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
20
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Sep 20 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

September 20: Matthias Michel
Philosophy and Laboratoire Sciences, Université Paris-Sorbonne and NYU
“Consciousness and the Prefrontal Cortex”

October 4: Ryan McElhaney
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
“Explanation and Consciousness”

October 18: Sascha Benjamin Fink
Philosophy-Neurosciences-Cognition, University of Magdeburg and NYU
“Varieties of Phenomenal Structuralism”

November 1: Jesse Atencio
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Title TBA

November 15: Frank Pupa
Philosophy, Nassau Community College
“Getting Between: Predicativism, Domain Restriction, and Binding”

December 6: Susana Martinez-Conde
Neurology and Integrative Neuroscience, Downstate Medical Center
Title TBA

https://philosophy.commons.gc.cuny.edu/cognitive-speaker-series-fall-2019/

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.

Oct
4
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Oct 4 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

September 20: Matthias Michel
Philosophy and Laboratoire Sciences, Université Paris-Sorbonne and NYU
“Consciousness and the Prefrontal Cortex”

October 4: Ryan McElhaney
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
“Explanation and Consciousness”

October 18: Sascha Benjamin Fink
Philosophy-Neurosciences-Cognition, University of Magdeburg and NYU
“Varieties of Phenomenal Structuralism”

November 1: Jesse Atencio
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Title TBA

November 15: Frank Pupa
Philosophy, Nassau Community College
“Getting Between: Predicativism, Domain Restriction, and Binding”

December 6: Susana Martinez-Conde
Neurology and Integrative Neuroscience, Downstate Medical Center
Title TBA

https://philosophy.commons.gc.cuny.edu/cognitive-speaker-series-fall-2019/

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
17
Thu
Positions in Patriarchy: Retooling the Metaphysics of Gender. Robin Dembroff (Yale) @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 5307
Oct 17 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Decades of feminist theory have approached the question ‘what is gender?’ with an eye to gender as a system — in particular, the system that creates and sustains patriarchy. Using this approach, feminists have proposed theories of gender focused on the social positions that persons occupy within a patriarchal system. However, these analyses almost uniformly assume a gender binary (men women), and so look for corresponding, binary social positions. In this talk, I defend the importance of position-based metaphysics of gender, but challenge the assumption that positions in patriarchy can be captured in a binary. Rather than throw out the baby with the bath water, I’ll propose an alternative position-based approach. It begins with modeling the key axes of the patriarchal ‘blueprint’, or the shared beliefs, norms, and attitudes at the core of dominant, western gender ideology. I’ll then build a framework for describing the variety of positions that persons can collectively occupy in relation to this blueprint. A central upshot is that metaphysics intended to illuminate and debunk gender as imagined within the western patriarchal system fails to sufficiently achieve this end when it presupposes the same binary framework. The categories men and women, I’ll argue, are not primarily descriptive, but rather, contested tools with the central function of reinforcing or revising social power.

Presented by SWIP-Analytic

Oct
18
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Oct 18 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

September 20: Matthias Michel
Philosophy and Laboratoire Sciences, Université Paris-Sorbonne and NYU
“Consciousness and the Prefrontal Cortex”

October 4: Ryan McElhaney
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
“Explanation and Consciousness”

October 18: Sascha Benjamin Fink
Philosophy-Neurosciences-Cognition, University of Magdeburg and NYU
“Varieties of Phenomenal Structuralism”

November 1: Jesse Atencio
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Title TBA

November 15: Frank Pupa
Philosophy, Nassau Community College
“Getting Between: Predicativism, Domain Restriction, and Binding”

December 6: Susana Martinez-Conde
Neurology and Integrative Neuroscience, Downstate Medical Center
Title TBA

https://philosophy.commons.gc.cuny.edu/cognitive-speaker-series-fall-2019/

Oct
19
Sat
New Materialist Approaches to Sound @ Music Department, Columbia U
Oct 19 – Oct 20 all-day

Scholars working under the broad umbrella of New Materialism have offered compelling reappraisals of the ways in which we know, interact with, and exist in the world. This scholarship also intersects with recent work on music and sound, which raises rich sets of questions regarding human agency, material, ethics, aesthetics, embodiment, and the subject/object dichotomy, among other issues.

We invite scholars working in the humanities, arts and sciences to submit proposals for papers and performances that engage with the themes of sound and new materialism, broadly construed.  We welcome work that adopts historical, technological, analytical, philosophical, materialist, and creative vantage points, among others. Overall, this conference will direct these diverse disciplinary and methodological perspectives towards convergent and critical issues, creating new, interdisciplinary lines of enquiry and generating original research.

The one-day conference will consist of panels that comprise of papers with short reflections by a moderator, as well as an evening concert that includes opportunities for discussion. The concluding concert of work that engages with these themes from creative perspectives will afford attendees with an opportunity to consider and discuss issues concerning sound, material, and agency in a forum that contrasts with, but also complements, our events during the day. Conference participants are strongly encouraged to attend both the daytime and evening portions of the conference.

Proposals are called for:

Paper presentations of 20 minutes with 10 minutes of Q&A.

Artistic presentation of 20 minutes with 10 minutes of discussion

Submission: Proposals of no more than 500 words (300 words for artistic presentation) should be submitted as a PDF by August 14th 2019 to jc5036@columbia.edu

and include “NMAS Submission” in the subject line. If you’re applying for an artistic presentation please include three representative 2 minute audio/video examples. Please also include the title of your proposed paper and anonymize your submission.  Include your name, affiliation, and contact information in the body of the email, and also nominate any audio/visual requirements for your paper or performance.

https://philevents.org/event/show/74950

Nov
1
Fri
Cognitive Science Speaker Series @ CUNY Grad Center, 6493
Nov 1 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

September 20: Matthias Michel
Philosophy and Laboratoire Sciences, Université Paris-Sorbonne and NYU
“Consciousness and the Prefrontal Cortex”

October 4: Ryan McElhaney
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
“Explanation and Consciousness”

October 18: Sascha Benjamin Fink
Philosophy-Neurosciences-Cognition, University of Magdeburg and NYU
“Varieties of Phenomenal Structuralism”

November 1: Jesse Atencio
Cognitive Science and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Title TBA

November 15: Frank Pupa
Philosophy, Nassau Community College
“Getting Between: Predicativism, Domain Restriction, and Binding”

December 6: Susana Martinez-Conde
Neurology and Integrative Neuroscience, Downstate Medical Center
Title TBA

https://philosophy.commons.gc.cuny.edu/cognitive-speaker-series-fall-2019/

Nov
8
Fri
Beyond the Pluralism Dilemma — A Constitutional Reconstruction of Confucian Democracy. Kim Sungmoon @ Columbia University Religion Dept. 101
Nov 8 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Recently, a group of scholars has challenged the moral legitimacy of Confucian democracy from a liberal philosophical standpoint. According to these scholars, including political liberals and moderate perfectionists, any attempt to create a Confucian democratic theory inevitably confronts a dilemma—let us call this the pluralism dilemma—with the following two horns: (a) a free society is characterized by the plurality of mutually incompatible, often conflicting, moral, philosophical, and religious doctrines that guide an individual’s conception of the good life and a truly democratic theory is required to accommodate as many reasonable conceptions of the good and comprehensive doctrines as possible and (b) a Confucian democratic theory gives a privileged normative standing to Confucianism over other competing comprehensive doctrines. This paper defends Confucian democracy against this pluralism challenge by articulating its political purpose and constitutional structure, which are commonly dismissed in the critics’ analytical frameworks.

With responses from: OMAR DAHBOUR  (Hunter College & Graduate Center, CUNY)


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/