Apr
5
Fri
German Idealism Workshop @ Columbia University, Philosophy rm 716
Apr 5 @ 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

8 February @Columbia

Patricia Kitcher: The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Moral Psychology

Response: Jessica Tizzard

22 February @NSSR

Matters of Love: A Conference

5 April @Columbia

Beatrice Longuenesse: Residues of First Nature

19 April @NSSR

Angelica Nuzzo: Approaching Hegel’s Logic Obliquely: Melville, Moliere, Beckett

Response: David Carlson

10 May @Columbia

Amy Allen: Turning Dead Ends into Through Streets: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress

Apr
19
Fri
German Idealism Workshop @ Columbia University, Philosophy rm 716
Apr 19 @ 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

8 February @Columbia

Patricia Kitcher: The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Moral Psychology

Response: Jessica Tizzard

22 February @NSSR

Matters of Love: A Conference

5 April @Columbia

Beatrice Longuenesse: Residues of First Nature

19 April @NSSR

Angelica Nuzzo: Approaching Hegel’s Logic Obliquely: Melville, Moliere, Beckett

Response: David Carlson

10 May @Columbia

Amy Allen: Turning Dead Ends into Through Streets: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress

Apr
26
Fri
Huttegger: Rethinking Convergence to the Truth. Simon Huttegger (UC Irvine) @ Faculty House, Columbia U
Apr 26 @ 4:10 pm

Convergence to the truth is viewed with some ambivalence in philosophy of science. On the one hand, methods of inquiry that lead to the truth in the limit are prized as marks of scientific rationality. But an agent who, by using some method, expects to always converge to the truth seems to fail a minimum standard of epistemic modesty. This point was recently brought home by Gordon Belot in his critique of Bayesian epistemology. In this paper I will study convergence to the truth theorems within the framework of Edward Nelson’s radically elementary probability theory. This theory provides an enriched conceptual framework for investigating convergence and gives rise to an appropriately modest from of Bayesianism.

The seminar is concerned with applying formal methods to fundamental issues, with an emphasis on probabilistic reasoning, decision theory and games. In this context “logic” is broadly interpreted as covering applications that involve formal representations. The topics of interest have been researched within a very broad spectrum of different disciplines, including philosophy (logic and epistemology), statistics, economics, and computer science. The seminar is intended to bring together scholars from different fields of research so as to illuminate problems of common interest from different perspectives. Throughout each academic year, meetings are regularly presented by the members of the seminar and distinguished guest speakers.

details tba

02/08/2019 Faculty House, Columbia University
4:00 PM

03/22/2019 Faculty House, Columbia University
4:00 PM

04/19/2018 Faculty House, Columbia University
4:00 PM

May
10
Fri
German Idealism Workshop @ Columbia University, Philosophy rm 716
May 10 @ 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

8 February @Columbia

Patricia Kitcher: The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Moral Psychology

Response: Jessica Tizzard

22 February @NSSR

Matters of Love: A Conference

5 April @Columbia

Beatrice Longuenesse: Residues of First Nature

19 April @NSSR

Angelica Nuzzo: Approaching Hegel’s Logic Obliquely: Melville, Moliere, Beckett

Response: David Carlson

10 May @Columbia

Amy Allen: Turning Dead Ends into Through Streets: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress

Jun
26
Wed
Workshop on German Aesthetics @ Lowenstein, Plaza View Room (12th Floor)
Jun 26 all-day

Session I – Chair: Michael Begun (Fordham)

10:00 – Samantha Matherne (Harvard University)

“Rethinking Kantian Aesthetic Normativity”

11:30 – Wiebke Deimling (Clark University)

“Kant’s Theory of Tragedy”

1:00 – Lunch Break

Session II – Chair: Daryl Tress (Fordham)

2:30 – Melissa Zinkin (SUNY Binghamton)

“Aesthetic Judgment, the Generation of Concepts, and Cognitive Mastery in Kant”

4:00 – Jay Bernstein (New School for Social Research)

“Kant and Adorno on Mind and World: From Wild Beauties to Spiral Jetty

 

