The graduate students and faculty of the Columbia and NYU Philosophy Departments invite graduate submissions in any area of philosophy for a conference to be held on Saturday, April 13th, 2019 at New York University.
Submission Guidelines
Please send submission as attachments in .doc or .pdf format to columbianyu.philgradconference@gmail.com by February 3rd, 2018 (Notification by February 17th, 2019).
Papers must meet the following requirements:
- All papers must be between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length, suitable for a presentation of 30-40 minutes to a general philosophical audience.
- Submit papers with a separate cover sheet in .doc or .pdf format that includes the following information: name, home institution, contact details, area of paper (e.g. metaphysics, meta-ethics, philosophy of mind, etc.) and an abstract of no longer than 300 words.
- Papers must be submitted by email in blind-review format.
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
Columbia University’s Department of Philosophy, the Morningside Institute, and the Thomistic Institute invite graduate students in philosophy, theology/religious studies, literature, and related disciplines to submit papers for “The Moral Imagination of the Novel.” The conference will examine the ways in which individual novels and the novel as a literary genre can be understood both to depict the search for moral, philosophical, and religious truth and to engage in this very search themselves. Is the novel a realistic or idealistic genre? Can novels expand our sense of moral possibilities? Can they contract them?
The conference will begin with four twenty-minute graduate student papers on Friday, October 4, followed by talks that day and the next from faculty. Confirmed speakers include:
Paul Elie (Georgetown)
Ann Astell (Notre Dame)
Thomas Pavel (Chicago)
Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham)
Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia)
Limited financial assistance is available to defray the cost of travel for student presenters, but students are encouraged to seek funds from their own institutions as well.
One-page proposals should be emailed to Molly Gurdon at mcg2197@columbia.edu by Saturday, August 31 to be considered. Invitations to present papers will be sent by Friday, September 6. Submissions should not contain any identifying information except for a title, but the author’s institution and program, along with the title of their proposed submission, should be noted in the e-mail submission.
Scholars working under the broad umbrella of New Materialism have offered compelling reappraisals of the ways in which we know, interact with, and exist in the world. This scholarship also intersects with recent work on music and sound, which raises rich sets of questions regarding human agency, material, ethics, aesthetics, embodiment, and the subject/object dichotomy, among other issues.
We invite scholars working in the humanities, arts and sciences to submit proposals for papers and performances that engage with the themes of sound and new materialism, broadly construed. We welcome work that adopts historical, technological, analytical, philosophical, materialist, and creative vantage points, among others. Overall, this conference will direct these diverse disciplinary and methodological perspectives towards convergent and critical issues, creating new, interdisciplinary lines of enquiry and generating original research.
The one-day conference will consist of panels that comprise of papers with short reflections by a moderator, as well as an evening concert that includes opportunities for discussion. The concluding concert of work that engages with these themes from creative perspectives will afford attendees with an opportunity to consider and discuss issues concerning sound, material, and agency in a forum that contrasts with, but also complements, our events during the day. Conference participants are strongly encouraged to attend both the daytime and evening portions of the conference.
Proposals are called for:
Paper presentations of 20 minutes with 10 minutes of Q&A.
Artistic presentation of 20 minutes with 10 minutes of discussion
Submission: Proposals of no more than 500 words (300 words for artistic presentation) should be submitted as a PDF by August 14th 2019 to jc5036@columbia.edu
and include “NMAS Submission” in the subject line. If you’re applying for an artistic presentation please include three representative 2 minute audio/video examples. Please also include the title of your proposed paper and anonymize your submission. Include your name, affiliation, and contact information in the body of the email, and also nominate any audio/visual requirements for your paper or performance.
The 2020 Annual Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Conference
Keynote Speaker: Catherine Malabou, Kingston University and University of California, Irvine.
Conference Description
Although the rise of populism has often been interpreted as the atavistic return of racism and nationalism, the underlying sources have more to do with the collapse of the welfare state model in advanced post-industrial countries, which has resulted in the search for new forms of solidarity that could replace welfare state structures. These structures were first developed in the early twentieth century when a new type of nation-state and industrial economy came into being along with the developing capitalist regime of accumulation. Such a regime brought about the destruction of the existing networks of solidarity—based primarily on family, religious community, and workplace ties—thereby leading the state to intervene in different social services, including health, employment, and senior care, as well as in labor policy regarding such issues as the minimum wage, the length of the working day, retirement, and accident insurance. However, these interventions by the state, whether they responded to labor union protests or arose from anti-socialist preemptive actions by conservative forces, have been accompanied by the growing bureaucratization of its practices, which have come to constitute, along with capitalist commodification, one of today’s fundamental sources of inequalities and conflicts.
