The Eastern Study Group invites submissions for its 17th annual meeting to take place at Fordham University on Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3, 2020. Our host this year is Reed Winegar.
Keynote Speakers: Patricia Kitcher (Columbia)
Please send all abstracts electronically to Kate Moran, kmoran@brandeis.edu
Please submit a detailed abstract (1,000–1,200 words) with a select bibliography. Submissions should be prepared for blind review and include a word count. 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. Presentation 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 submitted for the Herz prize should not exceed 6,000 words.
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.
ENAKS receives support from NAKS and host universities.
For questions about ENAKS or the upcoming meeting, please contact Kate Moran (kmoran@brandeis.edu) or consult the ENAKS website at www.enaks.net.
Our 12th annual workshop will take place entirely on-line. The workshop will focus on the topic of “Expanding the Early Modern Canon.” We are calling for papers on figures, topics, texts, and genres that have been standardly neglected within the study of early modern philosophy; e.g., women philosophers, philosophy of education, letters, and novels.
Please submit anonymized abstracts of 250-500 words to newyorkcityearlymodern@gmail.com by April 1st, 2022.
Speakers:
Organisers:
Details
The workshop, which is now in its 12th year, aims to foster exchange and collaboration among scholars, students, and anyone with an interest in Early Modern Philosophy (roughly the period from 1600-1800). This year’s workshop will be entirely online. We are calling for papers on figures, topics, texts, and genres that have been standardly neglected within the study of Early Modern Philosophy (e.g., women philosophers, philosophy of education, letters, and novels).
Please submit anonymized abstracts of 250-500 words to newyorkcityearlymodern@gmail.com by April 1st, 2022.
Keynote: Naomi Zack (Lehman College, CUNY)
One of philosophy’s original questions still plagues us: to what extent are beings the same and to what extent do they differ? Arising in thinkers as diverse as Parmenides, Aquinas, and De Beauvoir and in arenas from social and political philosophy to phenomenology and metaphysics. This conference aims to gather graduate student scholars from a variety of specializations to discuss their work on identity and difference. Some of the many questions we may pursue together are the following:
What constitutes identity and difference? What makes someone who they are? How do we understand ourselves to be alike enough to communicate, yet different enough that we must work to understand another’s point of view? How do identity and difference shape belonging–within a community, within a social institution, within a political structure? Similarly, how do differences among the members of a group enrich the identity of that collective? How might overlapping identities of an individual give rise to one’s sense of self? How does identity inform a given group’s philosophical thought? How might one form their identity and sense of self when, as in the case of many marginalized groups/ minorities, the “self” is oppressed?
These questions additionally motivate ontological considerations. To what extent can we describe two objects that are in fact identical? What grants an object’s or a person’s identity over time: metaphysical characteristics, temporal continuity, or certain brain states? Upon what aspects of an entity do we predicate differences? When are two things metaphysically or logically identical? Are mereological composites more than the sum of their parts? Are they identical to matter? To what extent do beings differ from Being? How might experiences or acts of reason help ground an identity claim such as A=A?
Other questions broadly related to “Identity and Difference” are also welcome.
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract prepared for blind review to fordhamgradconference@gmail.com in PDF format. In the body of the email, please include:
- Name
- Paper title
- Institutional Affiliation
Submissions are due by Friday, December 30, 2022. After anonymous review, applicants will be notified by Tuesday, January 17, 2023. Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes.
The conference will take place in person on March 3-4, 2023 on Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus located at 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458.
For questions, please contact the conference organizers at fordhamgradconference@gmail.com
Richard J. Bernstein first encountered John Dewey’s pragmatist naturalism as a graduate student at Yale University, where “Dewey’s naturalistic vision of the relation of experience and nature—how human beings as natural creatures are related to the rest of nature—spoke deeply to me.” This early enthusiasm for Dewey’s naturalistic vision never left him. During the final years of his long life, Bernstein finished two books that return to issues of pragmatist naturalism.
· His Pragmatic Naturalism: John Dewey’s Living Legacy (2020), traces differing versions of Deweyan naturalism in the works of contemporary philosophers, including Robert Brandom, John McDowell, Richard Rorty, Wilfrid Sellars, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Philip Kitcher, Bjorn Ramberg, David Macarthur, Steven Levine, Mark Johnson, Robert Sinclair, Huw Price, and Joseph Rouse.
