May
3
Fri
Workshop on Emotions @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 5307
May 3 all-day

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

Sep
11
Wed
Critique 1/13: Foucault and Nietzsche with Amy Allen @ Jerome Greene Annex, Columbia Law
Sep 11 @ 6:15 pm – 8:45 pm
The first seminar in the Critique 13/13 Series.

About this Event

Wednesday, September 11, 2019 6:15 – 8:45 pm at Columbia University

With Professor Amy Allen and Bernard E. Harcourt

Readings include:

Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow, 76-100. New York, Pantheon Books, 1984.

_____. “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx.” In The Essential Works of Michel Foucault: Power, ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley et al., 277-278. New York: New Press, 2000.

Harcourt, Bernard E., “The Illusion of Influence: On Foucault, Nietzsche, and a Fundamental Misunderstanding” (May 24, 2019). Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 14-627 (2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3393827

These events are free and open to the public. Please RSVP.

The syllabus is available here.

Sep
12
Thu
International Merleau-Ponty Circle: Affect / Emotion / Feeling @ 12th Floor Lounge
Sep 12 – Sep 14 all-day

Thursday, September 12 Schedule

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”

Friday, September 13 Schedule

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”

Saturday, September 14 Schedule

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
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.
Sep
25
Wed
Critique 2/13: Horkheimer and Adorno with Axel Honneth @ Columbia Maison Française, Buell Hall
Sep 25 @ 6:15 pm – 8:45 pm
The second seminar in the Critique 13/13 Seminar Series.

About this Event

Wednesday, September 25, 2019 6:15-8:45 pm at Columbia University

Professor Axel Honneth and Bernard E. Harcourt discussing the early Frankfurt School, specifically Max Horkheimer’s 1937 essay, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” and Theodor Adorno’s 1931 essay, “The Actuality of Philosophy.”

This event is co-sponsored by the Columbia Maison Française.

Readings include:

Horkheimer, Max. “Traditional and Critical Theory, in Horkheimer, Max. Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York: Continuum, 1992.

Adorno, Theodor W. “The Actuality of Philosophy.” Telos 1997, no. 31 (1997): 120-133.

These events are free and open to the public. Please RSVP.

 

The syllabus is available here.

Sep
28
Sat
Isaac Levi Conference and Memorial @ Columbia University, Philosophy rm tba
Sep 28 all-day

Conference Schedule

10AM       Teddy Seidenfeld – Conditional Probability, Conditionalization, and Total Evidence

11AM       Eleonora Cresto – Beyond Indeterminate Utilities. The Case of Neurotic Cake-Cutting

11:20AM  Ignacio Ojea Quintana – Unawareness and Levi’s Consensus as Common Ground

11:40AM  Rush Stewart – Uncertainty, Equality, Fraternity

1PM         Nils-Eric Sahlin – Levi’s Decision Theory: Lessons Learned

1:45PM    Wilfried Sieg – Scientific Theories as Set-Theoretic Predicates?

2:45PM    Panel Discussion – Learning from Levi

Abstracts available in attached documents under “Supporting material.”

Memorial

A memorial service will be held at 5PM at St. Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia campus. Reception to follow on the 7th floor of Philosophy Hall.


https://philevents.org/event/show/75850

Oct
11
Fri
The Role of Negative Emotions in the Good Life: Reflections from the Zhuangzi. Richard Kim @ Columbia University Religion Dept. 101
Oct 11 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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/

Oct
24
Thu
Philosophy of Probability Conference (Loewer) @ Seminar Room at Gateway Transit Building
Oct 24 – Oct 26 all-day

Ian Hacking wrote that probability is a Janus-faced concept with one face looking toward the world and the other toward the mind. The face looking toward the world is central to laws and explanations in physics (especially quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics) and the special sciences. The face looking toward the mind is central to epistemology and decision theory. This conference concerns both aspects and especially their relation to each other. What is probability that it possesses both aspects? This three-day conference will focus on answering this and related questions.

There is no registration fee and attendance is open to all; however, RSVP is required. Please RSVP here before Oct 15, if you plan to attend. All are welcome!

General information is available here.

Conference Organizers

Barry Loewer (Rutgers)
Denise Dykstra (Rutgers)

Invited Participants

David Albert (Columbia)
Valia Allori (NIU)
Katie Elliott (UCLA)
Ned Hall (Harvard)
Carl Hoefer (Barcelona)
Jenann Ismael (Columbia)
Christopher Meacham (Amherst)
Wayne Myrvold (Western)
Richard Pettigrew (Bristol)
Jack Spencer (MIT)

Schedule Overview

(A detailed schedule is available here.)

Thursday, October 24

  • 3:00 – 6:00: Metaphysics of Objective Probability: Ned Hall (Harvard); Jenann Ismael (Columbia).

Friday, October 25

  • 9:00 – 9:50: Breakfast in the philosophy department
  • 9:50 – 10:00: Welcome & Introductory Remarks (Barry Loewer)
  • 10:00 – 1:00: Chance: Katie Elliott (UCLA); Christopher Meacham (Amherst).
  • 1:00 – 2:30: Lunch
  • 2:30 – 5:30: Probabilities in the Special Sciences: Carl Hoefer (Barcelona); Wayne Myrvold (Western Ontario).

Saturday, October 26

  • 9:00 – 10:00: Breakfast in the philosophy department
  • 10:00 – 1:00: Chance-Credence Principles: Richard Pettigrew (Bristol); Jack Spencer (MIT).
  • 1:00 – 2:30: Lunch
  • 2:30 – 5:30: Typicality and the Statistical Postulate: David Albert (Columbia); Valia Allori (NIU).

Please contact the conference organizers (LawsAndChanceProject@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

Conference Poster

Dec
7
Sat
Philosophy of Emotion Workshop @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 5307
Dec 7 all-day

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

Jan
29
Wed
Seyla Benhabib and Bernard E. Harcourt on Hannah Arendt: The Human Condition @ Columbia Maison Française, Buell Hall
Jan 29 @ 6:15 pm – 8:45 pm

Reading and discussing The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt

Mar
11
Wed
Homi Bhabha and Bernard E. Harcourt on Edward Said: Orientalism @ Columbia Maison Française, Buell Hall
Mar 11 @ 6:15 pm – 8:45 pm

Reading and discussing Orientalism by Edward Said