The shifting line between the private and the public has had ambiguous effects. In the end, state intervention was carried out not in the form of a true democratization but through the imposition of new forms of subordination. The social result with greater globalization and deindustrialization in most of the advanced industrial countries has been a sense of abandonment, as well as a loss of empowerment and autonomy in all segments of the population. At the same time, with the emergence of post-Fordist capitalism in the late twentieth century, this subordination to the state has taken the opposite form—that of a reduction of state intervention and care, based on the idea that the endless expansion of state services cannot serve as a panacea for all problems. As a result, new distortions in the private/public divide recently have appeared. In turn, the private sphere has become increasingly contentious, first, because of growing privatization of previously public services and, second, because gaining access to those services is left to individual initiative.
The feeling that governments are incapable of dealing with social problems has regenerated the awareness that collective self-management is perhaps inevitable, at both micro- and macroscopic levels: from neighborhood collectives up to lending circles, non-profit societies, religious organizations, and solidarity economies. The contemporary interest in structures of mutual aid relates to the fact that we are living in an era that is clearly looking for new models of human flourishing and social development. Not only must we deal with multiple and recurring crises (finance, food, energy, and environment), but there is a growing recognition that today’s normative agenda has to be much more encompassing and holistic, including issues of gender equality, fair trade, environment, and cultural and religious diversity.
A need to reconceptualize the concepts of the “common good” and “collective interest” is developing out of this set of conditions, leading to new definitions of civic sense, responsibility, and autonomy. The need for intermediary structures between the private and public sphere frames the space of intervention for mutual aid as a new form of social coherence.
But the concept of mutual aid has a complex and contradictory history. According to Peter Kropotkin, there is an innate biological evolutionary tendency toward mutualism in all living beings, an immanent social rationality that orients humanity toward a self-regulated political organization and society. Against social Darwinism, Kropotkin argues that species not only compete but also, and mainly, collaborate. Such an evolutionary vision later formed the core of Edward Wilson’s sociobiology, marking the beginning of the altruism/selfishness debates within which the problematic of mutual help has remained enclosed for decades. Libertarianism, for example, presupposes that individuals’ social behavior is grounded in a natural principle of selfishness that should then become the basis of aid. This vision allows for a deterministic idea of the capitalist economy in which Robert Nozick argues for the principle of a “minimal state” grounded on the fact that no distributive justice can come from above. Similarly, Friedrich Hayek argues that the “true” nature of liberalism lies in the doctrine that seeks to reduce to the minimum the power of the state. Democracy is then only the means for collective decision-making or a utilitarian apparatus for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. The capitalist free market, in turn, is said to be the only type of social organization that respects the principle of individual liberty.
If the theory of mutual aid can no longer be grounded in an opposition between the two poles of society and the state, but must be reconceptualized in terms of the mediation between both, the modes of its mediation become the key to the implementation of mutual aid practices. Ideas of family, nation, and religion thus take on new potential significance as the forms of mediation between individuals that can create the basis for networks of mutual aid. Are these the key categories that would embed mutual aid in broader affective, ethical, and metaphysical frameworks, or are there alternative possibilities that would establish new types of networks?
This conference seeks to develop new concepts of mutual aid that are not predetermined by conceptions of biological, economic, or political certainties. Key questions include:
- Why is mutual aid not linked with theories of social contract, and how do we determine its degrees of separation from the state?
- How can mutual aid be reconceptualized by renewing intellectual traditions?
- What are the moral implications and requisites of the concept of mutual aid today?
- What are the privileged domains of application for mutual aid and what are the organizational principles underlying them?
- Does mutual aid imply a reorganization of the economy, or is it compatible with or even essential to a capitalist organization of economic life?
- Does the concept of mutual aid offer tools for reimagining socialism in a way that avoids an overreliance on state power?
- Does mutual aid require a reconstitution of subjectivity that moves it away from the autonomous individual of liberal theory?
- What are the prospects and problems of religious frameworks, such as Pentecostalism, that function as the basis for mutual aid?
- Can the rise of populism be understood as part of a search for new networks for mutual aid? Does mutual aid imply the restriction of its networks to limited groups, implying a relationship to political identity?
- How does the concept of mutual aid relate to state power and the sovereignty of the state?
Abstract Submissions
Please note: Abstracts for this conference will only be accepted from current Telos-Paul Piccone Institute members. In order to become a member, please visit our membership enrollment page. Telos-Paul Piccone Institute memberships are valid until the end of the annual New York City conference.
We invite scholars from all disciplines to submit 250-word abstracts along with a short c.v. to telosnyc2020@telosinstitute.net by September 30, 2019. Please place “The 2020 Telos Conference” in the email’s subject line.
The NYU Center for Bioethics is pleased to welcome submissions of abstracts for its 1st Annual Philosophical Bioethics Workshop, to be held at NYU on Friday, April 3, 2020.
We are seeking to showcase new work in philosophical bioethics, including (but not limited to) neuroethics, environmental ethics, animal ethics, reproductive ethics, research ethics, ethics of AI, data ethics, and clinical ethics.
Our distinguished keynote speaker will be Frances Kamm.
There will be four additional slots for papers chosen from among the submitted abstracts, including one slot set aside for a graduate student speaker. The most promising graduate student submission will be awarded a Graduate Prize, which includes coverage of travel expenses (up to $500, plus accommodation for two nights) as well as an award of $500. Please indicate in your submission email whether you would like to be considered for the Graduate Prize.
