Programme:

9.30am-10.30am:

Speaker: Will Gildea

Title: 'Misfortune, Modality and Moral Status'

Respondent: Sameer Bajaj

11.00am-12.00pm

Speaker: Beatrice Pagliarone

Title: 'On Thought Insertion'

Respondent: Chenwei Nie

1.30pm-2.30pm

Speaker: Irene Dal Poz

Title: 'Security Between Normality and Exceptionality'

Respondent: Miguel de Beistegui

3.00pm-4.00pm

Speaker: Chris Earley

Title: 'Hypothesis Generators: Insight and Autonomy in Contemporary Art'

Respondent: Eileen John

Further details to follow.

Theme: 'Continental Philosophy and Its Histories'

Keynote Speakers:

Professor Stella Sandford (Kingston University)

Dr Mogens Laerke (CNRS)

Dr Francey Russell (Columbia University)

Continental Philosophy often focuses its efforts on studying, comparing, and criticising the thought of past philosophers. One would be hard-pressed to find a thinker in the Continental tradition who has not understood and presented their own thought in relation to an Ancient Greek, or a Modern philosopher. But these philosophers do not approach historical figures as ‘historians of ideas’ or as ‘experts’ on a historical period. Rather, the new philosophy is seen as standing in contrast to, or as a continuation of, the problems and questions of the past. As such, Continental Philosophy often places a strong emphasis on the construction of, and the engagement with, its histories, thereby understanding and differentiating itself on the basis of traditions, schools, and systems, rather than theories, disciplines, and problems.

One of the aims of this conference is to investigate different ways in which Continental Philosophy engages with the thinkers that belong to its history: what is it to ‘read’ Plato, Spinoza, Kant, or Nietzsche in Continental Philosophy? How important is the canon and what is its methodological and philosophical significance? Should we keep putting forward various creative (mis)readings of the past philosophers or, as Husserl has suggested early on, is it better to get rid of the past and proceed afresh with a new method?

History, however, is more than a ‘tool’ utilised by Continental Philosophy. From Hegel’s Philosophy of History and Marx’s materialisation of it, to Heidegger’s distinction between Historie and Geschichte, and Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment Continental Philosophy makes the phenomenon (in contrast to the discipline) of history the very object of its investigations. Hence, we wonder: what does it mean to write a ‘philosophy of history’ and what possible form can such an enquiry take today?

But it must not be forgotten that Continental Philosophy can itself be seen as a period in the longer history of philosophy. This makes the very concept of Continental Philosophy open to inquiry by philosophers, but also to historians, sociologists, political scientists, etc. What does it mean to address Continental philosophy as a historical period? Can methods, approaches, traditions, and theories from other disciplines illuminate and inform philosophical understandings of Continental Philosophy? Can such approaches be helpful to disciplines other than philosophy? This is another crucial topic that this conference aims to investigate.

This conference is made possible by generous funding provided by the University of Warwick Philosophy Department and British Society for the History of Philosophy. It is an annual event within The Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy (University of Warwick).

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/research/activities/postkantian/events/wcpc

Art and Mind Reading Group Joint Event with the Race and Philosophy Reading Group,

'Controlling (mental) images the aesthetic appreciation of racialized bodies' via Zoom

Guest Speaker: Dr Adriana Clavel-Vazquez (University of Oxford)

Contact: Giulia Lorenzi (giulia.lorenzi [at] warwick.ac.uk)

Details to follow.

Please contact F.Niklas@warwick.ac.uk for further details. Places limited.

More details to be announced

This conference is an opportunity for Undergraduates present some of your best work, and to discuss it with leading academics, graduate students, and your undergrad peers from other universities. If you’re considering applying for graduate work in philosophy, this would be an excellent opportunity to get feedback on a potential work sample, or just to develop some of your ideas in conversation with other philosophers interested in the same topics as you (and let’s be honest, a conference talk on your CV won’t look bad!).

