Calendar

Thursday, September 29th, 2022
Christina Van Dyke (Barnard College)
Title “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes: Imaginative Meditation and Experience of Love in Medieval Contemplative Philosophy”
4:10-6:00 PM
716 Philosophy Hall

The Avoidance of Intimacy: A Reorientation in the Moral Philosophy of Love

Presented by Columbia University Dept. of Philosophy

The first section of the talk will give an account of the Hindu-Buddhist debate about the existence of selves.  The particular Hindu / Brāhmaṇical tradition concentrated on is Nyāya, and ‘Buddhism’ is used to refer specifically to Dharmakīrtian Buddhism with its doctrine of momentariness.  The second section looks at a Nyāya argument against Buddhism.  I will argue that it is not difficult for the Buddhist to come up with a satisfactory response.  The third section will introduce the view of Rāmakaṇṭha (950–1000 CE) and look at three of his arguments against the Buddhist view.  These I view as more difficult for the Buddhist to respond to.  The fourth section introduces the view of Galen Strawson, relates it to the Buddhist view, and considers the extent to which it is susceptible to Rāmakaṇṭha’s arguments.

With responses from Martin Lin (Rutgers University)

NOTE ON ENTRY FOR NON-COLUMBIA GUESTS: The door to Philosophy Hall will only open with a Columbia University ID card. If you do not have this card please arrive early where someone will be standing outside until the meeting begins. If you arrive late, you can ask someone walking nearby to let you in or contact Cole at cf2798@columbia.edu. Please only contact Cole as a final resource so as not to interrupt the talk.

NOTE REGARDING DONATIONS: Due to COVID-19, donations are only accepted through Columbia University’s secure online giving form, Giving to Columbia.

RSVP is required for dinner. Dinner will take place at a nearby restaurant. Please contact Cole at cf2798@columbia.edu for further information.

Comparative Philosophy Seminar:

• January 19 – Alex Watson (Ashoka University)
• February 2 – Davey Tomlinson (Villanova University)
• April 5 – Laura Specker (Fordham University)
• May 3 – Daniel Stephens (University at Buffalo)

Serving as a response to Aimé Césaire’s call for a universal filled with particularity from his infamous resignation from the French Communist Party in 1956, I focus on the role of culture for a project of universal emancipation. To do so, I follow Sylvia Wynter’s statement that the Négritude movement is an example of a universal and cultural project. Recalling Césaire’s words in “Return to My Native Land,” culture that serves universal emancipation must be “free of the desire to tame but familiar with the play of the world.” To this end, I develop a conception of culture that is both local and universal, that centers on the importance of what it means to be human, as life, as being, and as experience by reading culture as necessarily local, collective, disenchanted, and related to play.

 Bio:

Elisabeth Paquette is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her book, titled Universal Emancipation: Race beyond Badiou (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), engages French political theorist Alain Badiou’s discussion of Négritude and the Haitian Revolution to develop a nuanced critique of his theory of emancipation. Currently, she is working on a monograph on the writings of decolonial theorist Sylvia Wynter. She is also the Founder of the Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshop, which takes place annually during the summer.