Please submit extended abstracts of between 750 and 1,000 words to philosophicalbioethics@gmail.com by 11:59 pm EST on Friday, January 24, 2020. Abstracts should be formatted for blind review and should be suitable for presentation in 30-35 minutes. Notification of acceptance will take place via email by Friday, February 14, 2020.
When submitting your abstract, please also indicate whether you would be interested in serving as a commentator in the event that your abstract is not selected for presentation. We will be inviting four additional participants to serve as commentators.
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to automate and scale solutions to perennial accessibility challenges (e.g., generating image descriptions for blind users). However, research shows that AI-bias disproportionately impacts people already marginalized based on their race, gender, or disabilities, raising questions about potential impacts in addition to AI’s promise. In this talk, Cynthia Bennett will overview broad concerns at the intersection of AI, disability, and accessibility. She will then share details about one project in this research space that led to guidance on human and AI-generated image descriptions that account for subjective and potentially sensitive descriptors around race, gender, and disability of people in images.
Poets and singers in a number of medieval vernacular languages reached non-native audiences and inspired speakers of other languages to compose in theirs; and many imagined their compositions enjoying a universality similar to that of cosmopolitan languages like Latin and Arabic. An interesting rationalization of these aspirations can be discerned in a short verse narrative of a well-known episode in the youth of Alexander the Great, conqueror of India, together with his tutor, the philosopher Aristotle. Not only does it involve Greeks and Indians singing French songs and cosplaying French lovers, but the philosopher is induced to pretend to be a horse and then justifies his behavior as “natural,” with far-reaching implications which this talk will explore.
Sarah Kay is Professor Emerita in the Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture at New York University and Life Fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge. In Spring 2023, she is Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Columbia Society of Senior Scholars.
This talk is presented by the Columbia Maison Française, Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, The Society of Senior Scholars, the Department of Music, and Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
The COVID-19 pandemic is said to be a once-in-a-century incident, and it brought to us a sense of crisis at various levels. What is a crisis, though? Can any unnerving moment or period be called a crisis, or are there different dimensions of a crisis to which we need to be attentive? Is solidarity possible after experiencing a crisis like Covid-19? Can Buddhism make any contribution to facilitating solidarity? This presentation explores the meaning and nature of a crisis and our responses to it by drawing on modern Korean political thinker Pak Ch’iu’s (1909–1949) analysis of crisis and feminist-Buddhist thinker Kim Iryŏp’s (1896–1971) Buddhist philosophy. By doing so, this presentation considers what social, political, existential, and even religious meaning we can draw from our experience of crises, and what questions these insights present to us.
With responses from Karsten Struhl (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY)
Presented by THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
RSVP is required for dinner. If you would like to participate in our dinner, a $30 fee is required. Please contact Lucilla at lm3335@columbia.edu for further information.
A two-day conference on the philosophy of deep learning, organized by Ned Block (New York University), David Chalmers (New York University) and Raphaël Millière (Columbia University), and jointly sponsored by the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program at Columbia University and the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University.
About
The conference will explore current issues in AI research from a philosophical perspective, with particular attention to recent work on deep artificial neural networks. The goal is to bring together philosophers and scientists who are thinking about these systems in order to gain a better understanding of their capacities, their limitations, and their relationship to human cognition.
The conference will focus especially on topics in the philosophy of cognitive science (rather than on topics in AI ethics and safety). It will explore questions such as:
- What cognitive capacities, if any, do current deep learning systems possess?
- What cognitive capacities might future deep learning systems possess?
- What kind of representations can we ascribe to artificial neural networks?
- Could a large language model genuinely understand language?
- What do deep learning systems tell us about human cognition, and vice versa?
- How can we develop a theoretical understanding of deep learning systems?
- How do deep learning systems bear on philosophical debates such as rationalism vs empiricism and classical vs. nonclassical views of cognition.
- What are the key obstacles on the path from current deep learning systems to human-level cognition?
A pre-conference debate on Friday, March 24th will tackle the question “Do large language models need sensory grounding for meaning and understanding ?”. Speakers include Jacob Browning (New York University), David Chalmers (New York University), Yann LeCun (New York University), and Ellie Pavlick (Brown University / Google AI).
Conference speakers
- Cameron Buckner (University of Houston)
- Rosa Cao (Stanford University)
- Ishita Dasgupta (DeepMind)
- Nikolaus Kriegeskorte (Columbia University)
- Brenden Lake (New York University / Meta AI)
- Grace Lindsay (New York University)
- Tal Linzen (New York University / Google AI)
- Raphaël Millière (Columbia University)
- Nicholas Shea (Institute of Philosophy, University of London)
Call for abstracts
We invite abstract submissions for a few short talks and poster presentations related to the topic of the conference. Submissions from graduate students and early career researchers are particularly encouraged. Please send a title and abstract (500-750 words) to phildeeplearning@gmail.com by January 22nd, 2023 (11.59pm EST).
https://philevents.org/event/show/106406