Oct
30
Wed
CUNY Colloquium @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 9205/6
Oct 30 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

Each colloquium is held on Wednesday at 4:15 P.M. All colloquia will take place at the Graduate Center in rooms 9205/9206 except as otherwise noted. Please call (212) 817-8615 for further information.

Download an interactive PDF version of the schedule here.


September 11 • Jonathan Adler Memorial Lecture
Philip Kitcher (Columbia University)
“Progress in the Sciences—and in the Arts”

September 18 • Note: colloquium will begin at 5:45pm
Jason Stanley (Yale University)
“Hustle: The Politics of Language”

September 25 • Note: colloquium will be held in C201/C202
Noël Carroll (CUNY Graduate Center)
“Forget Taste”

October 2
Zoë Johnson King (New York University)
“Radical Internalism”

October 23
Michelle M. Dyke (New York University)
“Could Our Epistemic Reasons Be Collective Practical Reasons?”

October 30
Stephen Grover (CUNY Queens College | Graduate Center)
“The Problem of Ugliness”

November 6
Sari Kisilevsky (CUNY Queens College)
“The Ethics of Punishment in the Age of Mass Incarceration”

November 13
Taylor Carman (Columbia University)
“Heidegger’s Nietzsche”

November 20
Luvell Anderson (Syracuse University)Co-hosted by Minorities and Philosophy (MAP), CUNY GC Chapter
“Navigating Racial Satire”

November 27 • All-day Workshop for Practice Job Talks (Note: attendance limited to CUNY community)
TBD (CUNY Graduate Center)
TBD

December 4 • All-day Workshop for Practice Job Talks (Note: attendance limited to CUNY community)
TBD (CUNY Graduate Center)
TBD

December 11 • Alumni Day
Elvira Basevich (University of Massachusetts Lowell)
“Du Bois’s Theory of Justice”

 

Rutgers Lectures in Philosophy: Jeff McMahan (Oxford) @ Seminar Room at Gateway Transit Building
Oct 30 @ 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Rutgers Philosophy Department’s colloquium series typically meets on Thursdays in the Seminar Room at Gateway Transit Building, 106 Somerset Street, 5th Floor at 3:00 p.m. Please see the Department Calendar for scheduled speakers and more details.

  • 10/18  Holly Smith book launch, location TBD (Guerrero)
  • 10/18  Workshop on Meaning (Pietroski)
  • 10/19  Workshop on Meaning (Pietroski)
  • 10/24  Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) 3:00-5:00 pm
  • 10/25  Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) 9:00 am-5:30 pm
  • 10/26  Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) 9:00 am-3:00 pm
  • 10/28, 10/30, 11/01 Rutgers Lectures in Philosophy: Jeff McMahan (Oxford) 4:30-7:00 pm, Archibald S. Alexander Library, 169 College Ave, New Brunswick, NJ
  • 12/05  End of Year Reception 5:30-8:00 pm, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton St, New Brunswick, NJ
Oct
31
Thu
Empirical and Normative Truth in Democracy – Julian Nida-Rümelin (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) @ NYU Philosophy Dept. 6th flr. lounge
Oct 31 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

In public discourse, but also in political theory, the opinion prevails, that democracy is incompatible with aspirations of truth. Some assume, in the Hobbesian tradition, that civic peace requires that truth assertions be restricted to science and religion (normative positivism), whereas the political sphere is constituted by interests, bargaining and collective decisions based on interests, bargaining and rules of aggregation, be they implicit or explicit. In this perspective Collective Choice as preference aggregation is paradigmatic for the understanding of democracy. Postmodernist and neo-pragmatist thought dismisses truth, because it threatens solidarity and belonging. Libertarian political thought relies on market mechanisms reducing citizens to consumers and producers of material and immaterial goods like security and welfare. Accounts of deliberative democracy focus on reasoning in the public sphere but dismiss a realistic understanding of truth, because it is thought to threaten collective and individual self-determination.

