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.
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.
“Sometimes people who are together are, if not hostile to one another, at least estranged in mood and feeling till perchance a story, a performance, a picture, or even a building, but most often of all music, unites them all as by an electric flash, and in place of their former isolation or even enmity they are all conscious of union and mutual love. Each is glad that another feels what he feels; glad of the communion established, not only between him and all present, but also with all now living who will yet share the same impression; and more than that, he feels the mysterious gladness of a communion which, reaching beyond the grave, unites us with all men of the past who have been moved by the same feelings, and with all men of the future who will yet be touched by them.“ – Tolstoy, “What is Art?”
What is it for a piece of music to express emotions like sadness or caring or joy? What role do emotions play in how we receive a piece of music? And what are emotions, exactly?
Coming up on Wednesday, October 17th at 7:30 PM, Saam Trivedi (Brooklyn College, author of the newly released Imagination, Music, and the Emotions: A Philosophical Study), joins us to share his work on these very questions. Here’s some more about the talk, in Dr. Trivedi’s own words.
“Emotions and Music”
I will begin with some brief remarks about the emotions. Next, I will discuss three philosophical theories about musical expressiveness. Finally, I will discuss one philosophical view about musical arousal.
As usual, we meet in the Dweck Center of the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Please note the time change: future BKPP talks will start at 7:30.
Tell your friends/co-workers/strangers! Bring a musician! Bring the last person you went to a concert with! See you there, I hope!
Nietzsche Circle Presents: An Evening with Music and Philosophy
Speakers:
- Michael Teinmann
- Yunus Tuncel
Pianist:
- Aysegul Durakoglu
RSVP required!
Refreshments will be served. If you like to attend, Please RSVP by sending email to Luke Trusso at trussol@nietzschecircle.com
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
It has been said that there are not different “types” or categories of music, only good music and bad music. How can we know the difference between good and bad music however? Well, on some accounts, there are indeed different types (‘low’ vs ‘high’ art), some of which are by definition bad, others good. Yet, on other accounts, music is music – there are no essential differences in kind, and it is simply each listener’s favorable or unfavorable reaction to any given song or piece of music that decides its quality. In very broad strokes, these two contrasting orientations represent attitudes common in modernist and postmodernist theories, respectively. In the former, Western classical music was privileged (unjustly, in some respects) above all other kinds. However, the latter orientation, which is currently in fashion, seems to reduce all musical meaning and appraisal to little more than our own mental projections. In this presentation, a third, alternative way to identify musical “types” is proposed, one that seeks to illuminate meaningful musical distinctions in the natures and functions of three musical kinds (folk, mass, and art music), with some surprising results. A brief piano performance will precede the talk.
Monday, December 11, 2017 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 $10, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319)
Jason Cutmore is a concert pianist, teacher, and the founder and director of the Canadian music festival, Alberta Pianofest. He has performed solo piano and collaborative recitals across much of North America, Europe, and India, and has published articles in peer review journals and trade magazines. Mr Cutmore lives in New York City, and is currently completing a Master’s degree in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Brooklyn Public Philosophers is excited to announce a new program that we’ve put together for the fall! In addition to the Philosophy in the Library speaker series (stay tuned), we’re also starting a philosophy screening and discussion series that I’m calling Onscreen until I come up with a better name.
On Saturday, September 15th at 1:00 PM at the Flatbush Library (22 Linden Blvd.), we’ll be screening Ex Machina, a very good, very creepy movie about hubris, relationships, and what it takes to have a mind. Ian Olasov (CUNY), a.k.a. the person writing this post, will lead a brief discussion of it afterwards.
The screening is free. There will be free popcorn. It will be fun.
Einstein once remarked, “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” Indeed, discovering the true nature of reality may ultimately hinge on grasping the nature and essence of human understanding. What are the fundamental elements or building blocks of human understanding? And how will superintelligent machines challenge our ideas about cognition, reality, and the limits of human understanding?
The 21st century has seen rapid advancements in the realm of artificial intelligence, or AI, which aims to generate a synthetic capacity to mimic and even surpass human knowledge. But beyond the creation of programs that detect statistical patterns in vast data sets, it remains to be seen whether AI can formalize the basic elements of human understanding into a system of rules that could then be applied in computer programs. Such “knowledge engineering” would constitute a significant breakthrough, enabling machines to share some of our cognitive abilities rather than merely imitating the results of our thinking. These advancements in AI may ultimately force us to confront more profound questions about what it means to be human.
Logician/mathematician Roger Antonsen and computer science pioneer Barbara J. Grosz join Steve Paulson to break down the fundamental elements of human understanding and analyze what lies ahead on the horizon of AI.
*Reception to follow
This event is part of the Conversations on the Nature of Reality series.
Moderated by journalist Steve Paulson, Executive Producer of Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge, this three-part series at the New York Academy of Sciences brings together leading scientists and thinkers to explore the fundamental nature of reality through the lens of personal experience and scientific inquiry.
To learn more about each lecture and to purchase tickets, click on the links below.
- The Mystery of Our Mathematical Universe, Wednesday, October 10, 2018
- Human Cognition and the AI Revolution, Thursday, December 6, 2018
- Reality is Not As it Seems, Thursday, February 7, 2019