The Liberal Studies department at the New School for Social Research and the Culture & Media Department at Eugene Lang College are pleased to jointly present “Appetite for Distraction: Social Media and Today’s Attention-Economy,” an evening lecture by Chair and faculty memeber Dominic Pettman, which also marks the publication his forthcoming book Infinite Distraction (Polity Press, 2016).
It is often argued that contemporary media homogenize our thoughts and actions, without us being fully aware of the restrictions they impose. But what if the problem is not that we are all synchronized to the same motions or moments, but rather dispersed into countless different emotional micro-experiences? What if the effect of so-called social media is to calibrate the interactive spectacle so that we never fully feel the same way as other potential allies at the same time? While one person is fuming about economic injustice or climate change denial, another is giggling at a cute cat video. And, two hours late, vice versa. The nebulous indignation which constitutes the very fuel of true social change can be redirected safely around the network, avoiding any dangerous surges of radical activity.
Infinite Distraction examines the deliberate deployment of what Pettman calls hypermodulation, as a key strategy encoded into the contemporary media environment. His account challenges the various narratives that portray social media as a sinister space of synchronized attention, in which we are busily clicking ourselves to death. This critical reflection on the unprecedented power of the Internet requires us to rethink the potential for infinite distraction that our latest technologies now allow.
A Q&A will follow the lecture and refreshments will be on hand.
Louise Hanson (Cambridge) “The Real Problem with Evolutionary Debunking Arguments”
Monday February 1st, 1pm Location: 5 Washington Place, Room 202
http://nyip.as.nyu.edu/page/public-events
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/2016.02.01.Hanson
Tentative Schedule for MAPS, 2016 Spring (more details soon):
Aprili 12. 4:30-6:30pm @ NYU. Laura Franklin-Hall (NYU). Topic: TBA.
Apr 26. 4:30-6:30pm @ NYU Silver 621. Lev Vaidman (Tel Aviv). Topic: Many-Worlds QM.
May 10. 3:00-6:30pm @ NYU. Mini Workshop on Philosophy of Physics: (1) Elizabeth Miller (Yale) & Ned Hall (Harvard), and (2) Angelo Bassi (Trieste). Topics: TBA.
Abstract: Organisms physically transform their environments in ways that affect their downstream evolution. The importance of this fact has been a topic in recent debates in and around evolutionary biology. I’ll discuss this theme in a general way and then extend it. A subset of “niche construction” phenomena work by way of the perceptual, cognitive, and agential properties of organisms. These cases have distinctive features seen on several scales. I’ll look at these in relation to both the large-scale history of life and attempts to give a materialist account of the place of mind in nature.
There will be a dinner after the talk. If you are interested, please send an email with “Dinner” in the heading to nyphilsci@gmail.com (please note that all faculty and grad students are welcome, but only the speaker’s dinner will be covered). If you have any other questions, please email eddy.chen@rutgers.edu
Presented by Metro Area Philosophy of Science Presents
Peter Godfrey-Smith (CUNY Graduate Center)
Title: The Subject as Cause and Effect of Evolution
Abstract: The theory of evolution has evolved, so to speak, a number of times since Darwin and Wallace proposed the original version back in 1858. In this talk, I will explore some of those changes and focus on current proposals to develop a new version of the theory, known as the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. I will also try to address the question of whether these new developments amount to an example of what philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn called a “paradigm shift” within the biological sciences.
Reception to follow the talk, please join us! There will also be dinner after the reception. If you are interested, please send an email with “Dinner” in the heading to nyphilsci@gmail.com (please note that all are welcome, but only the speaker’s dinner will be covered). If you have any other questions, please email eddy.chen@rutgers.edu
===============================================================
More Upcoming MAPS Talks:
(1) 4:30-6:30 PM Tuesday February 28 at NYU.
Matt Stanley. (Author of Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: from Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science, University of Chicago Press);
“The Uniformity of Natural Laws: A Historical Perspective from Victorian Britain”
(2) Jesse Prinz (CUNY). Title TBA. Time TBA.
(3) Alyssa Ney (UC Davis). Title TBA. 4:30-6:30 PM Tuesday May 2 at Columbia.
This week we focus our lens on the Media by exploring Agenda Setting. Agenda setting is when a certain media outlet frequently presents an issue that may not be as relevant as the frequent appearance of the piece suggests. However, as a result of the frequency the audience begins to think the issue is important. The concern is compounded when other media outlets jump on the band wagon. We’ll explore this little touched topic and more! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
Please read Agenda Setting pages 147 – 161
Please remember to bring $3 for the Setauket Neighborhood house.
