Mar
13
Fri
The Social and Individual Conference @ Columbia U Philosophy Dept.
Mar 13 – Mar 14 all-day

Contact  Professor Gooding-Williams for more info.

Apr
17
Fri
Chinese Philosophy and Virtue Epistemology @ Brower Commons Conference Rooms A & B
Apr 17 all-day

Rutgers Workshop on Chinese Philosophy (RWCP) was launched in 2012. Co-directed by Tao Jiang, Dean Zimmerman and Stephen Angle, RWCP is designed to build a bridge between Chinese philosophy and Western analytic philosophy and to promote critical engagement and constructive dialogue between the two sides, with the hope of bringing the study of Chinese philosophy into the mainstream of philosophical discourse within the Western academy. It is run every other year, usually in late spring.

5th Rutgers Workshop on Chinese Philosophy: Chinese Philosophy and Virtue Epistemology
The 5th RWCP will be held on Friday, April 17, 2020. In this one-day workshop, six scholars of Chinese philosophy will engage two leading virtue epistemologists, Ernest Sosa and Linda Zagzebski. The program and papers will be available in the spring of 2020, one month before the workshop. RSVP will become available at that time as well, and it is required for attendance. Please stay tuned.

FAQs

1. Where can I park?
Details will be provided as we get closer to the day of the workshop.
2. How can I get to the event on public transportation?
Take the NJ Transit Northeast Corridor Line to New Brunswick (njtransit.com). Make sure the train stops at New Brunswick as some might skip it during rush hours.

Contact Ms. Nancy Rosario (nr531@religion.rutgers.edu)

Co-sponsored by Rutgers Global-China Office and the Confucius Institute.

Oct
22
Fri
Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy, Rupert Read @ ZOOM - see site for details
Oct 22 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Professor Rupert Read (Personal Website link) will be joining us on the 22nd of October from 1-3 PM EDT on Zoom in presenting the introduction from his book, Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy: Thinking Through His Philosophical Investigations, in which he argues that “the key to understanding Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is to understand its liberatory purport.”

Mar
22
Tue
Jonardon Ganeri (Toronto) Can theater teach us about what it’s like to be someone else? @ Zoom
Mar 22 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

How can we know what it’s like to be someone else? Classical Indian philosophers found the answer in theater, arguing that it’s not just a form of entertainment, but a source of knowledge of other minds. In this talk, I’ll explore how this theme is developed in Śrī Śaṅkuka (c. 850 CE) and examine the reasons his views were rejected in the later tradition. I’ll argue that those reasons are unsound, and that we can see why by turning to contemporary studies of the relationship between knowledge and luck.

Jonardon Ganeri is the Bimal. K. Matilal Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is a philosopher whose work draws on a variety of philosophical traditions to construct new positions in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology. His books include Attention, Not Self (2017), a study of early Buddhist theories of attention; The Concealed Art of the Soul (2012), an analysis of the idea of a search for one’s true self; Virtual Subjects, Fugitive Selves (2020), an analysis of Fernando Pessoa’s philosophy of self; and Inwardness: An Outsiders’ Guide (2021), a review of the concept of inwardness in literature, film, poetry, and philosophy across cultures. He joined the Fellowship of the British Academy in 2015, and won the Infosys Prize in the Humanities the same year, the only philosopher to do so.

This series is curated and co-presented by Brooklyn Public Philosophers, aka Ian Olasov.

Jan
17
Tue
Fathoming the Mind: A Closer Look at the Formation of Self @ New York Academy of Medicine
Jan 17 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Recent research in animal behavior and culture shows that the mental capacities of animals have been largely undervalued. And yet it is hard to resist the impression of a gap—a difference in nature rather than degree—between humans and non-humans when it comes to certain tasks involving abstraction, planning, sustained attention, or the transmission of culture over generations. How different is the human mind from the minds of non-human animals? The key to these issues may lie in the capacity of the mind to relate to itself as a “self” that bears desires and intentions, along with agency and purpose. But how is this compatible with the recognition that much of our mental activity occurs at an unconscious or subconscious level, below the threshold of awareness and reflection? Is our perceived unity of self or mind an illusion we entertain for practical purposes?

Psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik, ecologist Carl Safina, and biologist Kenneth R. Miller explore what separates humans from other animals in relation to the construct of “self.”

Reception to follow.

Feb
13
Mon
Sexual and Reproductive Justice: Vehicle for Global Progress @ Forum, Columbia University
Feb 13 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

This event will feature a thought-provoking panel discussion with sexual and reproductive justice experts on the value of the sexual and reproductive justice framework and how it can be applied to diverse stakeholders, settings, and contexts. Panelists will also highlight examples from around the world of momentum towards sexual and reproductive justice.

Event Information

Free and open to the public; registration is required for both in-person and online attendance. For additional information, please visit the event webpage. Please email Malia Maier at mm5352@cumc.columbia.edu with any questions. All in-person attendees must follow Columbia’s COVID-19 policies.

Hosted by the Global Health Justice and Governance Program at Columbia University.

