Cinzia Arruzza, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, will give a talk entitled “Spirit in Plato’s Republic and the Tyrant’s Psychopathology”
Abstract
The nature and function of spirit is one of the mysteries of Plato’s Republic. Throughout the dialogue, spirit is said to be responsible for propensity to anger, savagery, violence, harshness, and perpetual war, desire for victory and power, arrogance and stubbornness, but also courage, desire for honor, sensitivity to what appears just, rebellion against a perceived injustice, and alliance with reason in the conflict with the appetitive part. What is the unity at the basis of these various manifestations of spirit? In the first part of this paper I would like to try to answer the question concerning both the nature of spirit and its relation to the other two parts of the soul. In the second part of the paper, I will briefly discuss the tyrant’s case, in order to show how spirit may work and play a role within what should be considered as a special case of psychopathology.
This event is sponsored by The New School for Social Research.
Cosmism was originated in Russia more than a hundred years ago. That was an esoteric futuristic philosophy about post-humanity, technological immortality, resurrection and cosmic expansion. Early cosmists proposed the idea of decompaction (lightweighting) of the human body, that eventually wouldn’t need an atmosphere and would be powered directly by solar energy. They call it “radiant humanity” – a perfect society of highly moral and super-conscious beings merging and colonizing the whole Universe.
Modern Cosmism brings to the original doctrine the ontological foundation, a scientific structure and a deeper comprehension of possible technology aims to create in the future a new synthetic reality where the concepts of truth, consciousness, freedom and happiness will be deeply revised.
The conference will review the critical question about a meeting with advanced extraterrestrial civilizations and suggest few hypothesis about their “eerie silence”. We will touch some related problems in cosmology, and astrophysics such as the shape and future of the Universe, black hole information paradox, multidimensional space, dark energy and interpretation of quantum mechanics. Are they a separate arrow of time? Are there exceptions to the principle of causality?
Like no other area of philosophy and technology before, Modern Cosmism raises fundamental questions about the post human nature and how it will be connected to the reality. Is the structure of reality included the consciousness? Is a non biological hardware can support the consciousness? How we can define Cosmic Evolution and what is the role of intelligent life?
The conference will address important philosophical issues that arise with the future design of artificial consciousness, mind uploading and cyber-immortality. How will our concepts of subjectivity, perception, and morality change, if we will live in virtual reality of mega-consciousness environment where individuals can experience multiple presence, personality and have no gender. Will we be able to create super intelligent agents with consciousness and feelings? What are the limits of artificial capacities or functional simulations we should create? Could we enhance our own humanity by genetically redesign our nature?
Our keynote and plenary speakers are well-known international protagonists of Cosmism, Transhumanism and interdisciplinary researchers. Their lectures will discuss the most important current issues of Modern Cosmism from the point of view of philosophy, technology, ethics, robotics, psychology, and anthropology.
Ben Goertzel Ph.D. is the author of “Cosmists Manifesto”. He is Chief Scientist of financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings; Chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC, which is a privately held software company, and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC, which is a company that provides advanced AI for bioinformatic data analysis (especially microarray and SNP data); Chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Society and the OpenCog Foundation; Vice Chairman of futurist nonprofit Humanity+; Scientific Advisor of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Advisor to the Singularity University; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series.
Giulio Prisco is former senior manager in the European Space Agency, Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist. He served as a member on the board of directors of World Transhumanist Association, of which he was temporarily executive director, and continues to serve as a member on the board of directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and of the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti. He is also a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers, and the Turing Church, fledgling organizations which claim that the benefits of a technological singularity, which would come from accelerating change, should or would be viable alternatives to the promises of major religious groups.
James J. Hughes Ph.D. served as the executive director of the World Transhumanist Association (which has since changed its name to Humanity+) from 2004 to 2006, and currently serves as the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he founded with Nick Bostrom. He also produces the syndicated weekly public affairs radio talk show program Changesurfer Radio and contributed to the Cyborg Democracy blog. Hughes’ book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future was published by Westview Press in November 2004
Nickolas Pappas, Professor,The Graduate Center, CUNY, will give a talk entitled: “A Little Move toward Greek Philosophy: Reassessing the Statesman Myth”
Abstract:
The myth told in Plato’s Statesman separates the present from an “age of Cronus,” sometimes thought of as a golden age in which political order as we know it was unnecessary. And yet this golden age may not have been a time of happiness, if its inhabitants did not practice philosophy. The subtle, even evanescent difference between our time and that time re-imagines the founding of philosophical institutions, which turn out to be almost indistinguishable from political ones.
This event is sponsored by The New School for Social Research.
RECONCILING NOMINALISM AND PLATONISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS
Department of Philosophy, Columbia University
April 22–23, 2016
FRIDAY APRIL 22 (Philosophy Hall, Room 716)
14:00–14:15
Achille Varzi (Columbia University), Marco Panza (IHPST)
Welcome and Introduction
14:15-15:45
John Burgess (Princeton University)
Reconciling Anti-Nominalism and Anti-Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
15:45–16:00 Break
16:00-17:30
Haim Gaifman (Columbia University)
Reconfiguring the Problem: “Platonism” as Objective, Evidence-transcendent Truth
17:30-19:00
Sébastien Gandon (Université Blaise Pascal)
Describing What One is Doing. A Philosophy of Action Based View of Mathematical Objectivity
SATURDAY, APRIL 23 (Philosophy Hall, Room 716)
9:30–11:00
Mirna Džamonja (University of East Anglia and IHPST)
An Unreasonable Effectiveness of ZFC Set Theory at the Singular Cardinals
11:00–11:30 Break
11:30–13:00
Hartry Field (New York University)
Platonism, Indispensability, Conventionalism
13:00–15:00 Lunch
15:00-16:30
Justin Clarke-Doane (Columbia University)
The Benacerraf Problem in Broader Perspective
16:30–17:00 Break
17:00-18:30
Michele Friend (George Washington University)
Is the Pluralist Reconciliation between Nominalism and Platonism too Easy?
18:30 Conclusions
Professor James Dodd gives a lecture entitled:
“War and Sacrifice. The Troubled Legacy of the First World War”
Abstract
Taking as its point of departure a reflection on Abel Gance’s 1919 film “J’accuse!”, and drawing on George Bataille’s theory of sacrifice, as well as the work of the historian Jay Winter, this paper argues that one of the legacies of the First World War in intellectual and cultural history is a deeply problematic relation between war and sacrifice, however enduring the temptation may remain to secure the meaning of the former through the evocation of the latter.
Thursday Night Philosophy Workshop: James Dodd on “War and Sacrifice: The Troubled Legacy of the First World War”
Thursday, September 7, 2017 at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Wolff Conference Room, Albert and Vera List Academic Center 6 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003, Room D1103
The New York City Wittgenstein Workshop has the following workshops scheduled for this semester and more planned workshops to be announced soon.
All workshops are on Fridays from 4 to 6 pm in room D1106.
2/22 — Zed Adams (the New School) — History of the digital/analogue distinction in philosophy
4/19 — Nickolas Pappas (CUNY) — “Plato on the Opposite of Philosophy”
4/26 — Larry Jackson
5/03 — Nuno Venturinha (Nova University of Lisbon) — “Autobiographical Writing, Self-knowledge, and the Religious Point of View.”
5/10 — Pierre-Jean Renaudi (Lyon)