contacts: Tom Crowther (T.Crowther@warwick.ac.uk) and Guy Longworth (G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk).

Guest Speaker: Monisha Pasupathi (Psychology, University of Utah)

Mark Eli Kalderon, Sympathy in Perception, Chapter 3: Sound

Contacts: Tom Crowther (T.Crowther@warwick.ac.uk) and Guy Longworth (G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk).

Workshop on Stephen Houlgate's Hegel on Being (Bloomsbury, 2021)

 Comments from Elena Ficara (Paderborn) and Robert Stern (Sheffield)

Reply from Stephen Houlgate (糖心TV)

Mark Eli Kalderon, Sympathy in Perception, Chapter 4: Sources

Contacts: Tom Crowther (T.Crowther@warwick.ac.uk) and Guy Longworth (G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk).

Guest Speaker: Carl Craver (Philosophy/Psychology, St Louis, Washington)

Speaker: (Oxford)

 Talk: The Dialectics Rule: Chinese Philosophy As Seen From *Mìng xùn

 Abstract: This paper looks at the way a philosophical argument is developed in a recently obtained, fourth century manuscript text from the Tsinghua collection of Chǔ Warring States texts, titled *Mìng xùn. The text has a close counterpart in the received tradition (Yì Zhōushū), which classes it as an utterance in the tradition of Shū (Documents), one of the core classics. I analyse the strategies with which meaning is produced in *Mìng xùn and suggest that the text is articulated in a dialectic manner in which the philosophical premise seeks to test itself continuously to avoid becoming doctrine, and thus philosophically void. My choice of a Shū text as an example of philosophically relevant meaning construction in early China challenges current methodology, which anachronistically considers 锄ǐ-type literature (the Masters) as a disciplinary equivalent to Philosophy in ancient Greece. I argue that since philosophically relevant activities are a non-disciplinary praxis in early China, the articulations of this praxis are also not genre specific but found across the foundational literary texts of China.

Sailee Khurjekar will present her paper Defining Obscenity: Awkward Art and Perverse Pleasures.

 Abstract:

The idea of the obscene is capacious, encompassing a range of emotions that pertain to one’s disgust, repugnance, shock, allure, and offense towards its objects. Obscenity refers to art, behaviour, or language that have the power to trigger or prompt these emotions. Obscenity appears to unite a claim about the qualities of an object and a range of appropriate felt responses. When we say an object is obscene, we tend to mean it has debased qualities that merit offense, repugnance, and disgust. I want to tease out the most perspicuous way to set out what makes something obscene and how it maps onto artworks. The first step of the philosophical project examines paradigm cases of obscenity to show what features are markers of the obscene; and the second step of the philosophical project examines the phenomenology of the obscene. I centre my discussion around two artworks: Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (1814) and Rick Gibson’s Foetus Earrings (1987).

 Trigger Warning: The themes and the content of the artworks that are discussed are unusual, sensitive, and often downright perverse. The material concerns bestiality, sexual violence, paedophilia, symphorophilia, and people’s attraction to the representations of these things. I have tried to handle these issues as sensitively as possible.

The first Philosophy Postgraduate Collaboration Day will be taking place in the Ramphal Building, R0.12 and R0.04, on Friday 27 May. This event has been organised to bring together all PGRs in the Department to share ideas, skills, and introduce research projects to each other. Any interested MAs can contact the organisation team to check about any available spaces.

Guest Speaker: Rachel Cristy (KCL)

Title: 'Nietzsche and William James on Scientism and Fanaticism'

Guest Speaker: Naomi Eilan (Philosophy, University of 糖心TV)

Title: “Autobiographical Memory, Ethical Identity, and Joint Reminiscing”.

Please contact Ahilleas Rokni for further information.

Raffaele Grandoni: “Vital dialogues: Georges Canguilhem on the history of science”

This week Raffaele Grandoni will present his paper 'Vital Dialogue: Georges Canguilhem on the history of science'.

Abstract:

The main feature of the post-Foucauldian historical epistemology (e.g. Hacking, A. Davidson) lies in retracing how the social, cultural and political context determines the emergence of scientific concepts and, in turn, how science plays a role in the government of populations and individuals. However, this tradition fails to provide a normative standpoint from which to judge how relations between science and non-scientific activities affects our lives. A solution, I claim, can be found in one of the sources of these authors: the French philosopher and historian of life sciences Georges Canguilhem.

With my talk, I will address how in grounding it on a vitalist philosophy, Canguilhem turns the history of science into a tool for ethically evaluating political uses of scientific concepts, without introducing any normative criteria from the outside. I will show that Canguilhem’s history of science shares the main feature of post-Foucauldian historical epistemology – i.e. revealing the role of socio-political values in the formation of scientific concepts and retracing the process through which they acquired their autonomy – while also providing the tools for an inherent ethical critique concerning processes of normalisation legitimised by science. My idea is that by defining life as the living being’s unconscious creation of better ways to relate to its environment, Canguilhem developed a critical approach to all attempts (including scientific ones) to uniform human subjectivities under strict norms. From this, I claim that this vitalist background does not only enable Canguilhem’s history of science to evaluate socio-cultural-political influences on scientific concepts, but it also entrusts it with the ethical aim of opposing (from an objective standpoint and without undermining science’s validity) science-led policies that constrain human beings’ capacity to autonomously create their own norms.

