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 workshop will provide a forum for researchers doing work on emotions and related states. The goal is to share new ideas and lines of inquiry, to develop new reflections, and to foster communication between those of us who are investigating emotions in the New York area, and beyond.
*** The event is free but registration is required for those attending on Saturday. To register, send an email with your name by May 2, to Sarah Arnaud: sarnaud@gc.cuny.edu ***
Program (download printable flyer)
Friday, May 3
9:45-10:30
- Introduction by Jesse Prinz
9:45-10:30
- Sarah Arnaud
“What are unconscious emotions?”
10:30-10:45: Break
10:45-11:30
- Katherine Rickus
“1st and 3rd person knowledge of emotions”
11:30-12:15
- Hilla Jacobson
“Pain and mere tastes”
12:15-1:45: Break – lunch
1:45-2:30
- Kathryn Pendoley
“Nagging Guilt, Tentative Fear: Uncertain Emotions and the Problem of Recalcitrance”
2:30-3:15
- Alexandra Gustafson
“Love Alters Not: A Study of Unrequited Love”
3:15-3:30: Break
3:30-4:15
- Justin Leonard Clardy
“A New Challenge for Romantic Love as Union”
4:15-5:00
- Adam Lerner
“Empathy is evidence”
5:00-6:00: Reception
Saturday, May 4
9:45-10:30
- Federico Lauria
“What does emotion teach us about self-deception?”
10:30-10:45: Break
10:45-11:30
- Hyunseop Kim
“Meaningfulness as Correct Fulfillment”
11:30-12:15
- Sergio Gallegos
“Emilio Uranga’s analysis of zozobra (anguish)”
12:15-1:45: Break – lunch
1:45-2:30
- Xiaoyu Ke
“Virtue Responsibilism, Epistemic Emotions, and Epistemic Situationism”
2:30-3:15
- Michael Zhao
“Guilt without perceived wrongdoing”
3:15-3:30: Break
3:30-4:15
- Shawn Tinghao Wang
“Moral agency account of shame”
4:15-5:00
- Daniel Shargel
“Lol: What we can learn from forced laughter”
5:00-6:00: Reception
| 8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
| 9 – 9:15 a.m. | Opening remarks: Shiloh Whitney, Conference Director |
| Session 1 – Organic Affectivity and Animality Moderator: Emilia Angelova, Concordia University |
|
| 9:15 – 10 a.m. | Hermanni Yli-Tepsa, University of Jyväskylä: “How to feel like our eyes: tracing the theme of instinctive affectivity in Phenomenology of Perception” |
| 10 – 10:45 a.m. | Sarah DiMaggio, Vanderbilt University: “Flesh and Blood: Reimagining Kinship” |
| 10:45 – 11 a.m. | Break |
| Session 2 – Passivity Moderator: Philip Walsh, Fordham University |
|
| 11 – 11:45 a.m. | David Morris, Concordia University: “The Transcendentality of Passivity: Affective Being and the Contingency of Phenomenology as Institution” |
| 11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Rajiv Kaushik, Brock University “Merleau-Ponty on Passivity and the Limit of Philosophical Critique” |
| 12:30 – 2 p.m. | Lunch Break |
| Session 3 – Theorizing Emotion 1: Outside-in, Inside-Outside Moderator: Duane H. Davis, University of North Carolina at Asheville |
|
| 2 – 2:45 p.m. | Ed Casey, Stonybrook University: “Bringing Edge to Bear: Vindicating Merleau-Ponty’s Nascent Ideas on Emotion” |
| 2:45 – 3:30 p.m. | Ondřej Švec, Charles University Prague: “Acting out one’s emotion” |
| 3:30 – 3:45 p.m. | Break |
| Session 4 – Theorizing Emotion 2: Intersubjective Dimensions Moderator: April Flakne, New College of Florida |
|
| 3:45 – 4:30 p.m. | Jan Halák, Palacky University Olomouc: “On the diacritical value of expression with regard to emotion” |
| 4:30 – 5:15 p.m. | Corinne Lajoie, Penn State University: “The equilibrium of sense: Levels of embodiment and the (dis)orientations of love” Winner of the M. C. Dillon Award for best graduate essay |
| 5:15 – 5:45 p.m. | Snack Break (light refreshments provided) |
| Thursday Keynote Introduction: Shiloh Whitney, Fordham University |
|
| 5:45 – 7:15 p.m. | Alia Al-Saji, McGill University “The Affective Flesh of Colonial Duration” |
| 8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
| Session 5 – Affective Pathologies and Empathy Moderator: Lisa Käll, Stockholm University |
|
| 9 – 9:45 a.m. | Ståle Finke, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim: “Structuring Affective Pathology: Merleau-Ponty and Psychoanalysis” |
| 9:45 – 10:30 a.m. | Catherine Fullarton, Emory University: “Empathy, Perspective, Parallax” |
| 10:30 – 10:45 a.m. | Break |
| Session 6 – Eating and Breathing Moderator: Ann Murphy, University of New Mexico |
|
| 10:45 – 11:30 a.m. | Whitney Ronshagen, Emory University: “Visceral Relations: On Eating, Affect, and Sharing the World” |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Amie Leigh Zimmer, University of Oregon: “Rethinking Chronic Breathlessness Beyond Symptom and Syndrome” |
| 12:15 – 2 p.m. | Lunch Break (and graduate student Mentoring Session in Lowenstein 810) |
| Session 7 – Critical Phenomenologies 1: Work and Freedom Moderator: Whitney Howell, La Salle University |
|
| 2 – 2:45 p.m. | Talia Welsh, University of Tennessee Chattanooga: “Toward a Critical Phenomenology of Work and Its Discontents” |
| 2:45 – 3:30 p.m. | Laura McMahon, Eastern Michigan University: “The ‘Great Phantom’: Merleau-Ponty on Habitus, Freedom, and Political Transformation” |
| 3:30 – 3:45 p.m. | Break |
| Session 8 – Critical Phenomenologies 2: The “I Can” Moderator: Cheryl Emerson, SUNY Buffalo |
|
| 3:45 – 4:30 p.m. | Kym Maclaren, Ryerson University: “Criminalization and the Self-Constituting Dynamics of Distrust” |
| 4:30 – 5:15 p.m. | Joel Reynolds, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Lauren Guilmette, Elon University: “Rethinking the Ableism of Affect Theory with Merleau-Ponty” |
| 5:15 – 5:45 p.m. | Snack Break (light refreshments provided) |
| Friday Keynote Introduction: Shiloh Whitney, Fordham University |
|
| 5:45 – 7:15 p.m. | Matthew Ratcliffe, York University “Towards a Phenomenology of Grief: Insights from Merleau-Ponty” |
| 8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
| Session 9 – Feeling Beyond Humanism Moderator: Wayne Froman, George Mason University |
|
| 9 – 9:45 a.m. | Marie-Eve, Morin, University of Alberta. “Merleau-Ponty’s ‘cautious anthropomorphism’” |
| 9:45 – 10:30 a.m. | Jay Worthy, University of Alberta: “Feelings of Adversity: Towards a Critical Humanism” |
| 10:30 – 10:45 a.m. | Break |
| Session 10 – Art and Affect Moderator: Stephen Watson, Notre Dame |
|
| 10:45 – 11:30 a.m. | Veronique Foti, Pennsylvania State University. “Body, Animality, and Cosmos in the Art of Kiki Smith” |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Rebecca Longtin, State University of New York New Paltz: “From Stone to Flesh: Affect and the Poetic Ambiguity of the Body” |
| 12:15 – 2:15 p.m. | Lunch Break (and Business Lunch at Rosa Mexicano, 61 Columbus Ave) |
| Session 11 – Voice and Silence Moderator: Gail Weiss, George Washington University |
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| 2:15 – 3 p.m. | Susan, Bredlau, Emory University. “Losing One’s Voice: Merleau-Ponty and the Lived Space of Conversation” |
| 3 – 3:45 p.m. | Martina, Ferrari, University of Oregon. “The Laboring of Deep Silence: ‘Conceptless Opening(s),’ the Suspension of the Familiar, and the Dismemberment of the Ego” |
| 3:45 – 4 p.m. | Break |
| Session 12 – Affectivity and Language Moderator: Galen Johnson, University of Rhode Island |
|
| 4 – 4:45 p.m. | Silvana de Souza Ramos, University of São Paulo. “Merleau-Ponty and the Prose of Dora’s World” |
| 4:45 – 5:30 p.m. | Katie Emery Brown, University of California Berkeley. “Queer Silence in Merleau-Ponty’s Gesture” |
| Banquet | |
| 7 – 10 p.m. | At Salam, 104 W 13th St. |
The philosophical and psychological literature on well-being tend to focus on the prudential value of positive emotions such as pleasure, joy, or gratitude. But how do the negative emotions such as grief fit into our understanding of well-being? It is often assumed that negative emotions are intrinsically bad far us and that we should work toward eliminating them, especially from the perspective of our own well-being.
In this presentation I want to question this assumption by drawing on the ideas of Zhuangzi (a prominent early Daoist thinker from the 4th Century BCE) to argue that negative emotions are not intrinsically bad for us, and that their prudential value or disvalue is context dependent. Zhuangzi’s outlook, with his focus on the flexibility of perspectives and living according to our natural, spontaneous inclinations, gives us reason to reconsider the role of negative emotions in our lives and how we might think about them in a more constructive way.
With responses from: CHRISTOPHER GOWANS (Fordham University)
The Fall dates for the Comparative Philosophy seminar:
September 20 – Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University)
October 11 – Richard Kim (Loyola University, Chicago
November 8 – Sungmoon Kim (City University of Hong Kong)
December 6 – Paul R. Goldin (University of Pennsylvania)
More details (such as titles, abstracts, and respondents) to follow. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy, The City University of New York, Baruch College
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Co-Director, Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy
https://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/
Please R.S.V.P.
The City University of New York, Graduate Center, is hosting its second Emotion Workshop. This semester, we are profiling the work of local scholars and visitors to New York. Topics relate to mind, social philosophy, epistemology, aesthetics, experimental philosophy, and psychology. The workshop will be 1 day long. Participants should not feel obligated to attend every session, but we do ask you to RSVP (this is to make sure everyone is allowed Saturday building access). If you think there is a chance you will join us for any part of the day, please send your name to Sarah Arnaud, postdoc in the Philosophy Program and co-organizer: sarnaud@gc.cuny.edu
PROGRAM
10:00-10:15 Introduction
10:15-11:00 Jesse Prinz (CUNY, Philosophy), “Are emotions socially constructed?”
11:00-11:15 Break
11:15-12:00 Rodrigo Díaz (Bern, Philosophy), “Folk emotion concepts”
12:00-12:45 Juliette Vazard (NYU / Institut Jean Nicod, Paris / University of Geneva), “Epistemic anxiety”
12:45-2:15 Break (lunch)
2:15-3:00 S. Arnaud & K. Pendoley (CUNY, Philosophy), “Intentionalism and the understanding of emotion experience”
3:00-3:15 Break
3:15-4:00 Jonathan Gilmore (CUNY, Philosophy), “Emotion, absorption, and experiential imagining”
4:00-4:45 Jordan Wylie (CUNY, Psychology), “Investigating the influences of emotion on object recognition”
4:45-6:00 Reception
Socrates’ close association of madness and philosophy from the Phaedrus’ Palinode has puzzled interpreters. How can philosophy be equated to irrationality? In this paper I argue against interpretations that either deny that the association of madness and philosophy ought to be taken seriously or downplay this association by considering madness as akin to the unreflective inspiration characterizing only the first stages of philosophizing but subsequently overcome by the mature philosopher. I show that the association of madness and philosophy is an integral part of Socrates’ polemics against what he calls “human moderation”, characterized by a cold calculation of costs and benefits. And, moreover, that madness is an ongoing feature of philosophy and of the philosopher, who is never fully in possession of all his rational and cognitive processes but has to constantly work on them in an effort of self-clarification.
External visitors must comply with the university’s guest policy as outlined here: https://www.newschool.edu/covid-19/campus-access/?open=visitors.
Audience members must show proof of a full COVID-19 vaccination series (and booster if eligible), ID, and remain masked at all times.
Book discussion on Gwenda-lin Grewal’s, Thinking About Death in Plato’s Euthydemus. A Close Reading and New Translation (OUP 2022)
Speakers:
Gwenda-lin Grewal (NSSR)
Cinzia Arruzza (NSSR)
Nicholas Pappas (CUNY)
Thinking of Death places Plato’s Euthydemus among the dialogues that surround the trial and death of Socrates. A premonition of philosophy’s fate arrives in the form of Socrates’ encounter with the two-headed sophist pair, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who appear as if they are the ghost of the Socrates of Aristophanes’ Thinkery. The pair vacillate between choral ode and rhapsody, as Plato vacillates between referring to them in the dual and plural number in Greek. Gwenda-lin Grewal’s close reading explores how the structure of the dialogue and the pair’s back-and-forth arguments bear a striking resemblance to thinking itself: in its immersive remove from reality, thinking simulates death even as it cannot conceive of its possibility. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus take this to an extreme, and so emerge as the philosophical dream and sophistic nightmare of being disembodied from substance. The Euthydemus is haunted by philosophy’s tenuous relationship to political life. This is played out in the narration through Crito’s implied criticism of Socrates-the phantom image of the Athenian laws-and in the drama itself, which appears to take place in Hades. Thinking of death thus brings with it a lurid parody of the death of thinking: the farce of perfect philosophy that bears the gravity of the city’s sophistry. Grewal also provides a new translation of the Euthydemus that pays careful attention to grammatical ambiguities, nuances, and wit in ways that substantially expand the reader’s access to the dialogue’s mysteries.
Conceptual misalignment is a pervasive phenomenon in the studies of Non-Western philosophy and the History of Philosophy (NW&HP). However, conceptual misalignment is often undetected, unsuspected, or seen as a hurdle that NW&HP materials need to overcome to contribute to contemporary discussions. Specifically, conceptual misalignment refers to the following: In the process of crystalizing NW&HP materials, a linguistic coordination of concepts is formed between the speaker, i.e., NW&HP, and its context of contemporary anglophone philosophy. However, in philosophically meaningful ways, the original NW&HP concept and its anglophone counterpart misalign. This misalignment is particularly intricate and hard to detect when it comes to emotion concepts, as they are thought to involve phenomenal and/or intentional features. Through investigating the concept of emotion in Chinese philosophy, I propose a refocusing on conceptual misalignment as a method of cross-cultural comparative and history of philosophy. Moreover, I argue that conceptual misalignment is an important resource for contemporary conceptual engineering and amelioration projects.
With responses from Andrew Lambert (College of Staten Island, CUNY)
RSVP is required for dinner. Dinner will take place at a nearby restaurant. Please contact Lucilla at lm3335@columbia.edu for further information.
We are embarking on an innovative adaptation of J.P. Sartre’s timeless masterpiece, “No Exit.” Infused with elements inspired by Plato’s Dialogues, our play aims to explore the depths of existentialism, dark absurdity, and musical comedy while delving into the realms of speech and movement improvisation.
Through this innovative production, we aim to challenge and provoke audiences, encouraging deep introspection and dialogue about our existence and the choices we make. We believe that the combination of Sartre’s piercing insights and Plato’s philosophical foundations will create a unique theatrical experience that will resonate with both enthusiasts of classic literature and fans of contemporary performance art.
We are embarking on an innovative adaptation of J.P. Sartre’s timeless masterpiece, “No Exit.” Infused with elements inspired by Plato’s Dialogues, our play aims to explore the depths of existentialism, dark absurdity, and musical comedy while delving into the realms of speech and movement improvisation.
Through this innovative production, we aim to challenge and provoke audiences, encouraging deep introspection and dialogue about our existence and the choices we make. We believe that the combination of Sartre’s piercing insights and Plato’s philosophical foundations will create a unique theatrical experience that will resonate with both enthusiasts of classic literature and fans of contemporary performance art.