Even though ancient philosophy and rhetoric have many overlapping interests (education, persuasion, politics, etc.), their relationship has long been a contentious subject, especially among ancient philosophers. Contemporary scholarship on the topic is equally divided: philosophers tend to approach the topic primarily through the works of Plato and Aristotle and regard rhetoric (and rhetorical compositions) as a second-rate notion/discipline which has little interest in shedding light on philosophically relevant questions about human nature and society, whereas classicists research oratorical compositions to get a better understanding of Greek prose style, historical details and context, but often shy away from philosophical questions that the texts might hint at. This workshop aims to bring together scholars working on ancient rhetoric and argumentative techniques on the one hand, and scholars working on ancient philosophy, on the other in order to open up a space for a constructive engagement with philosophy/rhetoric, one which might enrich our understanding of ancient texts as well as the context in which they were produced.
Confirmed speakers: Jamie Dow (Leeds), Richard Hunter (Cambridge), Joel Mann (St Norbert), Jessica Moss (NYU), Usha Nathan (Columbia), James Porter (Berkeley), Edward Schiappa (MIT), Nancy Worman (Barnard). All papers will be followed by a response and general discussion.
Attending the workshop is free, but in order to have an idea of numbers it would be greatly appreciated if those interested in participating in the event would email the organizers, Laura Viidebaum and Toomas Lott.
This Workshop is generously sponsored by the Department of Philosophy (NYU), Department of Classics (NYU) and NYU Center for Ancient Studies.
A talk by Anne Simon, moderated by Eliza Zingesser
Zoopoetics aims to highlight the plurality of stylistic, linguistic and narrative tools used by writers to express the plurality of animal activities, affects and worlds, as well as the intricacies of the interactions between humans and animals. Such an approach helps to understand that all life forms are in a relationship of dependence with an archè (Husserl)—an origin, a reason, a refuge, a dwelling, the Earth— and that animals are more stylistic or rhetorical beings than we usually think of them as being. Evolution and biomorphic logics allow us to intuitively understand other species related to us, to share many of their emotions and expressions, and to be able to account for them through specific human means, such as evocative and figurative language. The lecture will show that perspectivism, metamorphosis and hybridity are universal patterns and experiences that literature embodies in different ways.
Anne Simon is a Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Française and a Member of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), where she leads the Project « Animots » ; an author of Trafics de Proust, 2016 and La rumeur des distances traversées, to be published in 2018. Her research focuses on disturbing relationships between philosophy and literature, and on zoopoetics.
Columbia Fall 2018 Colloquium Series
Laura Franklin-Hall (New York University)
Reception to follow
Thursday, November 15th, 2018
Simona Aimar (UCL)
Title: TBA
4:10 PM – 6:00 PM, 716 Philosophy Hall
Reception to follow
When we’re asked to give examples of philosophical questions, we’re likely to think of questions that are very, very old. Is the physical world all there is? How should I live? How do we know what we know? But some philosophical problems are quite new, made possible or urgent by new developments in science and culture. These are often the most exciting problems to think through.
On March 7th at 7:30 PM, Derek Skillings joins Brooklyn Public Philosophers to share his work on the philosophical consequences of the fact that we are holobionts – biological units composed of hosts and their associated swarms of microorganisms. If you’re interested in health, the problem of personal identity, the philosophy of biology in general, or the philosophical consequences of the fact that we’re made up of a bunch of little things which are themselves alive in particular, you’ll want to check this one out. Here’s the abstract:
“I, holobiont. Are you and your microbes a community or a single entity?”
You are a holobiont – a biological unit made up of a host and its associated microbiome (bacteria, protists, viruses and other microscopic entities). What consequences does this have for how we understand ourselves and other similar organisms? What are our spatial and temporal boundaries, and what does it mean to be a healthy holobiont? In this talk I will look at some alternatives for making sense of both holobiont individuality and “healthy holobiont/microbiome” talk. I will argue that existing accounts of human health are not appropriate for microbiomes, and that notions of ecosystem health face similar shortcomings. I will end by looking at some possibilities for understanding overall host health given the importance and ubiquity of microbiomes.
As usual, we meet at the Dweck Center at the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Here’s the Facebook event! Tell everyone, please!