The philosophical traditions of India offer contemporary researchers an unparalleled and mostly untapped resource for fresh thinking about attention, its relations to mind and world. From Nyāya manas-theory to the extensive Buddhist theories about attention’s relationship with consciousness, and from precise taxonomies of the varieties of attention to discussions about the norms governing attention, epistemic, moral, and practical, the wealth and sophistication of Indian analysis is astounding. Our workshop will look at the ways in which Indian, including Buddhist, philosophical theory can enrich contemporary discussion, and there will be presentations by a world-class panel of speakers.
We hope too that this workshop will serve as a catalyst to Indian philosophical studies in the New York area. The workshop is open to everyone, free and without registration, and the program is here.
April 25, 2019|DAY 1
8:45 am – 9:00 am
Coffee & Welcome (Jonardon Ganeri NYU)
9:00 am – 10:45 am
Panel 1. Attending to Oneself
Chair: Nic Bommarito (Buffalo)
9:00 am – 9:50 am
Sharon Street (NYU, via video conferencing)
“On Recognizing Oneself in Others: A Meditation-Based Response to Mackie’s Argument from Queerness”
9:55 am – 10:45 am
Muhammad Faruque (Fordham)
“Attending to Oneself: Muḥammad Iqbāl and his Indian Contemporaries”
10:45 am – 11:00 am
Morning Break
11:00 am – 12:45 pm
Panel 2. Attention and Affect
Chair: Joerg Tuske (Salisbury)
11:00 am – 11:50am
Evan Thompson (British Columbia)
“Affect Biased Attention and Concept Formation”
11:55 am – 12:45 pm
Sonam Kachru (Virginia)
“Attention and Affect: A View from Indian Buddhist Philosophy”
12:45 pm – 2:00 pm
Lunch Break
2:00 pm – 3:45 pm
Panel 3. Decision and Exclusion
Chair: Emily McRae (New Mexico)
2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
Arindam Chakrabarti (Stonybrook)
“Deciding to Attend and the Problem of Disjunctive Attention”
2:55 pm – 3:45 pm
Catherine Prueitt (George Mason)
“At the Limits of Pain: Attention, Exclusion, and Self-Knowledge in Pratyabhijñā Śaivism.”
3:45 pm – 4:00 pm
Afternoon Break
4:00 pm – 5:45 pm
Panel 4. The Ethics of Attention
Chair: Eyal Aviv (George Washington)
4:00 pm – 4:50 pm
Curie Virag (Edinburgh)
“Attention as Cognitive Resonance”
4:55 pm – 5:45 pm
Shalini Sinha (Reading)
“The Ethics of Attention in Śāntideva and Simone Weil”
April 26, 2019|DAY 2
10:15 am – 10:30 am
Coffee
10:30 am – 12:15 pm
Panel 5. Self-Awareness and Attention
Chair: Payal Doctor (LaGuardia)
10:30 am – 11:20 am
Amit Chaturvedi (Hong Kong)
“Phenomenal Priority and Reflexive Self-Awareness: Watzl meets Yogācāra”
11:25 am – 12:15 pm
Nilanjan Das (University College London)
“Śrīharṣa on Self-knowledge and the Inner Sense”
12:15 pm – 1:30 pm
Lunch Break
1:30 pm – 3:15 pm
Panel 6. Mindfulness and Justification
Chair: Bryce Huebner (Georgetown)
1:30 pm – 2:20 pm
Georges Dreyfus (Williams)
“But What is Mindfulness? A Phenomenological Approach”
2:25 pm – 3:15 pm
Anand Vaidya (San Jose)
“Attention and Justification”
3:15 pm – 3:30 pm
Afternoon Break
3:30 pm – 5:15 pm
Panel 7. The Wandering Self
Chair: Adriana Renero (NYU)
3:30 pm – 4:20 pm
Carolyn Jennings (UC Merced)
“From Attention to Self”
4:25 pm – 5:15 pm
Zac Irving (Virginia)
“Harnessing the Wandering Mind”
Program details forthcoming.
This talk explores the reflexive nature of consciousness, which consists primarily in the fact that a state of consciousness has a reflexive relation to the subject who has that state, so that the subject can typically be aware of itself as having that state. Comparing Kant’s, Fichte’s, and selected contemporary analytic theories of this reflexivity shows that there is a crucial difference in the way the relation between form (or mode) and content of a state of consciousness is conceived. The first part examines Kant’s formal theory of consciousness: reflexivity is understood not in terms of a self-referential content resulting from a reflection on the state of the subject, but as the universal transcendental form that any content must have in order to be representationally significant and potentially conscious to the subject. The second part examines Fichte’s departure from Kant in his theory of a self-positing consciousness: in the original act of self-positing, the mere form of reflexivity is turned into a self-referential content that determines the subject as an object from the absolute standpoint of consciousness. The third part examines analytic theories that explain the reflexivity (or what is often called the subjective character) of consciousness on a model of mental indexicality. These theories tend to reduce reflexivity to an objective constituent of content that, although often implicit, can be read off from the subject’s contextual situatedness in nature. In conclusion, Kant’s theory can be understood as a moderate, human-centered kind of perspectivism that navigates between Fichtean absolute subjectivity and a naturalist absolute objectivity.
Registration is free but required. A registration link will be shared via email with our department mailing lists a few weeks before the event. Please contact Jack Mikuszewski at jhm378@nyu.edu if you did not receive a registration link.
The Philosophy Department provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be submitted to philosophy@nyu.edu at least two weeks before the event.
We are pleased to announce that the 26th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness will be held at New York University on June 22-25, 2023.
Submissions for talks and posters are now open with a deadline of February 15, 2023. Conference registration will open in early 2023.
Keynote speakers, symposia, tutorials, and housing have now been arranged, as specified below.
Please direct any inquiries to ASSC26@nyu.edu.
We hope to see you soon in New York!
Ned Block and David Chalmers, Conference Directors