Calendar

We often make our thoughts clear to ourselves in the process of putting them into words. In this lecture I introduce a new puzzle about this process—one that’s reminiscent of the famous paradox about inquiry in Plato’s Meno. The puzzle is that, on the one hand, coming to know what we’re thinking seems to require finding words that would express our thought; yet, on the other hand, finding such words seems to require already knowing what we’re thinking.

I consider and reject two possible solutions to this puzzle. The first solution denies that language contributes to our knowledge of our thoughts. The second solution denies that we have a fully formed thought that we try to articulate in the first place. The failure of these solutions points to a positive account of the role of language in the pursuit of self-knowledge, on which language mediates between two different “formats” or modes of thought. Among the broader implications of this account is a richer conception of the aims and methods of philosophy.

The Epistemology and Ethics group is composed of faculty and graduate students at Fordham and other nearby universities. Papers are read in advance, so the majority of the time is devoted to questions and discussion. If interested in attending, email dheney[at]fordham[dot]edu.

September 19th  Kate Manne (Cornell)

October 17th  Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern)

November 14th  Eden Lin (Ohio State)

February 27th  Nathan Ballantyne (Fordham)

March 20th  Sophie Horowitz (UMass, Amherst)

April 24th  Nomy Arpaly (Brown)

The Epistemology and Ethics group is composed of faculty and graduate students at Fordham and other nearby universities. Papers are read in advance, so the majority of the time is devoted to questions and discussion. If interested in attending, email dheney[at]fordham[dot]edu.

September 19th  Kate Manne (Cornell)

October 17th  Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern)

November 14th  Eden Lin (Ohio State)

February 27th  Nathan Ballantyne (Fordham)

March 20th  Sophie Horowitz (UMass, Amherst)

April 24th  Nomy Arpaly (Brown)

The Epistemology and Ethics group is composed of faculty and graduate students at Fordham and other nearby universities. Papers are read in advance, so the majority of the time is devoted to questions and discussion. If interested in attending, email dheney[at]fordham[dot]edu.

September 19th  Kate Manne (Cornell)

October 17th  Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern)

November 14th  Eden Lin (Ohio State)

February 27th  Nathan Ballantyne (Fordham)

March 20th  Sophie Horowitz (UMass, Amherst)

April 24th  Nomy Arpaly (Brown)

AY 2018 – 19 Workshop Schedule

Abstract: On the standard reading, Heidegger’s account of authenticity in Being and Time amounts to an existentialist theory of human freedom. Against this interpretation, John Haugeland reads Heidegger’s account of authenticity as a crucial feature of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology: i.e., Heidegger’s attempt to determine the meaning of being via an analysis of human beings. Haugeland’s argument is based on the notion that taking responsibility for our existence entails getting the being of entities right. Specifically, Haugeland says that our ability to choose allows us to question and test the disclosure of being through which entities are intelligible to us against the entities themselves, and he adds that taking responsibility for our existence involves transforming our disclosure of being when it fails to meet the truth test. Although I agree that Heidegger’s existentialism is a crucial feature of his fundamental ontology, I argue that the details of Haugeland’s interpretation are inconsistent. My objection is that if, as Haugeland claims, entities are only intelligible via disclosures of being, then it is incoherent for Haugeland to say that entities themselves can serve as intelligible standard against which disclosures can be truth-tested or transformed. Finally, I offer an alternative to Haugeland’s truth-based take on authenticity and cultural transformation via an ends-based onto-methodological interpretation of Heidegger and Kuhn. Here I argue that the ends pursed by a specific community determine both the meaning of being and the movement of human history.

Bio: Aaron James Wendland completed his PhD at Somerville College, Oxford and he is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the HSE’s Center for Advanced Studies in Moscow. Aaron is the co-editor of Wittgenstein and Heidegger (Routledge, 2013) and Heidegger on Technology (Routledge, 2018), and he has written scholarly articles on Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and Kuhn. Aaron has also published several pieces of popular philosophy in The New York Times, Public Seminar, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. He currents serves as an art critic for The Moscow Times and Dialogue of Arts. And as of January 2019, Aaron will be the Director of the Center for Philosophy and Visual Arts at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

AY 2018 – 19 Workshop Schedule

AY 2018 – 19 Workshop Schedule

AY 2018 – 19 Workshop Schedule