ABSTRACT: The Shenzi Fragments, numbering a mere 3,000 or so characters in length, is all that remains of a work attributed to Shen Dao (ca. 350-275 BCE). While perhaps best known for his appearance in the Han Feizi as an advocate for positional power (勢 shi), he also makes an appearance in the Xunzi as one who is blinded by his focus on 法 fa (models, standards, laws). We will examine the fragments that discuss fa in an attempt to come to a deeper understanding of the role that these fragments see for the fa, how they are to be determined, and why Shen Dao took them to be central to a strong, stable, and flourishing state. The fragments, in classical Chinese with English translations (Harris 2016), are included here as a PDF attachment.
DATE: October 22, 2021
TIME: 7:00-8:30 pm
This seminar will take place via Zoom (please scroll down for the full invitation). Below you will find the link to join the meeting. The attached file is an instruction manual to help you familiarize yourself with the program. In addition to familiarizing yourself with the program’s basic functions, there are two things we ask you to do before the meeting can start. First, you will need to sign in by typing your name in the chat. Subsequently, we will have to agree on the privacy policy for the meeting. The privacy policy provided by the Columbia University Seminars Office will be read aloud. To indicate your agreement, you will raise your virtual Zoom hand in the Participants panel. In the manual, you will find step-by-step instructions of how to sign in and to raise your hand.
Lead Presenter: Eirik Lang Harris
Discussants: Alejandro Bárcenas (Texas State University), Yutang Jin (Princeton University), Mercedes Valmisa (Gettysburg College)
Note Regarding Donations: Due to COVID-19, donations are only accepted through Columbia University’s secure online giving form, Giving to Columbia.
THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
Presents: Li Zehou on the ‘Deep Structures of Confucianism’
Lead Presenter: Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island, CUNY)
Discussants: Robert A. Carleo III (East China Normal University), Emma Buchtel (Hong Kong Education University)
ABSTRACT: Contemporary Chinese intellectual Li Zehou’s cross-cultural methodology blends traditional Confucian thought with thinkers such as Kant and Marx. This seminar addresses the question of culture and its role in Li’s thought. Li has made several claims about how a settled cultural tradition influences the subjects within it. One such claim concerns the existence of ‘deep structures’ of Confucianism, as outlined in this preparatory reading. The idea is that culture, history, and social practice (collectively, a tradition) shape human psychology (including the formation of concepts, emotions, and values) in ways not always apparent to the subject. Within the Chinese tradition, Confucianism constitutes such a deep structure, and its effects cannot be captured by textual studies alone, nor studies of material culture. Rather, the deep structure is articulated in terms of an emergent shared subjectivity. Such traditions can evolve and ultimately dissolve; nevertheless, their effects are deep-rooted. This seminar meeting will aim to identify the parameters of Li’s ambitious theoretical framework and its plausibility, and to explore connections with current work in related fields, such as cultural and empirical psychology.
DATE: March 25, 2022
TIME: 6:30 – 8:00 pm EST
This seminar will take place via Zoom (please scroll down for the full invitation). Below you will find the link to join the meeting. Here is an instruction manual to help you familiarize yourself with the program. In addition to familiarizing yourself with the program’s basic functions, there are two things we ask you to do before the meeting can start. First, you will need to sign in by typing your name in the chat. Subsequently, we will have to agree on the privacy policy for the meeting. The privacy policy provided by the Columbia University Seminars Office will be read aloud. To indicate your agreement, you will raise your virtual Zoom hand in the Participants panel. In the manual, you will find step-by-step instructions of how to sign in and to raise your hand.
Note Regarding Donations: Due to COVID-19, donations are only accepted through Columbia University’s secure online giving form, Giving to Columbia.
Accessibility Statement: Columbia University encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. The University Seminars participants with dis- abilities who anticipate needing accommodations or who have questions about physical access may contact the Office of Disability Services at 212.854.2388 or disability@columbia.edu. Disability accommodations, including sign-language interpreters, are available on request. Requests for accommodations must be made two weeks in advance. On campus, seminar participants with disabilities should alert a Public Safety Officer if they need assistance accessing campus.
PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/comparative-philosophy/
RSVP is required for both in-person and remote attendance. Click here to RSVP.
Rutgers Workshop on Chinese Philosophy (RWCP) was launched in 2012. It 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.
Submissions from any area of philosophy/social science are welcome. The primary author must be an undergraduate, and papers should be no more than 10 pages in length and suitable for 15-20 minute presentations. Electronic submissions should be in Word or PDF format and should be ready for blind review. In your submission email please include your name, the title of your paper, your institutional affiliation, and your preferred email address for correspondence.