Final Programme to follow shortly

Mark Eli Kalderon, Sympathy in Perception, Chapter 5: Vision

Contacts: Tom Crowther (T.Crowther@warwick.ac.uk) and Guy Longworth (G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk).

Guest Speaker: Rachael Wiseman (Liverpool)

Title: TBC

Panellists:

Vera Okojie (FinTech Analyst at Visa / Founder of Career Confident)

Hodo Hassan (Policy Advisor in the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs)

Boaz Adelekan (Teacher at Whitley Academic / Spoken Word Artist)

Shore Delano (Digital Project Manager at Magnum Photos)

Chaired by Jude Folorunso (President of 糖心TV Philosophy Black Voices Network)

Details:

16.30-18.00

Thursday 16^th June

S0.21 (Social Sciences)

Followed by drinks reception and networking. Everyone is welcome!

This event is brought to you by the with the generous support of 糖心TV Enterprise and the Innovation 2022 campaign.

This week Ke Xia will present her paper ' Dependence, self-sufficiency, and solidarity: Rethinking Rousseau’s critique of the division of labour'.

Abstract:

In the Second Discourse, Rousseau views the emergence of the division of labour as a decisive moment in human history that puts an end to the equal and free natural state. Before Marx, Rousseau is regarded as one of the most famous critics of the division of labour for increasing economic inequality and creating interpersonal dependence. This paper tries to provide a novel reading of Rousseau’s understanding of the division of labour. I argue that Rousseau’s criticism of the modern way of living does not prevent him from endorsing the division of labour as a necessary institution in modern society. The division of labour is necessary both in the private realm and public realm of a Rousseauian state. A well-running society requires a sense of solidarity and codependence generated through the division of labour which links each citizen together.

Mark Eli Kalderon, Sympathy in Perception, Chapter 5: Vision

Contacts: Tom Crowther (T.Crowther@warwick.ac.uk) and Guy Longworth (G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk).

Details to be confirmed.

Chris Earley, 'Adrian Piper's Epistemic Activism'.

 Abstract

Political art often engages in epistemic activism, attempting to change its audiences’ cognitive standing on a topic of political import. In this presentation, I will focus on one instance of epistemic activism in art: Adrian Piper’s installationFour Intruders plus Alarm Systems (1980). Piper’s work is both an exemplary work of epistemic activism, but also reveals the tensions between the epistemic exceptions artists experiment with and the normative demands placed on productive political activity. In Piper’s case, this tension led to an inability to change some of her audience’s cognitive standing. I propose two ways to respond to such tension: conciliation, which proposes that activist artists have distinct reasons to fit their work to their audience’s normative expectations, and steadfastness, which proposes that activist artists have distinct reasons to challenge and provoke their audiences, even if they open themselves up to failure. I claim that steadfastness better captures political art’s humility regarding success and allows us to more clearly account for the riskiness that is necessary for productive experimentation in political life.

Summer term 2022: Publications and Applications

2.00 Writing articles

2.45 How to get articles published

3.30 tea/coffee

4.00 Applications for postdocs: teaching statements, job talks, interviews

5.00 End (drinks at the Dirty Duck)

This week Michi Nanayakkara will present her paper 'Colonial Regimes of Truth: Idealising and Assimilating to the Coloniser’s world'.

 Abstract:

Physical violence, imperialism (epistemic domination), economical exploitation, slavery, and racial discrimination are among the many devasting events comprising Colonisation. Despite these horrific tragedies, colonisation can have the effect of creating a peculiar relationship between the coloniser and the colonised in postcolonial worlds; wherein the colonised subject begins to idealise their coloniser and desire assimilation into the coloniser’s world. This peculiarity can be elucidated in reference to Foucault’s Regimes of Truth which capture the phenomenon where subjects of power relations exhibit the ‘truth’ of those powers through their subjectivity.

To explain how we arrive at a situation like a Colonial Regime of Truth, I will be critically engaging with Berlin’s contentious evaluations of ‘Positive liberty’ which, according to Berlin, arises namely from Rousseau’s attempt to reconcile the absolute value of personal freedom with authorities (although Berlin also says that positive liberty is perhaps the oldest conception of freedom in Western Philosophy). By moreover using Charles Mills’ Racial Contract to construct a postcolonial critique of positive liberty, I will argue that it is internally consistent for a positive theorist to justify acts of imperialism in the name of freedom. Furthermore, by referring to past and present case studies of imperialism, I hope to convey the illiberalism underwriting positive liberty which is used to create and justify Colonial Regimes of Truth. In other words, I hope to explain how we get to Foucault without the Foucauldian terminology (ideal for those who dislike Foucault for whatever (wrong) reason ?)

