Program details forthcoming.
We all find ourselves already subject to some educational program and routinely invited into learning and teaching relationships with one another. We are inviting papers that engage philosophy and education from a wide range of perspectives. We welcome both papers that focus on philosophies of education as well as projects which engage the practice of teaching philosophy. Our conference aims to bring together graduate students that work in different areas of philosophy in order to think together about teaching and learning in a warm and convivial environment.
Possible topics may include, but are in no way limited to:
o How views of education affect how we conceive of what philosophy is
o The relation between philosophical wonder and learning
o Normative questions of what role the teacher ought to play in the student’s education
o How to best approach teaching texts from in and outside the canon
o Innovative teaching ideas or activities you have used in the classroom
o Earnest convictions about why we should teach philosophy
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words in a doc file with name and affiliation in the header to Fordhamgradconference@gmail.com no later than Monday, December 2, 2019. Authors of selected papers will be notified by Monday, December 30, 2019.
“Training the Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith and the Epistolary Novel “
Lauren Kopajtic
Fordham University
This talk explores the reflexive nature of consciousness, which consists primarily in the fact that a state of consciousness has a reflexive relation to the subject who has that state, so that the subject can typically be aware of itself as having that state. Comparing Kant’s, Fichte’s, and selected contemporary analytic theories of this reflexivity shows that there is a crucial difference in the way the relation between form (or mode) and content of a state of consciousness is conceived. The first part examines Kant’s formal theory of consciousness: reflexivity is understood not in terms of a self-referential content resulting from a reflection on the state of the subject, but as the universal transcendental form that any content must have in order to be representationally significant and potentially conscious to the subject. The second part examines Fichte’s departure from Kant in his theory of a self-positing consciousness: in the original act of self-positing, the mere form of reflexivity is turned into a self-referential content that determines the subject as an object from the absolute standpoint of consciousness. The third part examines analytic theories that explain the reflexivity (or what is often called the subjective character) of consciousness on a model of mental indexicality. These theories tend to reduce reflexivity to an objective constituent of content that, although often implicit, can be read off from the subject’s contextual situatedness in nature. In conclusion, Kant’s theory can be understood as a moderate, human-centered kind of perspectivism that navigates between Fichtean absolute subjectivity and a naturalist absolute objectivity.
Registration is free but required. A registration link will be shared via email with our department mailing lists a few weeks before the event. Please contact Jack Mikuszewski at jhm378@nyu.edu if you did not receive a registration link.
The Philosophy Department provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be submitted to philosophy@nyu.edu at least two weeks before the event.
We are pleased to announce that the 26th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness will be held at New York University on June 22-25, 2023.
Submissions for talks and posters are now open with a deadline of February 15, 2023. Conference registration will open in early 2023.
Keynote speakers, symposia, tutorials, and housing have now been arranged, as specified below.
Please direct any inquiries to ASSC26@nyu.edu.
We hope to see you soon in New York!
Ned Block and David Chalmers, Conference Directors