Calendar

How is the ancient exhortation to “know thyself” related to consolation, virtue, and the study of nature? How did the commitment to self-knowledge shift over the centuries in writings by Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and early modern natural philosophers? How did medieval women contribute to modern notions of self, self-knowledge, and knowledge of nature? This conference explores the meditative “reflective methodology” from its ancient roots, through medieval Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions to the so-called “new” methodologies of early modern science. Speakers include Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Pierre Force, Clémence Boulouque, Christia Mercer, and Pamela Smith.

Points of focus will be: (1) the relation between the ancient imperative to “know thyself” and medieval concerns to reflect on one’s self as a means to find ultimate truths; (2) the meditative genre as it developed from Augustine’s Confessions through Christian and Islamic spiritual exercises to late medieval Christian meditations and early modern kabbalist writings; (3) the continuity between medieval meditations and the reflective methodology of early modern science; and (4) the meditative genre’s afterlife in Freud, Foucault, Arendt, and contemporary science.

Conference co-sponsored by the Center for New Narratives in Philosophy, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, the Departments of Philosophy, French, English and Comparative Literature and the Maison Française

To download a PDF about this event click here.

9:15 – 9:30 Coffee & Opening Remarks

9:30 – 10:50 Anna Katsman: Freighted Love

11:00 – 12:20 Federica Gregoratto: Eros and Freedom Today

12:20 – 1:30 Lunch Break

1:30 – 2:50 Sara Macdonald: The Art of Friendship: Hegel and Plato

3:00 – 4:20 Gal Katz, “Love’s Rage Is Shame”: Hegel on Sex

4:20 – 4:45 Break

4:45 – 6.05 Paul Kottman: Love as Human Freedom

New York German Idealism Workshop

A joint undertaking of the philosophy departments of Columbia University & the New School for Social Research presents:

MATTERS OF LOVE: A CONFERENCE

Ronald Dworkin’s work always spanned a wide array of topics, from the most abstract jurisprudence through the details of American constitutional law all the way over to political philosophy and theories of justice and equality. In the last decades of his life, however, Dworkin’s work flowered in ways that went beyond even this prodigious range. Though he continued his central work in the philosophy of law and constitutional theory, he also addressed issues in international law, human dignity, the philosophy of religion, the relation between ethics, morality and legal theory, and the unity of practical thought generally. This conference will explore some of these themes in Dworkin’s late work. Beginning with a panel on his understanding of religion, we will also convene discussions of his work on legal integrity, international law, and the relation between law and morality. There will be a total of nine presentations, with plenty of time for discussion. All are welcome.

Panel 1 (Friday 1:30 p.m.): Dworkin’s Religion without God.
Eric Gregory (Princeton),
Moshe Halbertal (NYU and Hebrew U.) Ronald Dworkin Religion Without God: Morality and the Transcendent
Larry Sager (Texas) Solving Religious Liberty

Panel 2 (Friday 4:30 p.m.): Dworkin on international law.
Samantha Besson (Fribourg)
The Political Legitimacy of International Law: Sovereign States and their International Institutional Order

John Tasioulas (King’s College, London)

Panel 3 (Saturday 10 a.m.): The idea of integrity in Law’s Empire.
Andrei Marmor (Cornell) Integrity in Law’s Empire
Jeremy Waldron (NYU)  The Rise and Decline of Integrity

Panel 4 (Saturday 2:15 p.m.): Law and morality in Justice for Hedgehogs.
Mark Greenberg (UCLA)
What Makes a Moral Duty Legal?  Dworkin’s Judicial Enforcement Theory Versus the Moral Impact Theory

Ben Zipursky (Fordham)