Is Transhumanism a Dangerous Idea?
Book Launch Discussion
Moderated by Gregory Morgan
Speakers:
Babette Babich
Francesca Ferrando
Michael Steinmann
Yunus Tuncel
Nietzsche argued that some of our most deeply cherished values can be exposed as deeply problematic when we look into their history. He was writing in 19th century Germany and focusing on “Christian values.” But what about the values that are most enshrined in contemporary “liberal” societies like our own? Most Americans, for example, would say they value freedom, equality, democracy, human rights, and empathy. Would these cherished values emerge unscathed if we looked at them through a historical lens? Perhaps not. This talk aims to show that our core values emerged through historical events that are not entirely noble, and they continue to be applied in ways that reflect their troubling past.
There is only a perspectival seeing, only a perspectival ‘knowing’; and the more affects we allow to speak about a matter, the more eyes, different eyes, we know how to bring to bear on one and the same matter, that much more complete will our ‘concept’ of this matter, our ‘objectivity’ be.
Thus wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, and we at the Gotham Philosophical Society agree. We believe that to make sense of something, we need to see it from as many sides as possible.
That is why we are launching a new discussion series with the aim of contributing to the pursuit of New York’s objectivity. We will be taking on all manner of ideas, issues, and topics of significance to New Yorkers, and approaching them from legal, artistic, and philosophical perspectives. We believe that a philosophical understanding cut-off from our legal reality is irrelevant, and that laws uninspired by our poetic imagination are without soul.
With Dr. Joseph S. Biehl (Gotham Philosophical Society), Jane LeCroy, Shahabuddeen Ally
So please join us as we kick-off this series with a look at the concept of truth, the concept that is central to human discourse. What is truth? How can we know it? And what can it mean to say, as so many have, that we are now living in a ‘post-truth’ world? We’ll ask these questions and more, Monday, December 4, 2017, at Le Chélie NYC at 8pm.
CUNY-Milan Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop in Philosophy, a joint initiative of both institutions’ philosophy departments, is aimed at promoting advanced studies in core analytic topics. This year’s workshop, first in a series of annual events, will focus on belief. Albeit this workshop’s main objective is to advance research in Philosophy of Mind and Logic, the organizers are committed to maintain the interdisciplinary character of the workshop.
This year’s inaugural conference will focus on belief. It is the aim of the organizers to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the topic of belief. Some of the topics to be discussed include:
Mental states/attitudes and beliefs; the connection between imagination and belief; group beliefs; logic of belief; belief and logical omniscience; beliefs about blame and forgiveness; the difference between conscious and unconscious beliefs; confabulations of belief; the experience of belief; what it is like to believe; norms of beliefs; knowledge and belief; metaphysics of belief; religious beliefs; political beliefs; manipulation of belief; content of belief; belief and bias; belief and language; belief as constituting sexual, racial and gender based identity; delusional beliefs; continental perspectives on belief; historical perspectives on belief.
Keynote speakers:
Organisers:
Discussion with Seth Binsted, Michael Steinmann, and Yunus Tuncel. If you like to attend, Please RSVP by sending email to Luke Trusso at trussol@nietzschecircle.com
Babette Babich (Fordham University)
Nietzsche on “the Triumph of Scientific Method over Science”
Flom Auditorium
Walsh Family Library
Rose Hill Campus
SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events
Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”
Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA
Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA
More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.
SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events
Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”
Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA
Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA
More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.
On the face of it, we live in a world rife with materially composed objects. But what is it exactly for some (smaller, spatiotemporally located) objects to materially compose, or ‘make up’, another? Intuitively, this has something to do with causal interactions among the parts, but causal accounts of composition have been surprisingly rare, due to their seeming to face pressing difficulties associated with extensional inadequacy, vague existence, and causal overdetermination. Here I motivate, present, and defend a causal account of composition, highlighting along the way its advantages over accounts based in classical mereology.
SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events
Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”
Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA
Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA
More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.
Professor Barbara Gail Montero is the director of (and a performer in) the upcoming multimedia, interdisciplinary event Curved Spacetimes: Where Friedrich Nietzsche Meets Virginia Woolf. Prof. Nickolas Pappas will also perform (reading spoken word as Friedrich Nietzsche), and Prof. Jonathan Gilmore is a member of the team that brought the project to fruition.
According to the American Society for Aesthetics (who partially funded this project with a $7,000 grant), Curved Spacetimes is “multisensory event focused on the Physics, Aesthetics, and Metaphysics of Time. . . .[T]he evening will commence with a Nietzsche-Woolf-curved-spacetime-inspired reception that will allow you to test your knowledge of our central figures. Following the reception, you will experience Nietzsche, Woolf and curved spacetime coming to life on the stage (through dance, live music and the spoken word), and then listen to a panel discussion that will take you more deeply into the ideas guiding the performance.”
When: Sunday, March 17, 2019: 6-9 pm
Where: The Tank, 312 W. 36th St. 1st floor, New York City.
Schedule of Events
- 6 PM: Pre-performance catered reception—pass the Woolf/Nietzsche pre-test for a free drink!
- 7 PM: Performance
- 8 PM: Panel discussion on the physics, aesthetics, and metaphysics of time
Choreography: Logos Dance Collective (Barbara Gail Montero, Theresa Duhon, Patra Jongjitirat, and Gregory Kollarus)
Performers: Elise Crull, Theresa Duhon, Maxine Flasher-Duzgunes, Patra Jongjitirat, Gregory Kollarus, Barbara Gail Montero, and Nickolas Pappas
Music: Selections from Bach’s Cello Suites, performed live by cellist Ivan Luza
Text: excerpts from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Gay Science, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Diary of Virginia Woolf
Panelists for the after-performance discussion:
- Jeff Friedman, Associate Professor of Dance Rutgers University
- Kathleen Higgins, Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
- Timothy Maudlin, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
- Heather Whitney, JD, Harvard Law School & PhD Candidate, New York University
Moderator: Rebecca Ariel Porte, Writer and member of the Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
Free tickets for students in philosophy, literature, dance and physics are supported by the ASA grant and are available from bmontero@gc.cuny.edu
For all others, tickets are on sale now on-line at The Tank
Project Team:
- Barbara Gail Montero (Project Director), Professor of Philosophy, CUNY and Founder and member of the Logos Dance Collective
- Jonathan Gilmore, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY
- Maxine Flasher-Duzgunes, BFA student in Dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and member of the Logos Dance Collective
- Cliff Mak, Assistant Professor of English, Queens College, CUNY