Calendar

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

How does the imagination change us? Why should picturing ourselves a certain way have any real effect on what we are? These questions are central to debates in Buddhist tantric literature regarding the generation stage (utpattikrama), wherein practitioners visualize themselves as buddhas ensconsed in magnificent mandala-palaces. For some, this practice is what sets Buddhist tantra apart: through this “yoga of the imagination,” as David Shulman puts it, a practitioner can achieve buddhahood in a single lifetime. And yet, as the Buddhist tantric author Indrabhūti (8th century) argues, a pauper who imagines himself to be a king does not thereby become one—so, in the same way, practitioners who visualize themselves as buddhas will not thereby become buddhas. The mental imagery (ākāra) involved in this practice is just so much unreal fabrication. Why should it have real transformative effects? I’ll consider here how these debates played out in Sanskrit Buddhist tantric texts from the 10th–11th centuries. I’ll focus on early authors in the Kālacakra tradition, who upheld Indrabhūti’s critique of the generation stage, and authors like Ratnākaraśānti, Vāgīśvarakīrti, and Advayavajra (aka Maitrīpa), who each in their own way critiqued mental imagery yet defended the importance and effectiveness of generation-stage practice. In the first part of the paper, I’ll consider arguments against mental imagery as these appear in generation-stage practice texts and the early Kālacakra tradition. In the second part, I’ll turn to why we might think unreal mental imagery can nevertheless have real transformative effects, paying special attention to the ways Buddhist tantric authors writing in Sanskrit take up ideas from the tradition of dramatic theory (nāṭyaśastra) and Sanskrit culture more broadly.

With responses from Thomas Yarnall (Columbia University)

DATE: February 2nd, 2024

TIME: 5:30 pm EST

LOCATION: Philosophy Hall, Room 716, Columbia University

1150 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027

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.

ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT: Columbia University encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. The University Seminars’ participants with dis- abilities who anticipate needing accommodations or who have questions about physical access may contact the Office of Disability Services at 212.854.2388 or disability@columbia.edu. Disability accommodations, including sign-language interpreters, are available on request. Requests for accommodations must be made two weeks in advance. On campus, seminar participants with disabilities should alert a Public Safety Officer  if they need assistance accessing campus.

PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/comparative-philosophy/

(Please do not reply to this announcement. You may contact the Co-Chairs using the link above.) 

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)