Sponsored by the Fordham Philosophy Department’s German Philosophy Group

Contact: Reed Winegar (bwinegar@fordham.edu)

Oct
11
Fri
Hollow Truth. Louis deRosset (University of Vermont) @ NYU Philosophy Dept. rm 202
Oct 11 @ 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm

A number of puzzles concerning how truth-ascriptions are grounded have recently been discovered by several theorists, following Fine (2010). Most previous commentators on these puzzles have taken them to shed light on the theory of ground. In this paper, I argue that they also shed light on the theory of truth. In particular, I argue that the notion of ground can be deployed to clearly articulate one strand of deflationary thinking about truth, according to which truth is “metaphysically lightweight.” I will propose a ground-theoretic explication of the (entirely bearable) lightness of truth, and then show how this broadly deflationary view yields a novel solution to the puzzles concerning how truth is grounded. So, if the proposal I sketch is on target, the theory of truth and the theory of ground interact fruitfully: we can apply the notion of ground to offer a clear explication of the deflationist claim that truth is “metaphysically lightweight” that both captures the motivations for that claim and solves the puzzles.

Oct
31
Thu
Empirical and Normative Truth in Democracy – Julian Nida-Rümelin (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) @ NYU Philosophy Dept. 6th flr. lounge
Oct 31 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

In public discourse, but also in political theory, the opinion prevails, that democracy is incompatible with aspirations of truth. Some assume, in the Hobbesian tradition, that civic peace requires that truth assertions be restricted to science and religion (normative positivism), whereas the political sphere is constituted by interests, bargaining and collective decisions based on interests, bargaining and rules of aggregation, be they implicit or explicit. In this perspective Collective Choice as preference aggregation is paradigmatic for the understanding of democracy. Postmodernist and neo-pragmatist thought dismisses truth, because it threatens solidarity and belonging. Libertarian political thought relies on market mechanisms reducing citizens to consumers and producers of material and immaterial goods like security and welfare. Accounts of deliberative democracy focus on reasoning in the public sphere but dismiss a realistic understanding of truth, because it is thought to threaten collective and individual self-determination.

In my talk I will argue that a realistic understanding of empirical and normative truth is compatible, even necessary, for an adequate understanding of democracy, that truth assertions do not threaten civic peace, that postmodernist relativity undermines democratic practice, that libertarian market-orientation is incompatible with the status of citizens in democracy and that even deliberative, but anti-realist, accounts of democracy do not allow for an adequate understanding of democracy. My argument is based on a Davidsonian, or pragmatist, understanding of truth, therefore one might say: it critizises normative positivism, postmodernism, libertarianism, and critical theory using pragmatist insights.

Julian Nida-Rümelin presently holds a chair for philosophy and political theory at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, was president of the German Philosophical Association (DGphil) and state-minister for culture and media in the first government of Gerhard Schröder. The topics of his books include Democracy as Cooperation (1999); Democracy and Truth (2006), translated in Chinese and Italian, Philosophy and the form of Life (2009), Realism (2018) and A Theory of Practical Reason (2020, forthcoming, de Gruyter and PUP).

 

Generous support provided by the New York Institute of Philosophy.

Mar
6
Fri
New York German Idealism Workshop @ New School, tba
Mar 6 @ 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Luca Corti (University of Padua) – March 6

Amy Allen (Penn State) – March 27

Andreja Novakovic (UC Berkeley) – April 3

Alberto Siani (University of Pisa) – May 8

Mar
27
Fri
New York German Idealism Workshop @ Columbia U, tba
Mar 27 @ 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Luca Corti (University of Padua) – March 6

Amy Allen (Penn State) – March 27

Andreja Novakovic (UC Berkeley) – April 3

Alberto Siani (University of Pisa) – May 8

Apr
3
Fri
New York German Idealism Workshop @ Columbia U, tba
Apr 3 @ 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Luca Corti (University of Padua) – March 6

Amy Allen (Penn State) – March 27

Andreja Novakovic (UC Berkeley) – April 3

Alberto Siani (University of Pisa) – May 8