The Eastern Study Group of the NAKS invites submissions for its 15th annual meeting to take place at Columbia University on Friday and Saturday, May 4–5, 2018. Our host this year is Professor Patricia Kitcher.
Keynote Speakers:
Stephen Engstrom (Pitt)
Paul Guyer (Brown)
Submissions of detailed abstracts (1,000 words) or papers (no more than 5,000 words, including notes and references) should be prepared for blind review as PDF files. Please include a word count at the end of your abstract or paper. Please supply contact information in a separate file. If you are a graduate student, please indicate this in your contact information.
The selection committee welcomes contributions on all topics of Kantian scholarship (contemporary or historically oriented), including discussions of Kant’s immediate predecessors and successors. Reading time is limited to 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of discussion. The best graduate student paper will receive a $200 stipend and be eligible for the Markus Herz Prize. Women, minorities, and graduate students are encouraged to submit.
Papers already read or accepted at other NAKS study groups or meetings may not be submitted. Presenters must be members of NAKS in good standing.
Papers will be posted in the “members only” section of the NAKS website and circulated in advance among participants, who are expected to have read them at the time of the conference.
ENAKS receives support from NAKS and host universities. Earlier programs are available on our website: http://word.emerson.edu/enaks/
For questions about ENAKS or the upcoming meeting, please contact Kate Moran (kmoran@brandeis.edu).
Submission Deadline: January 15, 2018
Time: May 4–5, 2018
Place: Columbia University
Please send all abstracts electronically to Kate Moran, kmoran@brandeis.edu
At the core of Kantian liberalism is a conception of the independent autonomous subject. On the other hand, the most central and distinguishing feature of Buddhist philosophy is the doctrine of no-self. It thus seems that Buddhists should reject Kantian liberalism. My larger project develops the connections between Buddhist perfectionism, liberalism, and principles of justice. In this paper, I focus on Buddhist and Kantian conceptions of self-constitution, but my ultimate concern is the significance of the doctrine of no-self to theories of justice.
Buddhists need some conception of a minimal self to account for the karmic-continuity of persons and also to provide an adequate account of the subjectivity of experience. I argue that we should reject the (Abhidharma) reductionist view of the self as a mere fiction that is reducible to its simpler and more basic parts. As is often noted, the Buddhist reductionist approach is similar to Derek Parfit’s view. Parfit also argues that there is no deep metaphysical self and that relations of personal identity are reducible to relations of psychological connectedness and causal continuity in a series of experiences. Christine Korsgaard has responded to Parfit’s reductionist view by developing a non-metaphysical account of Kantian agency and self-constitution. I argue that the Buddhist doctrine of no-self is consistent with a more minimal, non-substantial, emergent, view of the self. This approach, which is more fully developed by Evan Thomson, Matthew MacKenzie, Georges Dreyfus, and others, is surprisingly similar to Korsgaard’s practical conception of the self. As a result, the non-reductionist Buddhist approach is also not vulnerable to Korsgaard’s objection to reductionist views. In addition, I argue that the process of self-constitution is embedded in a recursive nexus of dependent origination, and reject Korsgaard’s conception of the independent autonomous subject, which she refers to as “over and above” its ends. In short, a Buddhist can accept Korsgaard’s basic account of self-constitution but nonetheless reject the Kantian idea of the independent autonomous subject. For Buddhists, the Kantian autonomous subject is instead part of the “primal confusion” that projects a reified subject-other division on experience. This confusion is the source of existential suffering, anxiety and stress, which characterizes too much of the human condition. The goal is to transcend the Kantian subject and internalize the pervasive interdependence of persons. Instead of the autonomous self, Buddhism embraces a perfectionist ideal, of a non-egocentric reorientation and re-constitution of the self.
Buddhists thus have reason to reject Kantian liberalism, if it is based on the autonomy and independence of persons. In his shift to Political Liberalism, John Rawls recasts the conception of the person, as “a self-originating source of valid claims,” and emphasizes that this conception is restricted to the political domain. It is part of a narrow conception of the “moral powers” of a free and equal citizen; it is not a metaphysical conception or comprehensive ideal. I conclude by exploring the contrast between Buddhist Perfectionism and Political Liberalism.