In my talk I will argue that a realistic understanding of empirical and normative truth is compatible, even necessary, for an adequate understanding of democracy, that truth assertions do not threaten civic peace, that postmodernist relativity undermines democratic practice, that libertarian market-orientation is incompatible with the status of citizens in democracy and that even deliberative, but anti-realist, accounts of democracy do not allow for an adequate understanding of democracy. My argument is based on a Davidsonian, or pragmatist, understanding of truth, therefore one might say: it critizises normative positivism, postmodernism, libertarianism, and critical theory using pragmatist insights.

Julian Nida-Rümelin presently holds a chair for philosophy and political theory at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, was president of the German Philosophical Association (DGphil) and state-minister for culture and media in the first government of Gerhard Schröder. The topics of his books include Democracy as Cooperation (1999); Democracy and Truth (2006), translated in Chinese and Italian, Philosophy and the form of Life (2009), Realism (2018) and A Theory of Practical Reason (2020, forthcoming, de Gruyter and PUP).

 

Generous support provided by the New York Institute of Philosophy.

Freud: An Intellectual Biography. Joel Whitebook @ Wolff Conference Room, D1106
Oct 31 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Dr.Joel Whitebook, Philosopher and Psychoanalyst will discuss his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography

As Hegel observed, the “Objective Spirit” never stands still — an observation that is especially true today. As a result, members of every generation have to return to the classics and reappropriate them for themselves. This is what Joel Whitebook has done in his recently published intellectual biography of Freud (Cambridge University Press) that we will be discussing in this workshop.

Cutting through the tired clichés of the “Freud Wars,” the author presents us with a radically new portrait of the founder of psychoanalysis. Because Whitebook is a philosopher as well as a psychoanalyst, he has been able to integrate many of the profound transformations that have taken place in psychoanalytic theory and practice, infant research, gender studies, philosophy, and critical theory since Ernest Jones and Peter Gay published their canonical studies in the last century. Whitebook thereby succeeds in creating an account of Freud’s achievement that speaks to our cultural situation.

Furthermore, in addition to presenting the unfolding of Freud’s thinking in the context of the developments in his personal life and in the society at large, Whitebook has also succeeded in bringing this iconic man to life in compelling fashion.  Where Freud often tried to protect himself by hiding behind the forbidding mask of an authoritarian patriarch and unbending rationalist, we come to see him as the vulnerable, complex, and all-too-human person that he was.

Presented by The New School for Social Research and Philosophy Department and it is co-sponsored with the Ferenczi Center.

CANCELLED – Philosophy of Psychology Workshop @ NYU Philosophy Dept. rm 202
Oct 31 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Here is the tentative schedule for PoPRocks sessions this semester. We will be meeting, usually, on Thursday or Friday evenings from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm in the 2nd floor seminar room at the NYU philosophy department.

Th. 10/03 Luke Roelofs
Fr. 10/18 Josh Myers
CANCELLED Fr. 10/25 Sam Clarke
CANCELLED Th. 10/31 Simon Brown
Th. 11/14 Noga Gratvol
Fr. 11/22 Cristina Ballarini
Th. 12/12 Rodrigo Diaz

You can still sign up to present! Of course, the earlier you request, the easier it is to schedule a session.

Nov
1
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Nov 1 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

September 20: Matthias Michel
Philosophy and Laboratoire Sciences, Université Paris-Sorbonne and NYU
“Consciousness and the Prefrontal Cortex”

October 4: Ryan McElhaney
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
“Explanation and Consciousness”

October 18: Sascha Benjamin Fink
Philosophy-Neurosciences-Cognition, University of Magdeburg and NYU
“Varieties of Phenomenal Structuralism”

November 1: Jesse Atencio
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Title TBA

November 15: Frank Pupa
Philosophy, Nassau Community College
“Getting Between: Predicativism, Domain Restriction, and Binding”

