Mar
15
Fri
Black Women Philosophers Conference @ Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Grad Center
Mar 15 – Mar 16 all-day

What does a philosopher look like? Inevitably, our mental pictures are shaped by the dominant imagery of the white male marble busts of Greco-Roman antiquity—Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca—and their modern European heirs—Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Mill. Even today Western philosophy is largely male and overwhelmingly white—about 97 percent in the U.S., close to 100 percent in Europe. Diversifying the field requires expanding our corporeal imaginary of its practitioners. This conference, timed to honor Professor Anita Allen-Castellitto (Penn), the first black female President in the 100-year-plus history of the American Philosophical Association, aims to showcase the work of a traditionally under-represented population, challenging these preconceptions. Allen and fifteen other black women will speak on their research across a wide variety of philosophical topics.

ORGANIZED BY:
Charles W. Mills & Linda Martín Alcoff

LIST OF SPEAKERS

Anita Allen-Castellitto, University of Pennsylvania
Kathryn Belle, Penn State University
Emmalon Davis, New School for Social Research
Nathifa Greene, Gettysburg College
Devonya Havis, Canisius College
Janine Jones, University of North Carolina Greensboro
Axelle Karera, Wesleyan University
Michele Moody-Adams, Columbia University
Mickaella Perina, University of Massachusetts Boston
Camisha Russell, University of Oregon
Jackie Scott, Loyola University Chicago
Kris Sealey, Fairfield University
Jameliah Shorter-Bourhanou, Georgia College, College of the Holy Cross
Anika Simpson, Morgan State University
Briana Toole, CUNY Baruch College
Yolonda Wilson, Howard University

Stay tuned for schedule details!

Hosted by: The Center for the Humanities and the PhD Program in Philosophy at the The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Co-sponsored by: The American Philosophical Association Committee on the Status of Black Philosophers, and the Advanced Research Collaborative at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

——————————————
Free and open to the public, but please register for Friday, March 15th here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-women-philosophers-conference-day-1-march-15th-2019-registration-56225763773

Please register for Saturday, March 16th here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-women-philosophers-conference-day-2-march-16th-2019-registration-56225886139

The venue is wheel-chair accessible.

To download a PDF version of the flyer, click here.

Apr
16
Tue
Promises and Perils of Neuroprediction @ Faculty House, Columbia U
Apr 16 @ 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Neuroprediction, the use of neuroscientific data to predict human behavior, can sound like science fiction. But with the advent of neuroimaging and the continuing rapid development of other non-invasive brain measurements, neuroprediction is increasingly a real-world phenomenon.

Deep philosophical, legal, and neuroscientific questions arise regarding the use of these methods to predict behavior. Like all scientific tools, whether or not these technologies are used responsibly depends on who uses them. For instance, recent research illustrates the potential use of neuroprediction to assess an individual’s risk of (re-)engaging in antisocial conduct in forensic contexts. While the use of brain-based data may add predictive value to existing risk assessment tools, at the same time, the use (or misuse) of neuroprediction in courtrooms may imply violations of individual rights and liberties under the pretext of enhancing public safety. In addition to these legal implications, neuroprediction presents several technological and neuroscientific challenges. The non-invasive measures currently available are only indirect measures of cognitive activity. Understanding the conceptual, ethical, and legal dimensions surrounding the use of neuroprediction technologies helps crystallize the issues at hand and potentially provides moral guidance for those who wish to capitalize on these new tools as their prevalence and specificity continue to advance.

In this seminar, four experts from neuroscience, law, and philosophy will discuss recent findings in neuroprediction research, the predictive power of brain-based evidence compared to behavioral evidence, as well as the ethical and legal concerns emerging from the entrance of neuroprediction in the courts of law.

Speakers:
Arielle Baskin-Sommers, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Yale University
Martha Farah, Annenberg Professor of Natural Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
Kent Kiehl, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of New Mexico
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics, Duke University

Discussant:
Jeffrey A. Fagan, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University

Moderator:
Federica Coppola, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University

Free and open to the public, but RSVP is required via Eventbrite. This event is part of the Seminars in Society and Neuroscience series.

Sep
6
Fri
Seminar in Logic, Games and Language @ CUNY Grad Center, 4421
Sep 6 @ 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm

Our next meeting will be on September 6 and we will go over Christian List’s survey article on Social Choice from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-choice/

Sep
20
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Sep 20 @ 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/

Black Radical Kantianism. Charles Mills (CUNY) @ 302 Philosophy, Columbia U
Sep 20 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

This essay tries to develop a “black radical Kantianism” – that is, a Kantianism informed by the black experience in modernity. After looking briefly at socialist and feminist appropriations of Kant, I argue that an analogous black radical appropriation should draw on the distinctive social ontology and view of the state associated with the black radical tradition. In ethics, this would mean working with a (color-conscious rather than colorblind) social ontology of white persons and black sub-persons and then asking what respect for oneself and others would require under those circumstances. In political philosophy, it would mean framing the state as a Rassenstaat (a racial state) and then asking what measures of corrective justice would be necessary to bring about the ideal Rechtsstaat.

Response by César Cabezas Gamarra.

Presented by the German Idealism Workshop

Sep
28
Sat
Isaac Levi Conference and Memorial @ Columbia University, Philosophy rm tba
Sep 28 all-day

Conference Schedule

10AM       Teddy Seidenfeld – Conditional Probability, Conditionalization, and Total Evidence

11AM       Eleonora Cresto – Beyond Indeterminate Utilities. The Case of Neurotic Cake-Cutting

11:20AM  Ignacio Ojea Quintana – Unawareness and Levi’s Consensus as Common Ground

11:40AM  Rush Stewart – Uncertainty, Equality, Fraternity

1PM         Nils-Eric Sahlin – Levi’s Decision Theory: Lessons Learned

1:45PM    Wilfried Sieg – Scientific Theories as Set-Theoretic Predicates?

2:45PM    Panel Discussion – Learning from Levi

Abstracts available in attached documents under “Supporting material.”

Memorial

A memorial service will be held at 5PM at St. Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia campus. Reception to follow on the 7th floor of Philosophy Hall.


https://philevents.org/event/show/75850

Oct
4
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Oct 4 @ 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/

Oct
17
Thu
Positions in Patriarchy: Retooling the Metaphysics of Gender. Robin Dembroff (Yale) @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 5307
Oct 17 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Decades of feminist theory have approached the question ‘what is gender?’ with an eye to gender as a system — in particular, the system that creates and sustains patriarchy. Using this approach, feminists have proposed theories of gender focused on the social positions that persons occupy within a patriarchal system. However, these analyses almost uniformly assume a gender binary (men women), and so look for corresponding, binary social positions. In this talk, I defend the importance of position-based metaphysics of gender, but challenge the assumption that positions in patriarchy can be captured in a binary. Rather than throw out the baby with the bath water, I’ll propose an alternative position-based approach. It begins with modeling the key axes of the patriarchal ‘blueprint’, or the shared beliefs, norms, and attitudes at the core of dominant, western gender ideology. I’ll then build a framework for describing the variety of positions that persons can collectively occupy in relation to this blueprint. A central upshot is that metaphysics intended to illuminate and debunk gender as imagined within the western patriarchal system fails to sufficiently achieve this end when it presupposes the same binary framework. The categories men and women, I’ll argue, are not primarily descriptive, but rather, contested tools with the central function of reinforcing or revising social power.

Presented by SWIP-Analytic

Oct
18
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Oct 18 @ 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/

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/