You don’t need to be applying for further study (in philosophy, or at all) to apply, of course – you might just fancy the opportunity to discover some new topics, to meet new likeminded people, to hone your presentation skills, or just to discuss, debate, and argue the day away (as it befits a philosopher to do). Philosophy conferences are one of the main ways in which professional philosophy ‘gets done’. So perhaps you’re just curious to see how they work, and to be involved in a conference at undergraduate level.

Topics

The conference is organised by the Warwick Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA). WMA is the centre in the Warwick Philosophy Department for research in the philosophy of mind and action, ‘broadly construed’, and interdisciplinary work with psychology. We take ‘broadly construed’ seriously! You are encouraged to apply to give a talk in any of the following areas of philosophy:

• philosophy of mind
• philosophy of action/moral psychology
• epistemology
• history of philosophy
• philosophy of psychology or psychiatry
• philosophy of language
• interdisciplinary work with all branches of psychology.

The plan for the day:

The undergraduate sessions

There will be 3 undergraduate sessions, each lasting 1 hour – 30 mins for the talk itself, and 30 mins for discussion.

‘Further study in philosophy’ information session

An optional session for delegates interested in further study in philosophy. The session is an opportunity to get a sense of the difference between the various higher degrees (MA, MPhil, PhD), what they each involve, what to think about if you’re keen to apply for any of them, how funding works, and so on. You’ll be able to ask any other questions you might have too.

Keynote lecture

A talk by a WMA academic, followed by discussion.

Please contact Ahilleas Rokni for further information.

Final Programme to follow shortly

Saturday July 2 

 9.30am Welcome 

 10am–11.30am ‘On the Homeric Roots of Intentionality’, Mark Kalderon (UCL) 

 11.30am–12noon Coffee 

 12noon–1.30pm ‘Partiality and perception’, Giulia Martina (Turin) 

 1.30pm–2.30pm Lunch 

 2.30pm–4pm ‘Aristotle on having reason strictly speaking’, Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi  (UCL) 

 4pm–4.30pm Coffee 

 4.30pm–6pm Title TBC, Charles Travis (Porto) 

 Sunday July 3 

 9.30am Welcome 

 10am–11.30am ‘Kalderon’s Puzzle Solved’, Vivian Mizrahi (Geneva) 

 11.30–12noon Coffee 

 12noon–1.30pm Title TBC, Thomas Crowther (Warwick) 

 1.30pm–2.30pm Lunch 

 2.30pm–4pm Title TBC, M. G. F. Martin (Oxford/Berkeley) 

The work of Mark Eli Kalderon

Mark Eli Kalderon is professor of philosophy at UCL and former editor of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. While his most recent research has been focused on the metaphysics of sense and sensibilia, it draws upon – and has implications for – a breadth of philosophical approaches and topics, not least due to, for example, Prof Kalderon’s own interest in ancient and scholastic theories of perception. His books include Sympathy in Perception, Form without Matter: Empedocles and Aristotle on Color Perception, and Moral Fictionalism.​

In Prof Kalderon’s Sympathy in Perception, insights from ancient, phenomenological, analytic, and empirical sources are woven together into a rich and ambitious elaboration and defence of a naïve realist theory of perception. Kalderon develops the view by revisiting and transforming explanatory concepts from the pre-modern era, aiming to ‘contribute to, if not indeed effect, a Kuhnian revolution’ in philosophy of perception.

 Registration

We intend to hold the conference in-person at the University of Warwick, but places are limited. If you would like to attend, we ask that you email the organisers – Guy Longworth and Jack Shardlow – at wma.philosophy.events@gmail.com to register, simply using ‘Kalderon attendance’ as the subject of the email. Since there are limited places, we will be operating on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis, so please do register your interest right away.

Thursday 6 October 2022:

10-10.15am General Introduction

10.15-11.45am Kristina Musholt (Leipzig)

11.45-12pm Coffee and Tea break

12-1.30pm Agnès Baehni (Geneva)

1.30-2.30pm Lunch

2.30-4pm Oscar North-Concar (Warwick)

4-4.15pm Coffee and Tea break

4.15-5.45pm Fabrice Teroni (Geneva)

5.45-7.30pm Pre-Dinner drinks

7.30pm Dinner

Friday 7 October 2022:

10-11.30am Naomi Eilan (Warwick)

11.30-11.45am Coffee and Tea break

11.45am-1.15pm Jasmin Özel (Leipzig)

1.15-2.30pm Lunch, general discussion about future direction of collaboration, and good byes.