Saturday July 2 

 9.30am Welcome 

 10am–11.30am ‘On the Homeric Roots of Intentionality’, Mark Kalderon (UCL) 

 11.30am–12noon Coffee 

 12noon–1.30pm ‘Partiality and perception’, Giulia Martina (Turin) 

 1.30pm–2.30pm Lunch 

 2.30pm–4pm ‘Aristotle on having reason strictly speaking’, Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi  (UCL) 

 4pm–4.30pm Coffee 

 4.30pm–6pm Title TBC, Charles Travis (Porto) 

 Sunday July 3 

 9.30am Welcome 

 10am–11.30am ‘碍补濒诲别谤辞苍’蝉 Puzzle Solved’, Vivian Mizrahi (Geneva) 

 11.30–12noon Coffee 

 12noon–1.30pm Title TBC, Thomas Crowther (糖心TV) 

 1.30pm–2.30pm Lunch 

 2.30pm–4pm Title TBC, M. G. F. Martin (Oxford/Berkeley) 

The work of Mark Eli Kalderon

Mark Eli Kalderon is professor of philosophy at UCL and former editor of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. While his most recent research has been focused on the metaphysics of sense and sensibilia, it draws upon – and has implications for – a breadth of philosophical approaches and topics, not least due to, for example, Prof 碍补濒诲别谤辞苍’蝉 own interest in ancient and scholastic theories of perception. His books include Sympathy in Perception, Form without Matter: Empedocles and Aristotle on Color Perception, and Moral Fictionalism.?

In Prof 碍补濒诲别谤辞苍’蝉 Sympathy in Perception, insights from ancient, phenomenological, analytic, and empirical sources are woven together into a rich and ambitious elaboration and defence of a na?ve realist theory of perception. Kalderon develops the view by revisiting and transforming explanatory concepts from the pre-modern era, aiming to ‘contribute to, if not indeed effect, a Kuhnian revolution’ in philosophy of perception.

 Registration

We intend to hold the conference in-person at the University of 糖心TV, but places are limited. If you would like to attend, we ask that you email the organisers – Guy Longworth and Jack Shardlow – at wma.philosophy.events@gmail.com to register, simply using ‘Kalderon attendance’ as the subject of the email. Since there are limited places, we will be operating on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis, so please do register your interest right away.

Details to be confirmed.

10:00: Welcome from Head of Department (Guy Longworth)

10:10: Messages from DSEP (Karen Simecek)

10:20: Messages from the Office (Victoria Haicox)

10:35: Careers (Stephanie Redding)

10:45: Library (Christine Bradford)

10:55: Break

11:00: SU and student voice (SU)

11:15-11:20: Black Voices Network (Jude Folorunso) / MAP

11:20-11:50: Phil Soc and Q&A (Kenneth Quek and Phil Soc)

This year, PhilSoc would like to use the to try to expand the canon. Here’s a message from PhilSoc’s Academic Officer, Matt Munnelly:

 “In hopes to switch up the philosophers in the balloon in the fresher's week Balloon Debate in 2022/23, this is an invitation to staff to suggest philosophers that they have some knowledge of, or would be happy to look into in the weeks leading up to the debate, and to then represent them in the debate. These philosophers would ideally be ones that are not typically mentioned in the 'great names' of philosophers in the western canon, but that do feature in modules available in the department if possible. That is, we would like the balloon to be occupied not by the likes of Bertrand Russell, Spinoza or Plato, but rather people's whose impact has typically been overlooked, e.g., Hèlo?se, Avicenna or Lorde.”

Programme

10.00-11.00 Ke Xia "Rousseau's Paradox of Property"

Response: Ben Ferguson

11.00-11.30 Coffee Break

11.30-12.30 Chris Earley "Political Art, Artistic Exceptionalism, and Humility"

Response: Karen Simecek

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-2.30 Brigid Evans "Sexual Scripts: innocence, deviance, and oppression"

Response: Sameer Bajaj

2.30-3.00 Coffee Break

3.00-4.00 Oscar North-Concur "What is the point of objectivity in ethics?"

Response: Johannes Roessler

Guest Speaker: Max Khan Hayward (Sheffield)

Join renowned learning and development specialist, Nick Shackleton-Jones, as he explains the importance of delivering a ‘Return on Experience’ through onboarding and training programmes. How to design learning that makes a difference

Workplace culture has changed. The shift toward hybrid working has seen a major shift in how employers engage with their team, from the onboarding process right through to learning and development programmes. On top of this, recent research by PwC suggests that 20% of UK workers expect to leave their current job for a new employer in the next 12 months.

This has resulted in a need for businesses to reset their thinking, designing workplace programmes – and therefore cultures – to focus on experiences. While this is a big challenge facing most organisations, it also serves as an opportunity for learning & development departments. How can programmes change to meet the current needs of today’s workforce? And what role should learning & development play?

In this exclusive event, renowned learning & development specialist, Nick Shackleton-Jones, helps to explain the importance of ‘Return on Experience’ when designing training and onboarding programmes.

In this 50-minute event, Nick Shackleton-Jones will explain:

· Why we struggle to see a return on expectations

· A new model of learning

· Human-centred learning design

· Examples of award-winning onboarding work

Nick Shackleton-Jones has an MA in Philosophy from the University of 糖心TV and is the CEO and Founder of Shackleton Consulting. Offering leading thinking and proven expertise, Nick has helped organisations measurably improve the performance and experience of their employees through a revolutionary approach to L&D. Those attending in-person will also have the opportunity to take part in an intimate Q&A session.

