Kicking it all off will be Liz Camp (Rutgers University), who will be speaking on Monday 1/26 about why metaphors make good insults. Here’s a bit more about Dr. Camp’s talk, in her own words:
“Why Metaphors Make Good Insults”
Metaphors are powerful communicative tools because they ‘frame’ their subjects in certain ways. These effects are especially palpable when the metaphor is an insult that denigrates the hearer or someone she cares about. In such cases, comprehending the metaphor can produce a kind of complicity, one that cannot be undone just by denying the speaker’s claim. Where some theorists take this to show that metaphors accomplish something different in kind from ordinary talk, I argue that metaphorical insults are so rhetorically powerful because they combine three distinct features, each of which is independently common in communication. This result is not just theoretically interesting; it also helps to suggest more effective techniques for hearers to fight back.
As usual, we meet at 7:00 P.M. at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library in the Info Commons Lab. Hope to see you there!
Spring 2015 Schedule:
1/26 – Liz Camp
(Rutgers)
2/23 – Geoff Holtzman
(CUNY Graduate Center)
3/30 – Serene Khader
(Brooklyn College)
4/27 – Frank Kirkland
(Hunter College)
5/20 – Bruce Matthews
(Bard High School Early College)
“I don’t know where the line is. … In most religions you’re taught that you’re not going to be judged by your actions; you’re going to be judged by your intent. … So if your intent is to gay-bash, yes, you are a gay-basher. Even when you don’t do it. If your intent is to not, then it’s not.
Now, it can still be offensive, but once you explain that to the person that made the mistake, you can pretty much be sure they will go back on that and try to rectify hurting you. Does this make sense?”
– Chris Rock on Fresh Air, 12/8/14
On Tuesday, November 3rd, Jennifer Ware (CUNY Graduate Center) comes to Brooklyn Public Philosophers to answer Chris Rock’s question. (The answer is no.) She’ll talk about stereotypes, slurs, and the psychological and social mechanisms through which jokes can hurt.
Here’s a bit more about the talk in Ware’s own words:
Unjust Kidding: The Insufficiency of Good Intentions
Careful analysis of humor is important because of the amnesty often granted to humorous speech acts. When someone tells a joke, they seemingly separate themselves from that which they express, and consequently we typically do not hold individuals to the same standards when they are apparently telling a joke. George Carlin, a comic famous for his off-color humor, made the following observation,
“Stand-up is a socially acceptable form of aggression. You get to name the targets, you get to fire the bullets… and the wonderful part is, after you’ve finished, you then say, ‘Hey, can’t you take a joke? This is humor, sir! What’s the matter with you?”
Individuals intending to express a vicious position without having to take full responsibility for their words may use this greater forgiveness divisively, and therefore we should be careful about granting such amnesty.
In this presentation, I will review some of the more common formal and colloquial accounts that aim to explain why and when jokes are offensive. I will go on to develop a position informed by empirical evidence that challenges the view that facts about the speaker largely, if not entirely, determine the moral character of a joke. Instead, I suggest the effects of jokes play a significant role in determining their moral characters.
Tell your friends/students/strangers! Bring someone who knows lots of jokes! See you there, I hope!
The Gotham Philosophical Society presents:
Life Unfree: Meaning, Purpose, and Punishment Without Free Will
Free will is an illusion. Who we are and what we do is the result of factors beyond our control. So claim many philosophers and cognitive scientists, armed with empirical data and reasoned arguments. But their conclusion seems intolerable. Without freedom, in what sense are our lives and actions really ours? And if what we do isn’t under our control, how can we be held responsible for our doing it? What sense could we make of the idea of criminal justice? Is a life without free will a life worth living? Philosopher and free will skeptic Gregg D. Caruso thinks it is. Join us as he discusses how we, as individuals and a society, can make sense of life without free will.
Monday, January 11, 2016 at 6pm at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $9, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319).
“All you need is love.” So sayeth the gospel of John (Lennon). But what is love? What sorts of things can be the object of our love? Do we love what we love in virtue of their qualities, in virtue of something else, or “just because.” How important is love? In recent years philosophers have addressed (or dodged) these questions. I’ll tell you something about what they’ve been saying and writing, but mostly I’ll be trying to get you to help me answer these questions.
Join philosopher Dale Jamieson in this collaborative investigation into the nature of love, that most essential and yet most intellectually elusive of human emotions.
Tuesday, May 17, at 6pm. This event is part of the Philosophy Series at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $9, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319)
Dale Jamieson is Chair of the Environmental Studies Department; Professor of Environmental Studies and of Philosophy; and the Founding Director of Environmental Studies and Animal Studies at New York University. He has written extensively on the environment, climate change, and our relationship to animals. He is the author of several works, including Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed–and What It Means For Our Future and, most recently, Love in the Anthropocene (with Bonnie Nazdam).
The North American Society for Early Phenomenology
in conjunction with
The Max Scheler Society of North America
Presents
Feeling, Valuing, and Judging: Phenomenological Investigations in Axiology
May 19th-21st, 2016
St. John’s University – Manhattan Campus
Invited Speakers
- Anthony Steinbock (Southern Illinois University – Carbondale)
- John Drummond (Fordham University)
- James Dodd (New School for Social Research)
Call for Abstracts
Feelings, values, and judgements all played central roles in the philosophical writings of the early phenomenologists – from their discussions of formalism in ethics, to social ontology, the phenomenology of moods and emotions, and even the phenomenology of religion. Though heavily inspired by the work of Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler and the Munich phenomenologists conceived phenomenology as less a method and more an attitude, and developed their phenomenological investigations accordingly. With the phenomenological attitude, the meaning of the object of cognition is revealed. Doxic, volitional, and affective intentional attitudes gives rise to phenomenological descriptions of the world in terms of its meaning and value. Understood in this way, the early phenomenologists saw questions of value as arising alongside questions of ontology.
The theme of this conference will be phenomenological studies in axiology (ethics and aesthetics), and will look at the relationship of intuition, the emotions, and intersubjectivity to acts of feeling, valuing, and judging. Topics include phenomenological theories of valuation, the departure of later phenomenologists from Husserl’s and Brentano’s distinctions of types of mental phenomena, axiological properties of intentional objects, the self as a member of a community, sympathy and empathy, criteria for correct and incorrect value judgments, the difference between axiological and ontic characteristics and fact-value differentiation, axiology in universals and particulars, judgments of value and the role of implicit beliefs, phenomenological descriptions of striving, volition, emotions, moods, the beautiful and the sublime, etc. We encourage papers on the work of Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Theodor Lipps, Max Scheler, Alexander Pfänder, Moritz Geiger, Josef Geyser, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Siegfried Hamburger, Nicolai Hartmann, Waldemar Conrad, Aurel Kolnai, Roman Ingarden, Edith Stein, Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Reiner, and others. We are also interested in papers proposing original phenomenological descriptions of emotions, feelings, volition, and judgments that follow the phenomenological tradition, and build upon these historical antecedents in new and interesting ways.
Abstracts should be 500-700 words, and include a short bibliography of primary and secondary sources. All abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent via email in .doc or .docx format to Dr. Rodney Parker at: (rodney.k.b.parker@gmail.com).
Both senior researchers and graduate students are encouraged to submit.
Deadline for submissions is: December 15, 2015.
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http://philevents.org/event/show/18534
The Max Scheler Society of North America (MSSNA) invites members of the international community of scholars to participate in their biannual meeting, which will be held at St. John’s University, Manhattan Campus. The 2016 meeting will take place in conjunction with the North American Society for Early Phenomenology (NASEP), with sessions from each society running concurrently.
Broadly conceived, the general theme of the meeting is the phenomenology of value or axiology. The MSSNA is particularly interested in papers examining Max Scheler’s contribution to the study of value and the relevance of his work to recent investigations. Papers examining the significance of value in Scheler’s thought are not restricted to his ethics and may concern any aspect of his work. For this meeting, the intent is to have a program that reflects the tremendous diversity of Scheler’s thought and relevance of value in human existence.
Participants will have approximately 35 minutes to present their work. Though completed papers are preferred, abstracts of at least 500 words in length will also be considered. Deadline for submission is December 15, 2015.
All submissions should be sent electronically to Dr. Zachary Davis (davisz@stjohns.edu). Because all submissions will be reviewed blindly by the selection committee, submissions should have a separate cover sheet with name and contact information. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by January 31.
Keynote speakers:
The Speculative Ethics Forum is a one day workshop-style event in which we’ll consider the most challenging matters of ethics. Ethical approaches of all sorts are welcomed–analytic, continental, ancient, medieval, Asian, and so on. Most papers are invited. However, there are two slots open for submissions. Any paper in ethical theory will be considered for acceptance. Bold and speculative inquiries are preferred to papers that primarily defend ground already gained or papers that are primarily scholarly. Our aim, in short, is to have a single day concentrated on expanding the horizons of ethics.
Our Invited Speakers Are:
Katja Vogt (Columbia University)
James Dodd (New School for Social Research)
Leo Zaibert (Union College)
Justin Clarke-Doane (Columbia University)
Organisers:
Register
November 17, 2017, 11:45pm EST
speculative.ethics.forum [at the host] gmail.com