Email essays to lagccphilosophy@gmail.com
Submission deadline: April 15, 2022
Please note: This is an in-person event. In order to present you must provide proof of vaccination.
- Thursday, 12-2pm: Mini-Course Lecture 1: “Learning from Chinese Philosophy” (presents an overview of how Chinese philosophy was originally accepted into the Anglo-European canon but later excluded due to pseudo-scientific racism, along with brief overviews of several ancient Chinese philosophers, including Kongzi [Confucius], Mozi, Mengzi, and Zhuangzi)
- Thursday, 3-5pm: Mini-Course Lecture 2: “Mengzi’s Virtue Ethics” (introduces the Confucian Mengzi, and his conceptions of human nature, ethical cultivation, and the cardinal virtues)
- Friday, 10am-12pm: Mini-Course Lecture 3: “Zhuangzi’s Therapeutic Critique” (introduces the Daoist Zhuangzi, who presents arguments for skepticism and relativism that I argue are “therapeutic” rather than “systematic” in Rorty’s senses)
- Friday, 2-4pm: Mini-Course Lecture 4: “Zhu Xi & Wang Yangming on Weakness of Will (briefly introduces the medieval “Neo-Confucian” synthesis of Buddhism and Confucianism, and how two seminal Confucian philosophers took opposing views on the possibility of acting against moral knowledge)
Well-being, also known as prudential value, refers to whatever makes a life non-instrumentally good for the person living it. Well-being is the object of immense practical, philosophical, and scientific concern. Assessments of well-being help to guide our decisions in everyday life, from relationships, to health decisions, to education and career choices. Well-being is increasingly the object of governmental and institutional policy, and even policies that are not aimed directly at promoting it can be evaluated in terms of their impacts on well-being. Colleges and universities routinely offer programs designed to help students maintain their well-being in the face of academic and personal stress. However, debates over the nature of well-being have raged since the beginning of philosophical inquiry, leaving us in a bad position when it comes to making headway on addressing those practical and scientific concerns. The goal of this talk is to show how the application of naturalistic methodology can help us to resolve the philosophical stalemate and thus to make progress in our practical and scientific projects relating to well-being.
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Talk link — Email cruzdavis <at> umass.edu or jrc2266 <at> columbia.edu for the passcode
Conceptual misalignment is a pervasive phenomenon in the studies of Non-Western philosophy and the History of Philosophy (NW&HP). However, conceptual misalignment is often undetected, unsuspected, or seen as a hurdle that NW&HP materials need to overcome to contribute to contemporary discussions. Specifically, conceptual misalignment refers to the following: In the process of crystalizing NW&HP materials, a linguistic coordination of concepts is formed between the speaker, i.e., NW&HP, and its context of contemporary anglophone philosophy. However, in philosophically meaningful ways, the original NW&HP concept and its anglophone counterpart misalign. This misalignment is particularly intricate and hard to detect when it comes to emotion concepts, as they are thought to involve phenomenal and/or intentional features. Through investigating the concept of emotion in Chinese philosophy, I propose a refocusing on conceptual misalignment as a method of cross-cultural comparative and history of philosophy. Moreover, I argue that conceptual misalignment is an important resource for contemporary conceptual engineering and amelioration projects.
With responses from Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island, CUNY)
RSVP is required for dinner. Dinner will take place at a nearby restaurant. Please contact Lucilla at lm3335@columbia.edu for further information.
Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon began as a multidisciplinary, web-based journal in which an assemblage of contributions focused on a single concept with the express intention of re-situating its meaning in the field of political discourse. By reflecting on what has remained unquestioned or unthought in that concept, this all-around collection of essays seeks to open pathways for another future—one that is not already determined and ill-fated.
From this forum for engaged scholarship, a succession of academic conferences have sprung as a space for conversation and constructive debate, including last year’s Political Concepts Graduate Conference. Organized by students of the Departments of Anthropology, Philosophy, and Politics at the New School for Social Research, Political Concepts invites graduate students from all fields of study to participate in our upcoming graduate student conference in Spring 2023. Held at NSSR over March 24-5, the conference will serve as a workshop of ideas on the multiplicity of powers, structures, problems, and orientations that shape our collective life.
Because Political Concepts does not predetermine what does or does not count as political, the conference welcomes essays that fashion new political concepts or demonstrate how concepts deserve to be taken as politically significant. Papers should be dedicated to a single political concept, like an encyclopedia entry, but the analysis of the concept does not have to abide to traditional approaches. Some of the concepts contended with in last year’s vibrant conference included abolition, survival, statistics, solitude, resentment, statistics, dependence, imaginary, and solidarity. Other examples can be found in the published papers on thePolitical Concepts website.