 Timings (In-Person)

12.00 – Arrivals and Networking

13.00 – Event takes place

14.00 – Q&A with Coffee and Cake

/services/conferences/external-events/creating-winning-culture/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=linkedin_event_page&utm_campaign=winning_culture_event

Thursday 6 October 2022:

10-10.15am General Introduction

10.15-11.45am Kristina Musholt (Leipzig)

11.45-12pm Coffee and Tea break

12-1.30pm Agnès Baehni (Geneva)

1.30-2.30pm Lunch

2.30-4pm Oscar North-Concar (糖心TV)

4-4.15pm Coffee and Tea break

4.15-5.45pm Fabrice Teroni (Geneva)

5.45-7.30pm Pre-Dinner drinks

7.30pm Dinner

Friday 7 October 2022:

10-11.30am Naomi Eilan (糖心TV)

11.30-11.45am Coffee and Tea break

11.45am-1.15pm Jasmin ?zel (Leipzig)

1.15-2.30pm Lunch, general discussion about future direction of collaboration, and good byes.

11.30–12.30: Welcome to Philosophy 1 (OC0.03)

12.45–13.30: Philosophy Taster Lecture (OC0.03)

13.45–14.30: Drop In 1 (Philosophy Department)

14.45–15.45: Welcome to Philosophy 2 (FAB0.03)

16.00–16.45: Drop In 2 (Philosophy Department)

Guest Speaker: Christina Easton (糖心TV)

Panelists Eileen John, Nick Lawrence, and Emma Williams (糖心TV), with comments by Professor Zumhagen-Yekplé (who will join us on Teams)

The first Colloquium will take place at 4:15-6:00pm, Wednesday 12 October in S0.17. The meeting will be in-person, with an online option for those who can't be on campus Note the slightly adjusted start time of 4.15pm for the first Colloquium.

 Speakers: Susana Monsó (UNED) & Eze Paez (Pompeu Fabra)

 Talk: Why death still harms animals who only half get it: Ethical implications of the minimal concept of death (w/ Eze Paez)

 Abstract: In a series of recent works (Monsó 2021; 2022; Monsó & Osuna-Mascaró 2021), I have defended the idea that the concept of death is not circumscribed to the human species, but rather that many animals can understand death, at least to some extent. The core of my argument is the idea that the ‘minimal concept of death’ (‘MCoD’) requires little cognitive complexity and that the cognition required for it is fairly common in the animal kingdom. However, the MCoD refers to the capacity that an animal has to understand what has happened when another has died, but does not indicate that the animal has any notion of her own personal mortality. As such, it is not immediately obvious what ethical implications follow from it. Indeed, accounts of the prudential badness of death that make it dependent on an individual’s concept of death hinge on the ethical importance of having an awareness of one’s own future death (e.g., Cigman 1981; Belshaw 2012, 2015; Rollin 2015), so the presence of an MCoD in animals might not alter the extent to which death is thought to directly harm animals.

In this talk (developed together with Eze Paez), I will show that, contrary to this first impression, the deintellectualised account of the concept of death that I have defended does modify how we ought to think about the badness of death for animals, even in those cases in which animals do not develop a notion of death as something that will inevitably befall them. I will develop this argument in three steps. First, I will summarise my theory regarding the distribution of the MCoD in nature. Second, I will give an overview of different accounts of the badness of death and how they relate to individuals’ understanding of death. Lastly, I will show how the truth of my analysis would entail that, even on the most stringent and demanding accounts, death harms many more animals than is often presupposed.

Guest Speaker: Lewis Ross (LSE)

Guest Speaker: Mark Kelly (Western Sydney University)

Title: 'We Voluntary Victorians: Foucault's History of Sexuality Volume 1 Revisited'

Kirk Surgener leading on Alex Miller

Speaker: Michi Nanayakkara (MA Continental Philosophy)

Title: The Status of Systematic & Metaphysical Ideas in Modernity 

 Abstract:

Following the influence of Nietzsche, Marx and much of 20^th-century Continental philosophy, some say that the 21st century will go down in history as a sceptical and/or critical one (Ferrara, 1995). One could argue that the most important transformation undergone by Philosophy is the discovery of the Contextuality of knowledge. Although this might not affect all disciplines of Philosophy in the same way, the fields of Social, Political and Moral philosophy are arguably most affected. In this seminar session I’d like to consider some of the objections posed by Isiah Berlin to Political Philosophy as a discipline. Berlin asks us to rethink the way we do Political Philosophy and separate it from other forms of philosophical inquiry – especially from Moral Philosophy (1969). Simply put, Political Philosophy shouldn’t be ‘applied’ Moral Philosophy. I will discuss some of the reasons for this by critiquing ‘New Universalism’ (attempts to evaluate Universals in the light of irreducible plurality)

Moreover, I’ll discuss the status of Systematic & Metaphysical ideas that undercut the contemporary Decolonial project. What is perhaps most troubling is how these metaphysical Theses/Ideas can have socio-political and normative implications, but political critiques that target this sinister side are often dismissed. This is a problem Berlin takes on by referencing the German Poet Heine’s warnings to the French people; Do not underestimate the Power of Ideas; “When this great metaphysical rage explodes over the world, the French revolution will seem to be mere child’s play…the power of philosophical or metaphysical ideas is very great” (1969; 1976). By adopting the method Nietzsche uses to critique Western-Idealist Philosophy, I’ll attempt to pose two main objections that target Western metaphysics itself (at least I hope to do so). In turn, I’ll attempt to make the case that it is very probable that Imperialism is not a moral problem for Western-moral philosophy given its monistic and timeless presuppositions of ‘Truth’.