With a Response From:
Carol Rovane (Columbia University)
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Also, please visit our website:
http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/
Co-Chairs
Professor Jonathan Gold
Associate Professor, Princeton University, Department of Religion
Professor Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor, The City University of New York, Baruch College | Graduate Center, Department of Philosophy
hagop.sarkissian@baruch.cuny.edu
Rapporteur
Jay Ramesh
New York Workshop for the Cosmos of Dōgen Presents
Dōgen in Dialogue with Analytic Philosophy
Dōgen (1200-1251) is a Japanese Zen master and one of the most original and intriguing philosophers in the entire history of Japan. In this workshop, some important themes of Dogen’s philosophy such as self, time, reality, causation, ineffability of the ultimate truth & etc., are reinterpreted, mainly but not exclusively, from the perspectives of analytic philosophy. Those analytic Dōgen studies purport to shed new lights to his thoughts as well as the contemporary philosophical debates on those topics. The workshop also features contemporary philosophical talks on Self, that are inspired by Dōgen’s insights. So, overall it aims to revive Dōgen as a fruitful dialogical partner for contemporary philosophy.
I Analytic Dōgen Studies
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University): Self as Anyone
This talk will explore Dōgen’s ideas on self as well as time, being and reality in terms of analytic philosophy such as trope, formulating it as Self as Anyone.
Naozumi MITANI (Shinshū University): On the Elusiveness of Dōgen’s Ontology
This talk tries to explicate Dōgen’s Ontology that can be found in those chapters of Sōbōgenzō as Gebjōkōan, Busshō and Inmo, as non-monistic process philosophy, consulting philosophical ideas of contemporary philosophers such as W. Sellers and T. Nagel.
Shinya MORIYAMA (Shinshū University): Dōgen on Time and Self: Reflections on Uji
This talk will summarize the main theses of Sōbōgenzō’s Uji chapter as (1) time doesn’t pass, (2) time presupposes self that is to be reduced to everything in the world, and (3) time succeeds with each other without any gap between them. Then it tries to explicate Dōgen’ ideas on time and self that are encapsulated as those enigmatic claims in the light to contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of time.
Naoya FUJIKAWA (Tokyo Metropolitan University): Eloquence of Silence? : A Note on Dōgen on Silence
This talks will try to analyze Dōgen’ ideas on silence as the best way to convey Dharma in terms of contemporary pragmatics such as Gricean framework, mentioning to interpretations by Priest and Casati (forthcoming), Priest’s Fifth Corner of Four, Garfied’s Engaging Buddhism.
Hsun Mei CHENG (Kyoto University/National Taiwan University): The Knowledge of Reality and Reality in Dōgen’s Philosophy
Dōgen’s idea on our knowledge of the ultimate reality will be explored in terms of contemporary philosophical vocabularies such as knowing-that vs. knowing-how (G. Ryle, J. Stanley and T. Williamson), tacit knowledge (M. Planyi) and non-conceptual knowledge (F. Hoffman). Then it will be claimed that Dōgen’s knowledge should be understood as a tacit and non-conceptual knowing-how.
Hayato SAIGŌ (Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology): Dōgen on Interdependence: Nārgārjuna and Category Theory
Recently Yorizumi (2011) proposed a Saussurian reading of Dōgen’s idea of interdependence, following Toshihiko Izutsu’s interpretation of Buddhistic philosophy, interpretation it as an arbitrary construct of our minds. This talk tries to propose an alternative interpretation on his idea of interdependence in the light of
category theory in contemporary mathematics, focusing on reflexive features of Dōgen’s interpretation.
II Philosophy of Self a là Dōgen
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University): Self as We: Toward a Revival of East Asian Holistic Self
This talks tries to argue for a new idea on holistic and somatic self; self as we, being inspired the speaker’s interpretation on Dōgen’s ideas on self; self as anyone.
