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Spontaneous Arising and an Ethics of Creativity in Early Daoism, Erica Brindley (Penn State) 5:30 pm
Spontaneous Arising and an Ethics of Creativity in Early Daoism, Erica Brindley (Penn State) @ Columbia University Religion Dept. 101
Nov 2 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
In the early part of the 20th century, Joseph Needham formulated a substantial claim concerning the Chinese predilection for self-generated creation rather than creator gods and myths. Half a century later, scholars working in the West like Frederick Mote, Derk Bodde, and Chang Kwang-chih picked up on Needham’s insight to discuss the so-called lack of a “creation myth” in early Chinese culture, basing their arguments on what they called the “inner necessity” or “spontaneously self-generating”[...]
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Causal Composition, Jessica Wilson (Toronto) 4:00 pm
Causal Composition, Jessica Wilson (Toronto) @ CUNY Grad Center
Nov 8 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
On the face of it, we live in a world rife with materially composed objects. But what is it exactly for some (smaller, spatiotemporally located) objects to materially compose, or ‘make up’, another? Intuitively, this has something to do with causal interactions among the parts, but causal accounts of composition have been surprisingly rare, due to their seeming to face pressing difficulties associated with extensional inadequacy, vague existence, and causal overdetermination. Here I motivate, present,[...]
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Can the Vaiśeṣika Individuate Universals? David Nowakowski (Union) 5:30 pm
Can the Vaiśeṣika Individuate Universals? David Nowakowski (Union) @ Columbia University Religion Dept. 101
Nov 30 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
The Vaiśeṣika school of Indian philosophy is known for its distinctive doctrine of “individuators” (viśeṣāḥ), by means of which the various entities of the mundane world—substances, qualities, and motions—can be distinguished as unique individuals on purely formal grounds. As straightforward as the account is for these entities, the problem of individuation becomes much more complicated for universals. This paper uses the question “Can the Vaiśeṣika individuate universals?” to explore the next three categories in the[...]