Programme

3.00pm  Planning your MA [for MA students]

 3.30  Literature search skills and tools (Christine Bradford, Academic Support Librarian)

 [for everyone]

 4.00 Tea/coffee

4.15 Applying for PhD programmes and scholarships (Matt Nudds, Director of Graduate Studies)

 [for anyone interested]

 4.45 Planning your PhD [for PhD students]

 5.15 end/Dirty Duck

This Friday (21 October) at 3pm Professor Robin Wang (Loyola Marymount University) will present the paper “Why Yinyang 阴阳? A Philosophical Reflection”.

Abstract:

The concept of yinyang lies at the heart of Chinese thought and culture for thousands years. The relationship between these two opposing, yet mutually dependent, forces is symbolized in the familiar black and white symbol that has become an icon in popular culture across the world. The real and genuine significance of yinyang is, however, more complex and subtle. This talk will start with the questions: does yinyang offer an alternative for reality/thinking? Can we move from struggle with problems to flow with opportunities? It will discuss six types of yinyang relationship to show a complex, multidimensional framework to explore the variety of human mind and a greater dimension of spatial and temporal reality or entanglement.

 To register click . For the full programme, click here

11.30–12.30: Welcome to Philosophy 1 (OC0.03)

12.45–13.30: Philosophy Taster Lecture (OC0.03)

13.45–14.30: Drop In 1 (Philosophy Department)

14.45–15.45: Welcome to Philosophy 2 (FAB0.03)

16.00–16.45: Drop In 2 (Philosophy Department)

Guest Speaker: Joshua Kelsall (糖心TV)

Elaborating decolonial and intersectional methods, aesthetics has developed rich tools for tackling power differences. How to comprehend the cultural field if it is at once a site of heinous expropriation and violence and one of vital social and political possibility? This essay explores this question through Claudia Llosa’s film The Milk of Sorrow (La teta asustada) (2009). The film, I indicate, reworks racial, gendered, and colonial logics and supplants a model of transculturation, magical realism, and syncretism by a cultural vision of a web of multivalent, pluri-directional aesthetic promises and threats. Thus it presents a young indigenous woman as a contemporary decolonial actor who renders memory livable and opens up unforeseen futures for her shantytown and country. I signal the implications for the positioning of the decolonial feminist spectator or culture maker and for the notion of a decolonial aesthetics. Aesthetic existence at the intersection of oppression and liberation, although tremendously impure and troubled, functions as a bountiful font of feminist energy and sustenance and a site of communal caring and imagination.

Ben Campion (PhD)

Title: “The New Theory of Photography and the Dilemma of Videogame Imagery”

 Abstract:

Indicative of a growing interest among artists and theorists in the relationship between photography and videogames, a recent major exhibition at The Photographer’s Gallery, London, includes works which are produced utilising videogame graphics. The production of these images by photographers and their display in a gallery dedicated to photography raises a pertinent question: are these images photographic images? In this talk, I will argue that this question poses a dilemma to a group of contemporary philosophical views on photography called the ‘new theory’. One of the goals of new theory is to provide a theoretical basis for accepting a greater amount of work by photographers as photography than previous theories had allowed. I will suggest that considering videogame images a form of photography threatens this goal, as one can either accept that they are photographs—a claim which I argue threatens the theoretical foundations of new theory—or deny that they are photographs, thereby threatening new theory’s ability to account for photographic practice.

Guest Speaker: Giorgia Brucato (CEU)

The speaker is Tobias Keiling - join us to celebrate Tobias’ inaugural talk at 糖心TV!

Talk: Gadamer on Openness as Epistemic Virtue

Abstract: This paper presents the discussion of open-mindedness in recent virtue epistemology to argue that it can be supplemented by a hermeneutical model. After introducing basic distinctions, I sketch the account of open-mindedness found in the work of Jason Baehr (2011) and Wayne Riggs (2010, 2015). I then zoom in on two problems in the recent debate: how to determine when open-mindedness is epistemically beneficial and how to construe its epistemic value. While Adam Carter and Emma Gordon (2014) argue that these problems are insurmountable for Baehr and Riggs, I outline the idea that their account can be modified in such a way as to avoid these problems. Specifically, Gadamer’s discussion of the structure of prejudice and the importance of openness for understanding in Truth and Method (1960) can be developed as an alternative hermeneutical model for understanding open-mindedness. The key idea is that the circular structure Carter and Gordon find at work in Baehr’s attempt to define open-mindedness represents a version of the hermeneutical circle rather than an infinite regress.