Shigeru TAGUCHI (Hokkaido University): Self in Superposition: Husserl, Tanabe, and Dōgen
The aim of this talk is to compare Husserl’s concept of Ur-Ich with Tanabe Hajime’s concept of “species” in order to reconsider the basic state of “self” and its primordial relation to other selves. I claim that self is not a substance, but a kind of “mediation.”
Schedule
5 th Oct. 2018 Room 6300
Analytic Dōgen Studies I
10:00 – 11:30 Deguchi
Lunch
13:00 – 14:30 Mitani
14:40 – 16:10 Moriyama
16:20 – 17:50 Fujikawa
Dinner
6th Oct. 2018 Room 7113.XX
Analytic Dōgen Studies II
10:00 – 11:00 Hsun-Mei Cheng
11:00 – 12:00 Hayato Saigo
Lunch
II Philosophy of Self a là Dōgen
13:30 – 15:00 Deguchi
15:10 – 16:40 Taguchi
17:00 – 17:00 Lap Up Discussion
Dinner
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).
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)
This essay tries to develop a “black radical Kantianism” – that is, a Kantianism informed by the black experience in modernity. After looking briefly at socialist and feminist appropriations of Kant, I argue that an analogous black radical appropriation should draw on the distinctive social ontology and view of the state associated with the black radical tradition. In ethics, this would mean working with a (color-conscious rather than colorblind) social ontology of white persons and black sub-persons and then asking what respect for oneself and others would require under those circumstances. In political philosophy, it would mean framing the state as a Rassenstaat (a racial state) and then asking what measures of corrective justice would be necessary to bring about the ideal Rechtsstaat.
Response by César Cabezas Gamarra.
Presented by the German Idealism Workshop
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician
The Art of Change is a bold experimental work that introduces a radically new artistic form. Starting with the traditional notion of opera as a type of work that blends music, theater, art, and design into a single form, The Art of Change brings performers and thinkers together on stage and fuses live performance with historical video footage, recorded interviews and multimedia content. All of this is woven together into a tapestry that is generative, interactive, participative, and open.
As its title suggests, the work centers on the very idea of change and presents various ways of thinking, from the very pragmatic to the most speculative, about what needs to be changed in the world today. Actors, singers, instrumentalists, designers, and philosophers come together, with the audience, to speculate on this question and the many ways in which it can be answered.
The libretto, by philosopher Chiara Bottici, is the result of a process in which an initial text was developed through a collective authoring process that unfolded on Public Seminar – an online journal of ideas, politics and culture supported by The New School.
No two performances of The Art of Change are the same. Spoken dialogues within each performance are analyzed and processed on the fly through software which captures and develops the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech to generate instrumental scores for the musicians and electronics. What is more, each evening features two guests – a thinker and a musician – who bring new perspectives and their unique vision to the work.
Performances:
January 16th, 8pm
January 17th, 5pm & 8pm
January 18th, 5pm & 8pm
January 21st, 8pm
Creative Team:
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Concept, Video Design & Composition
Chiara Bottici, Libretto
Ashley Tata, Stage Direction
Timo Rissanen, Costume Design
Abigail Hoke-Brady, Lighting Design
Thomas Goepfer, Sound & Video Design
Camilla Hoitenga, Flutes Solo
Levy Lorenzo, Creative Technologist, Percussion
Actors, singers and instrumentalists of The New School’s College of Performing Arts: Hayley Boggs, William Desbiens, Youngwoo Jeon, Kalun Leung, Timmy Ong, Yeji Pyun, Samuel Rachmuth, Veronica Richer, Jane Skapek (assistant director), Zachary Sebek, Alexander Theiss, Jackie Traish, Yunnan Xu
Guest Artists:
January 16: Simon Critchley, philosopher and Joan La Barbara, musician
January 17: Cinzia Arruzza, philosopher and Rebekah Heller, musician
January 18: Dmitri Nikulin, philosopher and Ross Karre musician
January 21: Jamieson Webster, psychoanalyst and Joan La Barbara, musician