Naturally Universal: How Aristotle Explains the Success of Medieval French Song. Sarah Kay @ Maison Française East Gallery
Feb 13 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Poets and singers in a number of medieval vernacular languages reached non-native audiences and inspired speakers of other languages to compose in theirs; and many imagined their compositions enjoying a universality similar to that of cosmopolitan languages like Latin and Arabic. An interesting rationalization of these aspirations can be discerned in a short verse narrative of a well-known episode in the youth of Alexander the Great, conqueror of India, together with his tutor, the philosopher Aristotle. Not only does it involve Greeks and Indians singing French songs and cosplaying French lovers, but the philosopher is induced to pretend to be a horse and then justifies his behavior as “natural,” with far-reaching implications which this talk will explore.

Sarah Kay is Professor Emerita in the Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture at New York University and Life Fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge. In Spring 2023, she is Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Columbia Society of Senior Scholars.

This talk is presented by the Columbia Maison Française, Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, The Society of Senior Scholars, the Department of Music, and Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 

Mar
3
Fri
Identity and Difference. 2023 Fordham Graduate Student Conference  @ Philosophy dept
Mar 3 – Mar 4 all-day

Keynote: Naomi Zack (Lehman College, CUNY)
One of philosophy’s original questions still plagues us: to what extent are beings the same and to what extent do they differ? Arising in thinkers as diverse as Parmenides, Aquinas, and De Beauvoir and in arenas from social and political philosophy to phenomenology and metaphysics. This conference aims to gather graduate student scholars from a variety of specializations to discuss their work on identity and difference. Some of the many questions we may pursue together are the following:

What constitutes identity and difference? What makes someone who they are? How do we understand ourselves to be alike enough to communicate, yet different enough that we must work to understand another’s point of view? How do identity and difference shape belonging–within a community, within a social institution, within a political structure? Similarly, how do differences among the members of a group enrich the identity of that collective? How might overlapping identities of an individual give rise to one’s sense of self? How does identity inform a given group’s philosophical thought? How might one form their identity and sense of self when, as in the case of many marginalized groups/ minorities, the “self” is oppressed?

These questions additionally motivate ontological considerations. To what extent can we describe two objects that are in fact identical? What grants an object’s or a person’s identity over time: metaphysical characteristics, temporal continuity, or certain brain states? Upon what aspects of an entity do we predicate differences? When are two things metaphysically or logically identical? Are mereological composites more than the sum of their parts? Are they identical to matter? To what extent do beings differ from Being? How might experiences or acts of reason help ground an identity claim such as A=A?

Other questions broadly related to “Identity and Difference” are also welcome.

Please submit a 300-500 word abstract prepared for blind review to fordhamgradconference@gmail.com in PDF format. In the body of the email, please include:

  • Name
  • Email
  • Paper title
  • Institutional Affiliation

Submissions are due by Friday, December 30, 2022. After anonymous review, applicants will be notified by Tuesday, January 17, 2023. Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes.

The conference will take place in person on March 3-4, 2023 on Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus located at 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458.

For questions, please contact the conference organizers at fordhamgradconference@gmail.com

Mar
31
Fri
Wittgenstein and Care Ethics. Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) @ New School D1001
Mar 31 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

The NYC Wittgenstein Workshop presents:

March 31st — Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) will be presenting on Wittgenstein and Care Ethics

April 14th — Camila Lobo (PhD candidate in Philosophy at Nova University of Lisbon and visiting scholar) will be presenting on Wittgenstein and hermeneutical justice in connection with the so-called “problem of the new.”

April 21st — Harmut von Sass (Humboldt University Berlin and a visiting scholar) will be presenting on gratitude.

April 28th — Janna van Grunsven (Delft University of Technology) will be presenting on How Social Media Platforms Disrupt the Field of Social Affordances and Threaten Human Flourishing.

With the exception of our last talk (which will take place over Zoom), workshops will be in person from 4 to 6 pm EST, followed by a reception. As always, snacks and drinks will be provided.

Look out for an email closer to each event with more details regarding the location and materials the speaker would like to circulate.

 

Apr
14
Fri
The Child and the Foreigner: Wittgenstein on Understanding the New. Camila Lobo (Nova University of Lisbon) @ New School D1101
Apr 14 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

The NYC Wittgenstein Workshop presents:

March 31st — Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) will be presenting on Wittgenstein and Care Ethics

April 14th — Camila Lobo (PhD candidate in Philosophy at Nova University of Lisbon and visiting scholar) will be presenting on Wittgenstein and hermeneutical justice in connection with the so-called “problem of the new.” (11am-1pm EDT)

April 21st — Harmut von Sass (Humboldt University Berlin and a visiting scholar) will be presenting on gratitude.

April 28th — Janna van Grunsven (Delft University of Technology) will be presenting on How Social Media Platforms Disrupt the Field of Social Affordances and Threaten Human Flourishing.

With the exception of our last talk (which will take place over Zoom), workshops will be in person from 4 to 6 pm EST, followed by a reception. As always, snacks and drinks will be provided.

Look out for an email closer to each event with more details regarding the location and materials the speaker would like to circulate.