December 6: Susana Martinez-Conde
Neurology and Integrative Neuroscience, Downstate Medical Center
Title TBA

https://philosophy.commons.gc.cuny.edu/cognitive-speaker-series-fall-2019/

The Network Self: Relation, Process, and Personal Identity @ Philosophy dept., Hofstra 145 Mack Student Center
Nov 1 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

This one-day symposium looks at Hofstra Professor Kathleen Wallace’s new book, The Network Self: Relation, Process, and Personal Identity (Routledge, 2019). The book offers a systematic treatment of the notion of the self as constituted by social, cultural, political, and biological relations. The event will feature Diana Meyers, University of Connecticut; Vincent Colapietro, University of Rhode Island; and Amy Shuster, Dennison University, with a response from Professor Wallace.

Rutgers Lectures in Philosophy: Jeff McMahan (Oxford) @ Seminar Room at Gateway Transit Building
Nov 1 @ 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Rutgers Philosophy Department’s colloquium series typically meets on Thursdays in the Seminar Room at Gateway Transit Building, 106 Somerset Street, 5th Floor at 3:00 p.m. Please see the Department Calendar for scheduled speakers and more details.

  • 10/18  Holly Smith book launch, location TBD (Guerrero)
  • 10/18  Workshop on Meaning (Pietroski)
  • 10/19  Workshop on Meaning (Pietroski)
  • 10/24  Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) 3:00-5:00 pm
  • 10/25  Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) 9:00 am-5:30 pm
  • 10/26  Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) 9:00 am-3:00 pm
  • 10/28, 10/30, 11/01 Rutgers Lectures in Philosophy: Jeff McMahan (Oxford) 4:30-7:00 pm, Archibald S. Alexander Library, 169 College Ave, New Brunswick, NJ
  • 12/05  End of Year Reception 5:30-8:00 pm, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton St, New Brunswick, NJ
Nov
4
Mon
The Provability of Consistency. Sergei Artemov @ CUNY Grad Center, 7314
Nov 4 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

We revisit the foundational question “Can consistency of a theory T be established by means of T?” The usual answer “No, by Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem” is based on two assumptions:

1. Gödel’s internalized consistency formula is the only way to represent consistency.
2. Any contentual reasoning within T internalizes as a formal derivation in T.

We show that already for Peano arithmetic PA both of these assumptions are false: (1) does not cover such legitimate mode of presentation as schemes (think of the Induction scheme), (2) fails for schemes. Based on these observations, we offer a proof of PA-consistency by means of PA and discuss its potential impact.


Logic & Metaphysics Workshop

September 2 GC Closed NO MEETING

September 9 Yael Sharvit, UCLA

September 16  Ole Hjortland and Ben Martin, Bergen

September 23 Alessandro Rossi, StAndrews

September 30 GC Closed NO MEETING

October 7 Dongwoo Kim, GC

October 14 GC Closed NO MEETING

October 21 Rohit Parikh, GC

October 28 Barbara Montero, GC

November 4 Sergei Aretmov, GC

November 11 Martin Pleitz, Muenster

November 18

November 25
December 2 Jessica Wilson, Toronto

December 9 Mark Colyvan, Sydney

December 16  MAYBE A MEETING; MAYBE NOT

Philosophy of Language Workshop @ NYU Philosophy Dept. rm 302
Nov 4 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re a community of philosophers of language centered in New York City. We have a meeting each week at which a speaker presents a piece of their own work relating to the philosophy of language.

Sept 9
Donka Farkas (Santa Cruz)

Sept 16
John Maackay (U Wisconsin–Madison)

Sept 23
Andrew Bacon (USC)

Sept 30
Eleonore Neufeld (USC)

Oct 7
Eli Alshanetsky (Temple)

Oct 21
Gabe Dupre (UCLA)

Oct 28
Dorit Bar-On (UConn)

Nov 4
Sam Berstler (Princeton)

Nov 11
Robert Henderson (Arizona)

Nov 18
Sam Cumming (UCLA)

Nov 25
Harvey Lederman (Princeton)

Dec 2
Sarah Fisher (Reading)

Dec 9
Michael Glanzberg (Northwestern)