The Colloquium will be in-person, with an online option for those who can't be on campus. Please contact Andrew Cooper to receive the Link.

Speaker: (Oxford)

Talk: Dialectics in Chinese Philosophy As Seen From *Mìng xùn

Abstract: In this paper I shall look at the structure of dialectical argument in early China by reference to a recently obtained, fourth century manuscript text, titled *Mìng xùn. The text has a close counterpart in the received text Yì Zhōushū (Leftover Documents of Zhou). It is therefore generally understood as belonging the tradition of Shū (Documents), one of the core foundational classics of early China. I analyse the strategies bysq which meaning is produced in *Mìng xùn and suggest that the text develops the argument in a dialectic manner. In it, the philosophical premise seeks to test itself continuously to avoid becoming doctrine, and thus philosophically void. My choice of a Shū (Documents) text as an example of philosophically relevant meaning construction in early China challenges current methodology, which anachronistically considers 锄ǐ-type literature (the Masters) as a disciplinary equivalent to Philosophy in ancient Greece. I argue that since philosophically relevant activities are a non-disciplinary praxis in early China, the articulations of this praxis are also not genre specific but found across the foundational literary texts of China.

Emily Bassett leading on Horgan and Timmons

This week’s speaker will be Johan Heemskerk (PhD)

Title: is "Gloss or Theory? A Worry for Science Based Theories of Content".

 Abstract:

Many philosophers working on mental content pursue a particular methodology. This involves consulting cognitive science literature and attempting to extract a naturalistic theory of mental content. Such a theory should allow us to specify, for any given representation, how its content is determined. There is a sense, as Tyler Burge puts it, that cognitive science has discovered "without being fully aware of its own accomplishment" (Burge, 2010) an implicit theory of content determination. It is the job of the philosopher to make the implicit theory explicit, maybe with some details filled in. In this paper I attempt to motivate a worry for the philosopher inclined to follow such a methodology. Using an argument from Frances Egan, I raise the concern that cognitive scientists do not have an implicit theory of content. Rather, they assign content based on purely heuristic concerns, for instance a concern for communicating the theory to the reader. Content would then be a "gloss", without theoretical underpinnings. I do not attempt to answer this concern, but I do explore some ways we might begin to respond.

3.00pm  Writing MA or MPhil essays (Tom Crowther)

3.45  Writing a research proposal for a PhD/scholarship application (Johannes Roessler)

4.15 Tea/coffee

4.30 Writing an MPhil or PhD thesis (Johannes Roessler)

5.15 end/Dirty Duck

Speaker: Bruna Picas-I-Prats (PhD)

Title: Title: Architectonic Systematics and Cartographic Systematics: Kant and Hegel on Meta-systematic Accounts

Thursday 10 November 2022

5pm in S2.77 and on MS Teams

Abstract:

There is an open discussion on whether there is a concern for systematicity in Kantian philosophy and whether Kant intended to build up a system of philosophy. There is an approach in this discussion that highlights that two different possibilities for systematic organization can be found in the Critique of Pure Reason (KrV). On the one hand, an architectonic notion of ordination (AS) corresponds to the notion of systems developed in the Architectonic of Pure Reason. In it, by system, Kant understands the unity of the manifold cognitions under one idea. The type of relationship that the idea provides is a linkage of articulatio, in the function of which each part hangs together in an inner mutual bearing. The metaphor that Kant deploys to illustrate this notion is an analogy of a living organism, whose growth and development do not depend on adding parts according to quantitative criteria, but with a view to improving the functions of its parts in relation to the whole (See, KrV, A832/B61). On the other hand, a cartographic notion of system (CS) can also be found in the First Critique, represented by the image of a map, the function of which is to order a diversity of places and regions of space to allow us to orient ourselves in them. Hence, CS is formed by a horizontal juxtaposition of parts which allows qualitatively differentiated zones (seas, continents, islands, etc.) to be gathered, and at the same time the “heterogeneity” with respect to their possible foundation to be maintained. Taking these two notions of system into account, the aim here is to try to state that they both coexist in Hegel’s systematicity and that this coexistence is structured by dialectical progression and speculative awareness. 

Guest Speaker: Chris Fraser (University of Toronto)

Title: The Xunzian Critique of Legalism and its Contemporary Significance

Guest Speaker: Paula Casal (UPF)

Guest Speaker: Maudemarie Clark (University of California, Riverside)

Title: 'Does Nietzsche Overcome The Birth of Tragedy's Nihilistic View of Tragedy in His Later Work?'

Abstract: Our topic is the relationship between the account of tragedy we find in Nietzsche’s first book and his later view of that artistic genre. Aaron Ridley has argued powerfully that Nietzsche’s later view does not overcome the problems that afflict his earlier account. We agree completely with Ridley and we [Clark] have previously argued that Nietzsche’s original account of tragedy is a failure, that it fails to do what he was attempting to do. But we will argue contra Ridley that Nietzsche does overcome his early (and nihilistic) view of tragedy in his later work. The plan is to explain what we take to be the aim of The Birth of Tragedy and why we take it to be a failure. We will then look at Ridley’s argument for reading Nietzsche’s later view of tragedy in Twilight of the Idols as exhibiting the same failure, and explain our reasons for rejecting that account. These reasons will then lead us, indeed force us, to say something about Nietzsche’s later view of art more generally. 