· In his final book, The Vicissitudes of Nature (2022), Bernstein clarifies his own pragmatist naturalism in relation to the thinking of earlier modern philosophers: Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.
This conference will critically assess and expand the legacy of Bernstein’s final pragmatic naturalism as expressed in these two books. Accepted papers will be collected for publication.
The New York Pragmatist Forum
Paper topics may include:
● Bernstein’s discussion of Dewey’s thinking in relation to contemporary philosophers’ formulations of naturalism in Pragmatic Naturalism: John Dewey’s Living Legacy.
● Bernstein’s interpretation of an earlier thinker’s understanding of naturalism or nature in The Vicissitudes of Nature (Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, or Freud).
● A larger theme or problem that brings one of these Bernstein’s texts into conversation with philosophical naturalism, either particular expressions or conceptual issues.
● The consequences of one or both of these texts for questions of naturalism in relation to wider social and political questions, e.g., democracy, praxis, critique.
Abstracts: Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to tara@newschool.edu.
Submission Deadline: May 22, 2023
NYPF Conference Committee:
Sergio Gallegos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Judith Green, Fordham University
Brendan Hogan, New York University
Tara Mastrelli, New School for Social Research
David Woods, New York University
Ideas about “identity” and “difference” proliferate in the news media, in higher education, in political disputations, and in critical theories of society. Claims about “identity” and “difference” can readily be found at work in a wide variety of typologies, including those of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, political affiliation, ability and disability, animality and humanity, etc. But what exactly do we mean when we speak of “identity” or “difference”? And if we achieve greater clarity about the metaphysical presuppositions and implications of “identity” and “difference,” what difference would that make?
A serious metaphysical examination of “identity” and “difference” will expectedly generate a wide variety of questions. Is discourse about what is “identical” reducible to discourse about what is “the same”? Is discourse about what is “different” reducible to discourse about what is “other”? Can something be “the same” without being “identical,” and can something be “other” without being “different”? When we speak about “being,” does our speaking about it have many different senses (is it spoken of analogically), or instead does our speaking about being always have the same sense (is it spoken of univocally)? Does the “identity” of a thing depend mainly on the thing’s status as an individual, or does it depend instead on the thing’s membership in a general kind? Does an understanding of identity depend on some reference to what is different? Or does an understanding of difference depend on some reference to identity? What is the relation of knowing to being: is it one of identity, or difference, or some combination of both? Is it possible for a knower to discern real differences between things without discerning intelligible differences, or does the indiscernibility of intelligible differences imply that there are no real differences at all but rather an identity? Does difference depend on negation, or can one assert that there is difference without having to assert that something is “not”? Does it make sense to speak of an ontological difference, i.e., a difference between Being and beings, or is it senseless – maybe even useless – to speak of a difference between Being and beings? Is “being” different from “nothing,” or is it possible for differences to exist only among beings (in which case there apparently cannot be a difference between “being” and “nothing”)?
In spite of the virtual ubiquity of discourses about identity and difference, there is a dearth of discourse about the metaphysical presuppositions and implications of “identity and difference.” With its choice of conference theme for 2024 (“Identity, Difference, and the Difference that Metaphysics Makes”), the Metaphysical Society of America wishes to provoke deeper thinking about the metaphysics of identity and difference, with the hope that such deeper thinking will make a meaningful difference in both theory and practice.
Proposals for papers on the conference theme are especially encouraged, but papers on other metaphysical topics are also welcome. Please note: when selecting which submissions to accept for this conference, the Program Committee will regard “relevance to theme” as one important criterion among others.
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Guidelines for the Submission of Abstracts, and for Aristotle and Plato Prize Candidates
Abstracts of approximately 500 words should be submitted electronically by September 30, 2023, to: secretary@metaphysicalsociety.org.
Aristotle Prize: Those wishing to be considered for the Aristotle Prize of the Metaphysical Society should submit full papers along with their abstracts. Eligibility for the Aristotle Prize extends only to persons who have not yet earned a Ph.D.. Those wishing to be considered for the Aristotle Prize should express this wish clearly in the email note that accompanies their submission. Papers submitted for the Aristotle Prize are subject to a 3,750 word limit; this word limit applies to the body of the text to be read at the meeting, and not to footnotes or other supporting material. The Aristotle Prize carries a cash award of $500, inclusion in the program, and assistance with the costs associated with attending the meeting. To be considered for the Aristotle Prize, full papers and abstracts must be submitted by September 30, 2023 to:secretary@metaphysicalsociety.org.
