This paper is on the topic of deliberative autonomy in (primarily) post-classical Chinese moral epistemology. By “deliberative autonomy,” I mean the epistemic state or achievement in which one’s ethical views or beliefs are those that seem right to oneself and are based on reasons or considerations that one understands for oneself. This is to be contrasted with holding a view or belief based primarily on the authority or expertise of others, without seeing for oneself that the view is correct or why it is correct. The Chinese philosophical tradition is rich in discussion of the nature, value, and function of deliberative autonomy, having much to say both in its defense and against it. I will focus my discussion by looking more closely at what Neo-Confucians have said about a particular term of art, zide 自得 (“getting it oneself”). I translate and discuss some passages on “getting it oneself” in the works and recorded lessons of influential Song, Ming, and Qing Confucians, note different types of deliberative autonomy implied by these passages, and discuss Wm. Theodore de Bary’s famous explication of “getting it oneself.” I consider whether the premium these Confucians placed on zide has the implications for liberal education that de Bary proposes and describe how proponents of zide could respond to formidable and important Xunzian arguments for deference to traditions and expertise.
With responses from: KATJA VOGT (Columbia University)
The Fall dates for the Comparative Philosophy seminar:
September 20 – Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University)
October 11 – Richard Kim (Loyola University, Chicago
November 8 – Sungmoon Kim (City University of Hong Kong)
December 6 – Paul R. Goldin (University of Pennsylvania)
More details (such as titles, abstracts, and respondents) to follow. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy, The City University of New York, Baruch College
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Co-Director, Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy
Certain intellectual challenges can neither be resolved by the discovery of missing pieces of information nor by construction of better arguments. Yet what is called for in such cases is not mere persuasion, but a form of intellectual transformation. Wittgenstein sought to respond to the problems of philosophy along similar lines. And the need for the notion of intellectual transformation arises in other contexts, as well, including the context of moral progress, which Cora Diamond explores in her recent work. But various philosophical difficulties stand in the way of embracing the idea that transformation has any role to play when it comes to questions or truth and of value. In particular, it seems that we must either bracket the psychological, historical and anthropological perspectives that the notion of transformation opens up, or else succumb to some form of relativism. My aim in this paper is to show how Wittgenstein and Diamond chart a middle course between these two extremes
Recently, Rebecca Kukla – among others – has argued that consent language is too narrow to adequately capture the ethical obligations and failures arising in the context of sex. Instead, she offers more nuanced scripts for the kinds of communication that occur throughout sex, not just at the beginning. I agree with Kukla that consent language is too narrow; however, I argue that she overlooks the fact that intimate personal communication requires an emotional attunement to context precisely because it cannot be fully scripted. To demonstrate this I turn to Cavell’s category of the passionate utterance which gestures at this dynamic dimension of performatives, but doesn’t deliver a detailed account. In this paper I will expand on Cavell’s idea of the passionate exchange in order to shed light on the active interpretive role of the audience, and how it contributes to performative success.
Well-known ties between arithmetical proof and intuitionistic logic make it natural to think of provability in terms of intuitionistic logic and hence absolute provability in terms of one of its extensions. For this reason, we propose Intuitionistic Tense Logic, or tINT, to study absolute provability. We delineate tINT models and a Hilbert-style system, and then prove soundness and completeness. We then use the tINT framework to discuss and compare ideas of absolute provability of authors in the literature.
The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that Vincent A. Peluce (PhD student, Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center) will deliver the fourth Saul Kripke Center Young Scholars Series talk on Thursday, December 5, 2019, from 2:00 to 4:00 in room 9206 of the CUNY Graduate Center.
Selected speakers:
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician