In the seventeenth century Descartes fundamentally transformed mathematics, and this transformation enabled in turn Newton’s revolution in the practice of fundamental physics. It was left to Kant, in the eighteenth century, to revolutionize the practice of philosophy. In nineteenth-century Germany, the practice of mathematics was again transformed, this time by Riemann, Dedekind, and others, and this transformation enabled in turn both Einstein’s revolution in the practice of fundamental physics and the emergence of quantum mechanics. Has philosophy similarly been again revolutionized? Some, I think, would say that it has as evidenced, and catalyzed, by the development of mathematical logic and concomitant rise of analytic philosophy. But this is a mistake. Mathematical logic, in particular, our standard first-order quantificational logic, as well as the philosophical work to which it has given rise, remains merely Kantian. The revolution in philosophy that is needed in the wake of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century revolutions in mathematics and physics has yet to happen. I aim to help it along not only by showing that it has not yet been achieved but also by uncovering some of the resources required for a transformed logic.
Fordham’s Metaphysics and Mind Group workshops papers by NYC-area philosophers and beyond. All our meetings are held on Tuesday evenings at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus from 5:30-6:45pm in the 12th Floor Plaza View Room. If you want to join us – or for more information about the group – please email me at jvukov ‘at’ fordham ‘dot’ edu. Our Fall 2015 schedule is as follows:
September 22 – Elise Crull [The City College of New York]
November 3 – John Drummond [Fordham University]
December 1 – S. Matthew Liao [New York University]
Check back soon for our Spring 2016 schedule!
FORDHAM-RUTGERS
METAPHYSICS OF MIND CONFERENCE
February 13-14, 2016
Hosted by
Fordham University
New York, NY
and
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
Speakers
Kenneth Aizawa
Rutgers University
Carl Gillett
Northern Illinois University
John Heil
Washington University, St. Louis
William Jaworski
Fordham University
Barbara Montero
CUNY Graduate Center
Susanna Schellenberg
Rutgers University
Lawrence Shapiro
University of Wisconsin, Madison
This two-day conference in the heart of Manhattan explores the metaphysical foundations of theories in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind.
In continuation with our conference last spring, The New York Phenomenology Research Group once again invites regional phenomenologists to a works in progress conference emphasizing collaborative research. This event will take place on Saturday, February 27th at The New School for Social Research in New York City.
The theme for our conference is phenomenology and the mind. We construe this topic broadly, as covering anything from the intersections between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, neuroscience, etc. to the way in which the phenomenological mind operates experientially in its own right, or with respect to, embodiment, aesthetic experience, design, identity, gender/race/ability, and more.
This conference encourages participants to research and work through ideas with one another rather than having them present completed papers in a traditional conference style. It’s our sincere hope to bring together students working through similar problems in phenomenology, in order to build a supportive network of emerging phenomenologists and philosophers in the New York area. For this reason, this event will not host any keynote speakers. Rather, the structure of this conference will be focused on encouraging student research and community in a collaborative environment.
We welcome short, in-progress papers that deal with topics in both the canonical tradition and phenomenological methods as mediums of inquiry. Papers should be no longer than 10-15 minutes when presented, and will be organized into panels (4-5) according to topic. Each panel will be approximately two hours, with the first hour dedicated to brief presentations and the second hour to open conversation, Q&A, and collaborative research. Group research and panel proposals are also welcome.
Please submit your paper, prepared for blind review, to phenomenology@newschool.edu along with any questions you may have, by January 8, 2016.
Thursday Night Workshop @ New School
Omri Boehm Descartes on Impossible Thinking | 9.8.16
Ursula Renz The Value of Thinking for Oneself: Spinoza and Kant on Epistemic
Autonomy | 9.15.16 In Cooperation with international workshop: Spinoza and Kant.
Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics
Paul Kottman Love as Human Freedom | 9.22.16
Jessica Moss No Beliefs about Forms: Doxa in Plato and Aristotle | 9.29.16
Lydia Goehr Moses and the Monochrome. Thought Experiments in the Theology
of Modernism | 10.6.16
Angelica Nuzzo Hegelian Reflections on a Time of Crisis | 10.13.16
Moshe Halbertal : ‘As a’| 10.20.16
Jason Stanley Non-Ideal Philosophy of Language | 10.27.16
Monique David-Menard Body of the drives, bodies in politics: anonymous or
impersonal? | 11.10.16 In cooperation with SIPP’s 9 th Annual conference | Anybody:
The Matter of the Unconcious
Seyla Benhabib Legalism: A Reconstruction and Critique of Shklar’s Theory | 11.17.16
Michael Della Rocca The Elusivness of the One and the Many in Spinoza | 12.1.16
Markus Gabriel How to Concieve the Mind After Naturalism’s Faliure(s) | 12.15.16
Hegel returns to the theme of human bodily expression repeatedly throughout his writings. While his early Phenomenology of Spirit offers a scathing criticism of contemporary physiognomy and phrenology, his later works contain a more nuanced view of the expressive capacities of the human body. In his late philosophy of mind, Hegel is particularly concerned with the question of how mental states which involve complex intellectual and social capacities, such as moral emotions, come to be expressed in the human body. This talk takes Hegel’s discussion of human bodily expression in his late philosophy of mind as a prism through which to approach a central question raised by Hegel’s philosophy: the question of how, for Hegel, spirit and reason on the one hand relate to nature on the other hand. I suggest that Hegel’s account of human bodily expression shows in paradigmatic fashion how he attempts to find a theoretical space between dualism and naturalistic reductionism. Furthermore, I argue that there are reasons to believe that this attempt fails: ultimately, the phenomenon of human bodily expression therefore emerges as a problem for Hegel which puts into question his central philosophical ambitions.
JULIA PETERS is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her research interests include Kant’s moral philosophy, German Idealist philosophy (especially Hegel), aesthetics and moral philosophy.
She is the author of Hegel on Beauty (2015); she has also published articles on Kant and Hegel in the European Journal of Philosophy, the British Journal for the History of Philosophy and the Journal of the History of Philosophy (among other periodicals).
Presented by The New School for Social Research (NSSR) Philosophy Department.
NY German Idealism Workshop Spring 2018
Johannes-Georg Schulein – March 2
Terry Pinkard – April 6
Lydia Goehr – April 20
Thomas Khurana – April 27
New York German Idealism Workshop
Our upcoming events for this fall (2018):
Robyn Marasco – September 28 (Columbia)
Francey Russell – October 26 (NSSR)
Samantha Matherne – November 30 (Columbia)
Allegra de Laurentiis – December 7 (NSSR)
Wilfrid Sellars (1912-1989) is well-known for his “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (EPM) in which he criticizes empiricist theories of knowledge acquisition. Empiricism, he argues there, relies on what he calls “the Myth of the Given.” The Myth of the Given is often understood as a dilemma for epistemological foundationalism. However, Sellars also remarks that not even Kant and Hegel (“that great foe of immediacy” EPM §1) were entirely free of “the entire framework of givenness”). This suggests that the Myth of the Given is not limited to the epistemological foundationalism of pre-critical dogmatic metaphysics. I shall argue (following James O’Shea) that the Myth of the Given is primarily a problem about how we should account for our cognitive awareness of the categorial structure of experience. I shall then argue that Sellars should be interpreted as arguing for a non-semantic mind-world relation, which he calls “picturing”, to explain how the Myth of the Given should be overcome.
By doing so Sellars shows how to avoid both the Given and idealism, thus overcoming a long-standing opposition within the history of philosophy since Kant. This argument is also relevant for the divide between “left-wing Sellarsians” (Rorty, McDowell, Brandom, Williams) and “right-wing Sellarsians” (Churchland, Dennett, Millikan); the left-wing Sellarsians developed the criticism of the Myth of the Given and the right-wing Sellarsians developed picturing into an account of animal cognition. On my interpretation, this divide itself is unfortunate because it leads us to overlook a fundamental coherence to Sellars’s views.
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