 The session will be held online.

Oscar North-Concar leading, paper TBD

Speaker: Toby Tricks (MPhil)

Title: Modelling the Mind: A Fictionalist Reading of Nietzsche’s Drive Psychology

 Abstract:

Nietzche’s account of the drives is increasingly being recognised as central to his philosophical psychology; it is a problem, then, that it appears confused. A particularly prominent issue concerns Nietzsche’s characterisation of how the drives interact with one another: he often uses agential language which many take to commit him to the homunculus fallacy. I argue that this view is mistaken, because Nietzsche’s agential characterisations of the drives are fictions: as they aren’t meant to be true, he is able to sidestep fallacious homuncularism. We might worry that if many of the claims in Nietzsche’s drive psychology are fictional, then it can’t teach us much. That need not be the case, however: drawing on Catherine Elgin’s work in the epistemology of science, I argue that despite being fictional, Nietzsche’s account of the drives can still provide epistemic value and facilitate genuine cognitive achievement, in just the same way that scientific models do despite being idealised and distorted representations of reality. Acknowledging the fictional nature of much of Nietzsche’s drive talk I’ll further argue has an added bonus: it allows us to more fully appreciate the subtlety and power of his account of human psychology.

Talks by Peter Boxall, Joshua Landy, Patrick Bray and Jeremiah Tillman.

Saturday, 19. November

10:00-10:25 Welcome coffee

10:25-10:30 Short Introduction

10:30-11:45 First Session

Asia Chatchaya Sakchatchawan (UCL): Towards a Wrong Face Theory of Shame

Response by Thomas Crowther

15 min Coffee Break

12:00-13:15 Second Session

Lucas Chebib (UCL): Guilt as a Shame Shaped Thing

Response by Johannes Roessler

1 h Lunch

14:15-15:30 Third Session (Keynote)

Lucy O’Brien (UCL): An Introspective Argument for Others’ Minds

Response by Emily Bassett

15 min Coffee Break

15:45-17:00 Fourth Session

Simone Nota (Trinity College Dublin): Overcoming the Absolute: A Dialectical Critique of the Absolute Conception

Response by Naomi Eilan

17:00-18:00 Reception

18:30 Dinner at Radcliffe

Sunday, 20. November

09:30-10:45 First Session

Christopher Joseph An (Edinburgh): Rational Animals? Mammalian Social Play, Second-personal Knowledge, and the Evolution of Normative Guidance

Response by Richard Moore

5 min Short Break

10:50-11:30 Q&A with Mind co-editors Lucy O’Brien and Adrian Moore on submitting papers to journals

15 min Coffee Break

11:45-13:00 Second Session (Keynote)

Adrian Moore (Oxford): Armchair Knowledge: Some Kantian Reflections

Response by Ben Houlton

1 h Lunch

14:00-15:15 Third Session

Zijian Zhu (Oxford): The Modality and Temporality of Anscombean Practical Knowledge

Response by Lucy Campbell

15 min Coffee Break

15:30-16:45 Fourth Session

Oushinar Nath (UCL): Wisdom and KK Failure

Response by Barney Walker

End of the conference

Guest Speaker: Zofia Stemplowska (Oxford)

Roundtable discussion of the Radical Landscapes Exhibition at the Mead Gallery (opens 7 October). Commentators: David Bather Woods, Diarmuid Costello, Chris Earley, Nadine Elzein, Nick Lawrence, Danielle Stewart

Guest Speaker: Béatrice Longuenesse (NYU)

Talk: 'Conflicting logics of the mind: Lessons from Kant and Freud.’

Professor Longuenesse is visiting the Department while giving the in Oxford. Her talk at 糖心TV will be the first lecture from the series.

TBC

Guest Speaker: Helen Frowe (Stockholm)

Guest Speaker: Charlotte Knowles (University of Groningen)

Title: 'How to Dress Like a Feminist: Towards a Relational Account of Complicity'

Sara Gorea leading, paper TBD

Speaker: Maria Zanella (second-year PhD student)

 Title: Is visualising imagining seeing?

 Abstract: 

Is visualising imagining seeing? Mike Martin thinks so, Bernard Williams thinks not. In ‘The Transparency of Experience’, Martin criticizes Williams’ argument, but his criticism is based on a misreading of Williams’ ‘Imagination and the Self’, as I shall show. The dispute between Martin and Williams is about whether imagining seeing something is necessary in order to imagine what it would look like were it to be seen from a point of view. I, like Williams, think that it is not; I shall present my reasons for thinking so and my reasons for thinking that the extant arguments for the necessity are weak.

Guest Speaker: Jonathan Parry (LSE)

Professor Quassim Cassim will be delivering the 2022 Philosophy Christmas lecture entitled ' Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis' with responses from our students. Drinks and nibbles included.