The conference will take the format of a series of panels across two days. Panels will contain two presenters whose papers are thematically and theoretically related — creating a space for critical engagement between the authors, as well as with other attendees. Each presenter will have 25 minutes to present their paper, along with 40 minutes for discussion at the end. This year, there will be a faculty roundtable with NSSR professors serving on the Political Concepts editorial board, namely, Ann Laura Stoler, Jay M. Bernstein, and Andreas Kalyvas.
Abstracts should be no longer than 750 words in a pdf format, and prepared for blind review, so please ensure that your abstract is free from any identifying personal details. Abstracts must be submitted through this google form by December 15, 2022 EST. Any inquiries can be sent to politicalconceptsNSSR@gmail.com.
Applicants must be advanced graduate students and their concept must be a central part of a longer-term project in order to be accepted. Results will be informed in January.
The Long Island Philosophical Society is seeking submissions for its Spring 2023 conference which will be held Saturday April 1st 2023 on the attractive campus of Saint John’s University located in Jamaica, Queens in New York City.
The Long Island Philosophical Society has been a dynamic forum for the exchange of ideas since 1964. LIPS is an internationally recognized organization that is a valuable philosophical resource for the Greater New York area. Its conferences have drawn scholars from over 30 states and from the international community, including Brazil, Canada, Ukraine, Israel, and Egypt.
Papers can be on any topic of philosophical interest. Presentations are limited to 25-30 minutes, to be followed by a 10-15 minute discussion period. Both professional philosophers (full-time, part-time, unaffiliated) and graduate students are welcome to submit. Paper submissions are also welcome from those in different disciplines who have an interest in philosophical issues.
The submission deadline is Friday, March 10th, 2023.
Please submit papers, including contact information and affiliation (if any) to Dr. Glenn Statile at StatileG@stjohns.edu or Dr. Leslie Aarons at laarons@lagcc.cuny.edu.
https://www.facebook.com/LIPS.org/posts/pfbid02jq3P9dZAXPLyrmTWHcAE8Lij2nL8LWxP3HRDNefZdDYMAozMkYihLXZwqsqgwqFBl
The New School for Social Research Philosophy Department is hosting our annual Graduate Student Conference April 13-15th 2023 in person in New York City.
This year’s topic is Textures of Change: Social Imaginaries, Narratives, and the Possibility of Politics.
Keynote Speakers:
María Pía Lara (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana)
Fanny Söderbäck (Södertörn University)
Eva Von Redecker (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
It has become common for political theorists and philosophers to insist on the necessity of new imaginaries and narratives. Crises of authority, financial meltdowns, and environmental disasters compel us to look for alternative frameworks and practices. While the urgency of this claim is undeniable, the conceptual ground for the creation of new imaginaries and narratives is still unclear. How do we define imaginaries and narratives in relation to our political and social life? How can they become normative and generate conceptual and practical shifts? And who is in a position to shape, direct, and take ownership of these emergent conceptions?
This conference focuses on the current debate on political imaginaries and narratives to investigate some of these questions. As a starting point, we propose to challenge standard Marxist or epistemological approaches to the topic that either interpret imaginaries and narratives as ideological projections (a product of false consciousness) or merely as individual, cognitive faculties. Rather, we suggest thinking about imaginaries and narratives as larger sensuous and embodied practices that re-orient material structures of domination and allow for a reflective rearticulation of collective demands. In particular, we set out to clarify: the meaning of “imaginaries” and/or “narratives” as forms of sense-making; their ability to shift existing discourses and power relations; the way in which they foster different ways of feeling, seeing, acting-in, and experiencing the world in a time of crisis; the way in which they are embedded in artistic and literary practices; and the way in which they address—or fail to address—marginalized subjects.
We invite papers that focus on the concepts of “social imaginary” and “narrative,” as well as on the connection between the two, and on their political and ethical implications. It is our conviction that a critical understanding of these concepts can only emerge from attending to how they are practically embodied and situated in our practices. In this spirit, we welcome, in addition to papers aimed at conceptual clarification, papers that provide specific accounts of alternative forms of praxis, including (but not limited to) leftist, feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, abolitionist, indigenous, environmentalist, and utopian imaginaries and narratives.
We are accepting submissions of up to 4000 words. Please also submit a brief academic bio.
Please contact socialimaginarynarrative@gmail.com with any queries or submissions.
The deadline is January 3rd, 2023