Calendar

Thursday, September 29th, 2022
Christina Van Dyke (Barnard College)
Title “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes: Imaginative Meditation and Experience of Love in Medieval Contemplative Philosophy”
4:10-6:00 PM
716 Philosophy Hall

Please join us for a talk by Eric-John Russell (Universität Potsdam), who will present chapters from his recently published book, Why Everything is as it Seems: Hegel and Debord. Jacob McNulty (University College London) will provide a response followed by a Q&A with our audience.

Guy Debord has been called many things: pseudo-philosopher, nihilist, filmmaker, megalomaniac, strategist, third-rate Mephistopheles. His book The Society of the Spectacle (1967) has fallen into a similarly motley reception, frequently enveloped within the discourses of postmodernism, media and cultural studies, and avant-garde art history. My research however, dispenses with such narratives and instead offers a sustained examination of the concept of the society of the spectacle through the two pillars upon which Debord understood his own work as a critical theory of society: Marx’s critique of political economy and Hegel’s speculative philosophy. It is the latter that will be the focus of my paper, first by offering some introductory remarks on Debord’s theory of the spectacle but then arguing  that it precisely the speculative dimension of Hegel’s dialectic that remains central for Debord’s diagnosis of twentieth century capitalism, with emphasis placed on the importance of Hegel’s Wesenslogik. I will conclude with the historical significance of Debord’s “heretical Hegelianism,” specifically as an intervention within the atmosphere of the French Hegelianism of the interwar and postwar period.

15 Feb, 4pm:

James Kreines (Claremont McKenna)

From Shapeless Abyss Towards Self-Developing Thought: Taking Hegel on Spinoza Seriously

@ The New School, Room L502, at 2 W 13th Street

Guests and visitors policies at the New School can be accessed via this website. You will have to download CLEAR and upload proof of vaccination or the results of a rapid test. Please try to arrive 15 minutes earlier so we can help you in case of complications.

Feb 24:

Georg Spoo (Freiburg)

Grounds and Limits of Immanent Critique: Kant, Hegel, Marx

@ Columbia

Mar 3:

Heikki Ikaheimo

Hegel, Humanity, and Social Critique

@ Zoom

Mar 24:

Stephen Howard (KU Leuven)

Kant’s Late Philosophy of Nature: The Opus Postumum

@ Columbia

Apr 11:

Karin de Boer

Does Kant’s Antinomy of Pure Reason Amount to an A Priori History of Rational Cosmology?

@ Columbia

Apr 15, 4pm:

Eva von Redecker

Co-sponsored by the New School Graduate Student Conference

@ The New School

Apr 21:

Giulia Battistoni

NAture, Life, Organizm: The Legacy of Romanticism and Classical German Philosophy in Jonas’ Philosophical Biology

@ The New School

The Avoidance of Intimacy: A Reorientation in the Moral Philosophy of Love

Presented by Columbia University Dept. of Philosophy

The first section of the talk will give an account of the Hindu-Buddhist debate about the existence of selves.  The particular Hindu / Brāhmaṇical tradition concentrated on is Nyāya, and ‘Buddhism’ is used to refer specifically to Dharmakīrtian Buddhism with its doctrine of momentariness.  The second section looks at a Nyāya argument against Buddhism.  I will argue that it is not difficult for the Buddhist to come up with a satisfactory response.  The third section will introduce the view of Rāmakaṇṭha (950–1000 CE) and look at three of his arguments against the Buddhist view.  These I view as more difficult for the Buddhist to respond to.  The fourth section introduces the view of Galen Strawson, relates it to the Buddhist view, and considers the extent to which it is susceptible to Rāmakaṇṭha’s arguments.

With responses from Martin Lin (Rutgers University)

NOTE ON ENTRY FOR NON-COLUMBIA GUESTS: The door to Philosophy Hall will only open with a Columbia University ID card. If you do not have this card please arrive early where someone will be standing outside until the meeting begins. If you arrive late, you can ask someone walking nearby to let you in or contact Cole at cf2798@columbia.edu. Please only contact Cole as a final resource so as not to interrupt the talk.

NOTE REGARDING DONATIONS: Due to COVID-19, donations are only accepted through Columbia University’s secure online giving form, Giving to Columbia.

RSVP is required for dinner. Dinner will take place at a nearby restaurant. Please contact Cole at cf2798@columbia.edu for further information.

Comparative Philosophy Seminar:

• January 19 – Alex Watson (Ashoka University)
• February 2 – Davey Tomlinson (Villanova University)
• April 5 – Laura Specker (Fordham University)
• May 3 – Daniel Stephens (University at Buffalo)