Speaker: Achim Wamssler (PhD)

Title: Arbitrariness, Freedom of the will and Contingency in Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Everyone Welcome!

 Abstract: In the Elements of the Philosophy of Right Hegel discusses the concept of arbitrariness (freedom of choice) as part of his more general endeavour to develop a conception of will and freedom. In several passages he speaks of arbitrariness as being contingent. Being interested in Hegel’s concept of contingency I like to address the following points. (1) What exactly is arbitrariness for Hegel and how does this concept depict his understanding of the debate about free will and freedom of choice? (2) Hegel’s criticism of the concept of arbitrariness and of the debate concerning the possibility of freedom of choice. (3) His affirmation of certain points of the conception. (4) And finally, I like to address the question, in which way, for Hegel, arbitrariness is related to contingency.

Guest Speaker: Sarah Flavel (Bath Spa University)

Title: Daoism and Strategic Thinking

Second Annual Secret Santa Book Exchange: The Philosophy & Literature Society book exchange and end-of-term celebration.

Guest Speaker: Anca Gheaus (LEU)

This week's PG WiP seminar will be led by Giulia Lorenzi (PhD).

Title: "Understanding Musical Virtuosity to Understand the Perception of Music"

Everyone welcome!

 Abstract:

In the realm of auditory perception, philosophers have considered the perception of music as a distinctive case, differentiating it from the perception of noises and everyday life sounds. In order to explain the uniqueness of perceiving music, Scruton (1997) has proposed what he called the acousmatic view, namely the idea that when we experience sounds in the musical context we do so divorcing them from their sources and circumstances of production. This clearly contrasts with the standard view of perception as the source of information about the external world which should characterise, in Scruton’s account, the perception of ordinary sounds. Hamilton (2007, 2009), however, has proposed that both the acousmatic and the non-acousmatic experience of music are aesthetically relevant, constructing as a consequence a two-fold theory which embraces both.  

In order to argue for an account that could combine both acousmatic and non-acousmatic experience tough, Hamilton has the burden of proving how the non-acousmatic experience (the one implying thoughts and awareness of the origins of sounds) can be relevant in the musical context. In order to do that, he presents four objects to Scruton’s account which consider the acousmatic experience as the only essential way to engage with musical sounds. 

In this talk, I am going to focus on Hamilton’s objection on the perception of virtuosity with the intention to support and strength is idea that a non-acousmatic experience of music is both possible and relevant for aesthetic appreciation. In order to do so, I am going to look to accounts of virtuosity present in the literature, sketch a new possible way to go and show how the nature of this aesthetic phenomenon in itself, however understood, requires a non-acousmatic experience in order to be perceived as this phenomenon.

Guest Speaker: Andrea Sangiovanni (KCL)

Imagination: 'Of the Powers of Imagination' by Montaigne

/fac/soc/philosophy/research/researchcentres/wma/graduates/afflictionsofmind/

Guest Speaker: Robert Simpson (UCL)

Speaker: (UCL)

Talk: The Chilling Effect and the Heating Effect

 Abstract: Chilling Effects occur when a restriction on speech deters lawful speech, because of people’s uncertainty about the risks of incurring costs related to the restriction. I propose that, contrary to an orthodox account of this phenomenon, individual-level deterrence of speech sometimes intensifies discourse, at the group-level, rather than suppressing or subduing it. The deterrence of lawful speech may, somewhat counterintuitively, trigger a Heating Effect. This hypothesis offers us a promising (partial) explanation of the relentlessness of public debate on topics for which there is, simultaneously, evidence of people self-censoring, for fear of running afoul of speech restrictions. It also helps to identify and rectify two shortcomings in existing theoretical accounts of the Chilling Effect – in how they (i) explain the relation between individual- and group-level discursive phenomena, and (ii) characterize the distinctive objectionability of inadvertent speech deterrence.

TBD

This week's PG WiP Seminar will be led by Will Gildea.

Title: "Humans and Animals: Identical Moral Status, Different Anti-Killing Rights"

Abstract:

Existing views of moral status and the rights not to be killed that they help to ground are inadequate for one of two reasons. Either they fail to accommodate the intuition that humans matter as much as each other regardless of whether they possess advanced psychological capacities, or they fail to imply that killing humans is always or almost always harder to justify than killing animals. I offer an account of moral status and anti-killing rights that, uniquely within the actualist literature, accommodates both intuitions, explaining why humans are equals and also why humans have more robust anti-killing rights than animals. I defend the egalitarian intuition about moral status by arguing that all humans and animals that matter at all matter equally. I defend the intuition about killing by offering a new account of the grounds of anti-killing rights, according to which an individual’s rights not to be killed don’t just stem from their moral status. They can also stem from some of their normal rights against interference and to the receipt of goods. Autonomous humans have special rights of non-interference. And deeply cognitively impaired humans have special rights to certain goods. So, whilst killing animals generally violates their rights, human lives are protected even more robustly against killing.

Guest Speaker: Jingjing Li (Leiden University)

Title: Husserlian Phenomenology, Chinese Buddhism, and The Problem of Essence

Guest Speaker: Charlie Richards (Oxford)