Søren Kierkegaard’s most famous work, Fear and Trembling, has the distinction of drawing near-universal derision from scholars of political theory and ethics. Dr. Dinan suggests that Kierkegaard’s readers haven’t accounted for his return to Socratic political philosophy as a direct riposte to the politics of G.W.F. Hegel and his successors. He considers the implications of Kierkegaard’s use of the ‘questionable stratagem’ of Socratic irony in relation to politics, ethics, Christian faith, and philosophy. Kierkegaard is concerned not with destroying political philosophy, but with restoring its attentiveness to paradox.
Dr. Matt Dinan, Assistant Professor, St. Thomas University
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)
There is a broad consensus that Aristotle introduced the concept of matter in order to develop a consistent account of substantial change. However, it is disputed which role matter fulfills in substantial change. According to the traditional interpretation, matter persists while taking on or losing a substantial form. According to a rival interpretation, matter does not persist in substantial change; instead, it is an entity from which a new substance can emerge and which ceases to exist in this process. In my view, both interpretations are problematic in the light of Aristotle’s broader ontological project and are at odds with the way Aristotle describes the substantial generation of living beings. On the basis of Aristotle’s biological theory, I will suggest that Aristotelian matter is a continuant in substantial generation, but does not satisfy the common criteria for persistence that apply to individual substances.
Anna Schriefl
Anna Schriefl is Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (assistant professor) at the University of Bonn, and currently a visiting scholar at the New School. She has published a book about Plato’s criticism of money and wealth, and most recently an introduction into Stoicism (both in German).
New Narratives in 17th Century Philosophy: The Philosophy of Anne Conway
Contact Professor Christia Mercer for more info.
The workshop, which is now in its 10th year, aims to foster exchange and collaboration among scholars, students, and anyone with an interest in Early Modern Philosophy. This year’s workshop will focus on the topic of “Mind, Body, Passion” in Early Modern Philosophy (roughly the period from 1600-1800).
We welcome submissions on the conference topic, which may be broadly construed to include mind-body identity, mind-body interaction, embodiment, philosophy of emotion, aesthetics, etc. For consideration, please submit abstracts of 250-300 words to newyorkcityearlymodern@gmail.com no later than December 31, 2019.
Keynote speakers:
Organisers:
Contact Professor Wolfgang Mann for more info.
Abstract. The Noble Lie proposed by Plato for the Just City in Republic III has been much misunderstood. Its agenda is twofold: to get the citizens of the City to see their society as a natural entity, with themselves as all ‘family’ and akin; and to get the Guardians in particular to make class mobility, on which the justice of the City depends, a top priority. Since the second is taken to depend on the first, the Lie passage amounts to an argument (1) that the survival of a just community depends on the existence of social solidarity between elite and mass, which allows for full class mobility and genuine meritocracy; (2) that this solidarity in turn depends on an ideology of natural unity; and (3) that such ideologies are always false. So the Lie really is a lie, but a necessary one; as such it poses an awkward ethical problem for Plato and, if he is right, for our own societies as well.
Presented by SWIP-NYC
Registration for the conference is free, but required. To register, click here. Note that, as of now, NYU still has several COVID safety protocols in place. In order to be allowed to enter an NYU building, proof of full vaccination against COVID, including a booster shot, must be uploaded to NYU’s COVID portal in advance of the visit. Upon submitting your registration, you will receive an email with instructions for how to upload your proof of vaccination. Your registration will not be valid until you have received an email of approval from NYU Campus Safety informing you that you have been cleared for building access. Moreover, a high-quality mask (such as a disposable surgical mask, an N95, KN95, or KN94) must be worn at all times while indoors. Because of the extra time required to process the vaccination documentation, registration for the conference will close on April 29; no exceptions. It may be that NYU will loosen its mask requirement between now and the conference; we will post an update if that happens. For now, you should only register for the conference if you are firmly planning to attend, and if you are prepared to comply with the indicated requirements.
Saturday, May 14
9:30–11:10 Speaker: Allen Wood (Indiana University, Bloomington)
“Kant on Friendship”
Commentator: Colin Marshall (University of Washington)
Chair: Paul Guyer (Brown University)
11:25–1:05 Speaker: Gary Hatfield (University of Pennsylvania)
“The Subjectivity of Visual Space: Descartes and After”
Commentator: Nick Stang (University of Toronto)
Chair: Andrew Chignell (Princeton University)
2:55–4:35 Speaker: Pat Kitcher (Columbia University)
“Kant’s Conscience and Freud’s Superego”
Commentator: Karl Schafer (University of Texas at Austin)
Chair: Sally Sedgwick (Boston University)
4:50–6:30 Speaker: Hannah Ginsborg (University of California, Berkeley)
“Self-consciousness, Normativity, and the Agential Perspective”
Commentator: Stefanie Grüne (Free University, Berlin)
Chair: Karl Ameriks (University of Notre Dame)
Sunday, May 15
9:30–11:10 Speaker: Rolf-Peter Horstmann (Humboldt University Berlin)
“Hegel on Subjects as Objects (according to the Phenomenology of Spirit)”
Commentator: Scott Jenkins (University of Kansas)
Chair: Michelle Kosch (Cornell University)
11:25–1:05 Speaker: Richard Moran (Harvard University)
“Swann’s Medical Philosophy: Pessimism and Solipsism in Proust”
Commentator: Nick Riggle (University of San Diego)
Chair: Chris Prodoehl (Barnard College)
2:55–4:35 Speaker: Tyler Burge (University of California, Los Angeles)
“Kant on Primacy of Practical Reason”
Commentator: Anja Jauernig (New York University)
Chair: Christopher Peacocke (Columbia University)
4:50–6:30 Speaker: Béatrice Longuenesse (New York University)
“A Philosophical Journey”
Chair: Don Garrett (New York University)
Our 12th annual workshop will take place entirely on-line. The workshop will focus on the topic of “Expanding the Early Modern Canon.” We are calling for papers on figures, topics, texts, and genres that have been standardly neglected within the study of early modern philosophy; e.g., women philosophers, philosophy of education, letters, and novels.
Please submit anonymized abstracts of 250-500 words to newyorkcityearlymodern@gmail.com by April 1st, 2022.
Speakers:
Organisers:
Details
The workshop, which is now in its 12th year, aims to foster exchange and collaboration among scholars, students, and anyone with an interest in Early Modern Philosophy (roughly the period from 1600-1800). This year’s workshop will be entirely online. We are calling for papers on figures, topics, texts, and genres that have been standardly neglected within the study of Early Modern Philosophy (e.g., women philosophers, philosophy of education, letters, and novels).
Please submit anonymized abstracts of 250-500 words to newyorkcityearlymodern@gmail.com by April 1st, 2022.
What makes right acts right? A Stoic answer to Ross’s question.
When W.D. Ross poses the question, “what makes right acts right?” (The Right and the Good ch. 2), he is asking a question that is prior to the deliberative question, “how do I determine the right thing to do?” The Stoics recognize this: in De Officiis 1.7, Cicero says that every inquiry about duty has two parts: (1) a theoretical part concerned with the end of goods and evils, which addresses such matters as whether all duties are perfect, whether some are more important than others, and what are the kinds of duties, and (2) a practical part which sets out rules (praecepta) by which our conduct can be made to conform with the end. This paper focuses on (1) and in particular asks Ross’s question about Stoic right actions (kathêkonta).
The endpoint of Stoic deliberation is determining what token action is the right action. The paper begins with the Stoic distinction between a thing’s choiceworthiness, its intrinsic disposition to elicit a choice response in a suitable subject, and its possession being to-be-chosen. The determination of what is to-be-done is made by weighing against each other all the values of the relevant action types specified by their content (the so-called ‘intermediate actions’) that are in accordance with nature, as Stoic value theory says that according with nature is an objective reason to do an action. What constitutes the rightness of the token right action, and is given in its reasonable defense, is the same as what constitutes the rightness of a perfect (katorthôma) action. The Stoic distinction between right and perfect action depends on the action’s moral goodness—not rightness—which is due to its causal origin.
Presented by Professor Rachana Kamtekar (Cornell University)