Plato Prize: Those wishing to be considered for the Plato Prize of the Metaphysical Society should submit full papers along with their abstracts. Eligibility for the Plato Prize extends only to persons who received a Ph.D. degree within six years of the conference submission date (i.e., persons who hold a Ph.D. degree which was conferred after September 30, 2017). Those wishing to be considered for the Plato Prize should express this wish clearly in the email note that accompanies their submission. Papers submitted for the Plato Prize are subject to a 3,750 word limit; this word limit applies to the body of the text to be read at the meeting, and not to footnotes or other supporting material. The Plato Prize carries a cash award of $500, inclusion in the program, and assistance with the costs associated with attending the meeting. To be considered for the Plato Prize, full papers and abstracts must be submitted by September 30, 2023 to:secretary@metaphysicalsociety.org.
Travel Grants: Thanks to the generous support of past presidents of the MSA and a grant from the Hocking-Cabot Fund for Systematic Philosophy, the Metaphysical Society is pleased to be able to offer reimbursements for travel expenses up to $350 to graduate students whose papers are selected for the conference program (those wishing to receive such reimbursements must provide the Metaphysical Society with all relevant expense-receipts).
Those who submit abstracts, and those who submit full papers plus abstracts for the Aristotle Prize or Plato Prize, will receive notice of the Program Committee’s decision on their submission no later than December 1, 2023.
2024 Fordham University Philosophy Graduate Student Conference
March 29 & 30, 2024
Hosted by the Fordham Philosophical Society
Keynotes: Dr. Serene J. Khader (CUNY), Dr. Michael Baur (Fordham)
Beginning in 18th Century Europe, the idea of progress emerged as a central theme in philosophy, finding its clearest expression in thinkers like Kant, Hegel and Marx. However, a growing skepticism towards the notion of progress emerged in 20th Century thought, intensified particularly by the critical insights of philosophers such as Adorno, Lyotard and Derrida. In more recent studies, some decolonial philosophers have problematized or rejected the idea of progress, whereas other philosophers associated with the Frankfurt school (Habermas, Honneth, Forst) have defended it.
This conference will provide a platform to examine, debate, and reevaluate the concept of progress along with its meaning, its challenges, and its potential for shaping a more promising future against our contemporary backdrop of global challenges. We invite graduate students in philosophy to submit abstracts that explore the “Possibility of Progress” through the aforementioned frameworks and any other relevant discourse. We welcome your participation and look forward to your contributions.
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Progress and Freedom
- Progress in Human Rights and Social Justice
- Progress and Political Struggle
- The Role of Language in Shaping Power and Progress
- Notions of Moral Progress
- Progress and Happiness
- Progress as an Imperative
- The Dark Side of Progress and Its Unintended Consequences
- Critiques from Postcolonial and Decolonial Perspectives
- Progress in Feminist Theory
- The Future of Progress
- Pre-modern Notions of Progress
- Teleological Versus Non-teleological Progress
- Historicism and Progress
- Progress in Religious Thought
- Progress and Enlightenment Thought
- Progress in the History of Philosophy
- Theories in Scientific Progress
- The Pursuit of Progress and the Search for Meaning
Other work broadly related to “The Possibility of Progress” is also welcome.
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract prepared for blind review to fordhamgradconference@gmail.com in PDF format. In the body of the email, please include:
Name
Paper title
Keywords (maximum five)
Institutional Affiliation
Submissions are due by December 30, 2023. After anonymous review, applicants will be notified by January 20, 2024. Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes followed by a 10 minute Q&A.
The conference will take place in person on March 29 & 30, 2024 on Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus located at 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458.
For questions, please contact the conference organizers at fordhamgradconference@gmail.com
We are seeking submissions for our 14th annual conference hosted in Spring, 2024.
Send abstracts to newyorkcityearlymodern [at] gmail.com by December 8, 2023.
https://philevents.org/event/show/114750