Alexander Nehamas (Department of Philosophy, Humanities, and Comparative Literature, Princeton University), will give a lecture entitled “Nietzsche, Intention, and Action”
Beginning from Nietzsche’s thought that “in order to become what one is one must not have the faintest idea what one is,” Nehamas will try to articulate his understanding of intention and action.
From the abstract: “A large swath of human behavior cannot possibly be explained if we assume, as is common both in everyday talk and in philosophy today, that an intention is a mental state that precedes, causes, and rationalizes our actions. Most interesting behavior, beyond lifting an arm or turning on a light—behavior encapsulated in ”becoming what one is” and most clearly observable in the production and interpretation of works of art—requires that intention, whatever exactly it is, comes into being along with the actions with which it is connected. That has important consequences for the interpretation of both Nietzsche and human action more generally.”
Our Next NYSWIP Event!! Join us September 18th, 4-6pm at Stonybrook Manhattan. Moderated by Diana Tietjens Meyers.
In honor of Anne Donchin and her contributions to the field, we will be hosting a panel discussion with three great speakers…
Lisa Eckenwiler (George Mason University)
Place, Relational Autonomy, and Health Justice
Abstract: Feminist philosophers and others have enriched accounts of persons by focusing on our embodiment and embeddedness in relations of care and in social structures and processes. In this presentation, I argue for integrating place into conceptions of our nature as relational beings, and consider the importance of place for autonomy and health justice. To the extent that places can be made, I offer “ethical place-making” as a transformative ethical ideal and practice. I suggest that it serve as a sort of mid level principle in a capabilities-oriented account of justice.
Serene Khader (Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY)
Respect and Transitional Loss of Self: A Problem with Constitutively Relational Accounts of Autonomy
Abstract: In this paper, I make part of a case against understanding adaptive preferences as deficits in what I call “socially constitutive substantive autonomy.” The core of my argument is this: socially constitutive substantive accounts, or SCSA, make it difficult for us to identify and morally assess a specific sort of harm that is likely to occur as a result of adaptive preference intervention—a loss I call “transitional loss of self.” The paper thus begins from two important assumptions. The first is that one desideratum for moral concepts in feminist philosophy is that they should clarify what is at stake in practical efforts at feminist political trasnsformation. The second assumption is that part of the purpose of a concept of personal autonomy is to describe what is harmed when individuals are interfered with in ways they reject. I argue that socially constitutive accounts of relational autonomy threaten to neutralize the harms associated with transitional loss of self.
Georgina Campelia (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
Better, Faster, Stronger: A Culture of Stimulant Use and the Construction of Disability
Abstract: This paper takes a new perspective on the role of clinicians in the culture of academic stimulant usage, such as Adderall. While some argue that legalizing ‘non-medically indicated’ stimulant prescriptions is morally acceptable, even morally recommended, so as to accommodate concerns of public health and individual health safety, I contend that this intuition is misdirected. What should be of greater concern are the cultural norms that encourage and even mandate stimulant usage in academic environments. These norms construct disability where there is none and exacerbate conditions that are already disabling. Clinicians ought to consider how their role can contribute to this push for students to be better, faster, stronger, and how this might actually exacerbate current conditions of disability and create new ones.
Amelie Rorty (Harvard Medical School), Oedipus, Intentional Action, and Three Types of History
[see the linked poster on the department webpage where it says: View this semester’s departmental lecture series.]
Kant’s conception of action cannot be understood in purely causal terms. The internal structure of action can only be explained in terms of a two-level meaning structure involving both a priori and empirical components.
Short bio:
Alejandro G. Vigo (Buenos Aires, 1958) is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Navarra. Prof. Vigo earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy (1984) from the University of Buenos Aires and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Heidelberg (1993). He has been a fellow of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (CONICET, Argentina), of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Between 1993 and 2006 he taught at the Universidad de los Andes and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has published over 120 articles in collective volumes and journals in Latin America, Europe and the United States, along with many books. In 2010 he won the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Prize (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn) and in 2017 the International Philosophy Award “Antonio Jannone” (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome).