Mar
28
Thu
Nietzsche and the Disadvantage of History: the Rise of Western Oikophobia. Benedict Beckeld @ Meyer Hall, Room 102, NYU
Mar 28 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

New York University’s Liberal Studies, in Collaboration with Nietzsche Circle, Presents:

Nietzsche and the Disadvantage of History: The rise of Western Oikophobia

More Info & RSVP:
If you like to attend, Please RSVP by sending email to Luke Trusso at luke.trusso@gmail.com

May
17
Fri
Nietzsche Circle Fundraiser @ Beyhan Karahan & Associates Architects
May 17 @ 7:00 pm

Annual Nietzsche Circle Fundraiser with talk, music, drinks, and refreshments.

$25 General Admission

$10 Student Admission

Levels of Sponsorship:

Eagle: Above $600 (5 free tickets and 4 books)

Hawk: $600 (4 free tickets and 3 books)

Falcon: $400 (3 free tickets and 2 books)

Owl: $200 (2 free tickets and 1 book)

Donations can be made direct, at our website at www.nietzschecirclecom/support_us.html, or simply bring a check with you. Payable to: Nietzsche Circle. Funds may be held in an escrow account subject to determination of 501(c) compliance. We thank you.

Please RSVP with Luke Trusso at luke.trusso@gmail.com by May 10, 2019 and include any guests.

Sep
12
Thu
The Ethical Stance and the Possibility of Critique. Webb Keane @ Wolff Conference Room, D1106
Sep 12 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Critique is an assertion of values pitted against a state of affairs. To say that things should not be the way they are–to respond to questions such as ‘Why do I think this political or economic arrangement is wrong (and why should I care?)?’ implies an ethical stance. Critique thus draws together fact and value, domains that a long tradition of moral thought has argued exist on distinct planes. For there are dimensions of political life that are incomprehensible without this conjunction between ethical motivations and social realities. But if they are to have political consequences, such questions cannot be confined to private introspection. Scale matters. This talk looks at the articulation between everyday interactions and social movements to show the interplay among the first, second, and third person stances that characterize ethical life. Drawing ethnographic examples from American feminism and Vietnamese Marxism, it considers some of the ways in which ethical intuitions emerge, consolidate, and change, and argues that objectifications and the reflexivity they facilitate help give ethical life a social history.

Sep
27
Fri
NYC Nietzsche Group: Michael Begun (Fordham) @ Plaza View Room (12th Floor)
Sep 27 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Presented by Fordham Philosophy

Oct
10
Thu
Reconstructing Nietzsche, Contextually. Matthew Meyer @ Wolff Conference Room, D1106
Oct 10 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

I defend a contextual reconstruction of Nietzsche’s philosophical project. My contextualist reconstruction contrasts with the rationalist reconstruction predominant in contemporary Anglo-American scholarship. After discussing the differences between the two approaches, I show how the rationalist reconstruction has distorted our understanding of Nietzsche in at least two respects. First, in trying to extract theories from Nietzsche’s corpus that will be attractive to contemporary philosophers, it has caused scholars largely to neglect the nature, structure, and argument of Nietzsche’s published works. Here, I make my case by focusing on common misunderstandings of Nietzsche’s free spirit works. Second, it has caused scholars to tame Nietzsche’s project by dismissing Thus Spoke Zarathustra as mere poetry and distancing Nietzsche from controversial ideas such as the will to power and the eternal recurrence. In contrast, I argue that by reading Nietzsche as a naturalist through the lens of a historical influence like Schopenhauer, rather than anachronistically through Quine, we can begin to make sense of these essential features of his project. I close with some remarks about why a contextual reconstruction may not only be truer to Nietzsche, but also more philosophically satisfying than the rationally reconstructed Nietzsche currently on offer.

Oct
18
Fri
NYC Nietzsche Group: Dylan Bailey (Fordham) @ Plaza View Room (12th Floor)
Oct 18 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Contact Sara Pope for more information.

Nov
21
Thu
The Power of Art. Markus Gabriel @ Wolff Conference Room, D1106
Nov 21 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

We live in an era of aesthetics. Art has become both pervasive and powerful – it is displayed not only in museums and galleries but also on the walls of corporations and it is increasingly fused with design. But what makes art so powerful, and in what does its power consist?

According to a widespread view, the power of art – its beauty – lies in the eye of the beholder. What counts as art appears to be a function of individual acts of evaluation supported by powerful institutions. On this account, the power of art stems from a force that is not itself aesthetic, such as the art market and the financial power of speculators.  Art expresses, in a disguised form, the power of something else – like money – that lies behind it. In one word, art has lost its autonomy.

In his talk, Markus Gabriel rejects this view.  He argues that art is essentially uncontrollable. It is in the nature of the work of art to be autonomous to such a degree that the art world will never manage to overpower it. Ever since the cave paintings of Lascaux, art has taken hold of the human mind and implemented itself in our very being.   Thanks to the emergence of art we became human beings, that is, beings who lead their lives in light of an image of the human being and its position in the world and in relation to other species. Due to its structural, ontological power, art itself is and remains radically autonomous. Yet, this power is highly ambiguous, as we cannot control its unfolding.

Markus Gabriel holds the chair for Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Bonn and is also the Director of the International Center for Philosophy in Bonn as well as the director of the Center for Science at Thought at Bonn.

Presented by The New School for Social Research and Philosophy Department and it is co-sponsored with the Liberal Studies Department.

Nov
22
Fri
NYC Nietzsche Group: Yunus Tuncel (New School) @ Plaza View Room (12th Floor)
Nov 22 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Contact Sara Pope for more information.

Apr
28
Tue
Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech) @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 5307
Apr 28 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Presented by Metro Area Philosophers of Science

Spring 2020 Schedule:

Anthony Aguirre (UCSC) – “Entropy in long-lived genuinely closed quantum systems”
6:30-8:30pm Tuesday Feb 4; NYU Philosophy Department (5 Washington Place), 3rd floor seminar room.

David Papineau (King’s College London & CUNY) – “The Nature of Representation”
4:30-6:30pm Tuesday March 3; CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave, NYC), room 5307.

Jim Holt (Author of Why Does the World Exist?) – “Here, Now, Photon: Why Newton was closer to EM than Maudlin is”
4:30-6:30pm Tuesday April 7; CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave, NYC), room 5307.

Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech)
4:30-6:30pm Tuesday April 28; CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave, NYC), room 5307.

Feb
2
Wed
Art in the Brain of the Beholder @ ZOOM - see site for details
Feb 2 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

What can science teach us about how we perceive and understand art? How can art help us understand ourselves and each other? In this event, the Zuckerman Institute explores the interactions between our brains and the artistic world, finding connections and parallels between art and science.

Event Speakers

Please visit the event webpage to view the speaker list.

Event Information

Free and open to the public, registration is required by January 28, 2022. This event will also be live-streamed. Please email zuckermaninstitute@columbia.edu with any questions.

This talk is part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Brain Insight Lecture series hosted by Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.