Saturday, 19. November

10:00-10:25 Welcome coffee

10:25-10:30 Short Introduction

10:30-11:45 First Session

Asia Chatchaya Sakchatchawan (UCL): Towards a Wrong Face Theory of Shame

Response by Thomas Crowther

15 min Coffee Break

12:00-13:15 Second Session

Lucas Chebib (UCL): Guilt as a Shame Shaped Thing

Response by Johannes Roessler

1 h Lunch

14:15-15:30 Third Session (Keynote)

Lucy O’Brien (UCL): An Introspective Argument for Others’ Minds

Response by Emily Bassett

15 min Coffee Break

15:45-17:00 Fourth Session

Simone Nota (Trinity College Dublin): Overcoming the Absolute: A Dialectical Critique of the Absolute Conception

Response by Naomi Eilan

17:00-18:00 Reception

18:30 Dinner at Radcliffe

Sunday, 20. November

09:30-10:45 First Session

Christopher Joseph An (Edinburgh): Rational Animals? Mammalian Social Play, Second-personal Knowledge, and the Evolution of Normative Guidance

Response by Richard Moore

5 min Short Break

10:50-11:30 Q&A with Mind co-editors Lucy O’Brien and Adrian Moore on submitting papers to journals

15 min Coffee Break

11:45-13:00 Second Session (Keynote)

Adrian Moore (Oxford): Armchair Knowledge: Some Kantian Reflections

Response by Ben Houlton

1 h Lunch

14:00-15:15 Third Session

Zijian Zhu (Oxford): The Modality and Temporality of Anscombean Practical Knowledge

Response by Lucy Campbell

15 min Coffee Break

15:30-16:45 Fourth Session

Oushinar Nath (UCL): Wisdom and KK Failure

Response by Barney Walker

End of the conference

Conference Date: 18 February 2023

Location: The University of Warwick 

Plenary sessions:

Sophia Moreau (University of Toronto): Objectionable Obligations 

Emily McTernan (University College London): TBD

 The aim of the conference is to provide an opportunity for graduate students to receive useful feedback on work in progress. Papers may deal with any area of contemporary political theory, political philosophy, legal theory, or the history of political thought, and should take no more than twenty minutes to present.

Graduate students interested in presenting papers should send abstracts (no more than 500 words) to PLTGradConf@warwick.ac.uk by no later than 8 January 2023.

To help students needing our response to secure travel funding from their home departments, we shall reply promptly to early submissions with our decisions.

Those wanting to attend the conference should register by no later than 6 February 2023 via email. Attendance is free of charge. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

For any enquiries, please feel free to contact the conference organisers using the email address: PLTGradConf@warwick.ac.uk.

Symposium 'Adorno's "Sexual Taboos and Law Today" – Sixty Years On'

This Saturday, 25 February 2023, 10:00–18:00

Social Sciences, S0.20

Coffee, lunch, and snacks will be provided.

Please send an email to simon.gansinger@warwick.ac.uk if you would like to attend.

PROGRAMME

(Full programme here)

10.00–10.30 Registration and coffee

10.30–10.45 Introduction by the organisers (Antonia Hofstätter & Simon Gansinger)

10.45–12.15 Panel 1: Sex and Taboo

12.15–13.30 Lunch

13.30–15.00 Panel 2: Sex and Society

15.00–15.15 Coffee

15.15–16.45 Panel 3: Sex and Crime

16.45–17.00 Coffee

17.00–18.00 Roundtable with all speakers 

For further details of the day, please see here:

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/studywithus/year12conf/

Warwick Continental Philosophy Conference 2022/2023:

Continental Philosophy: The Subject and Identity

08-09 June 2023

University of Warwick (UK)

Conference Venue (Hybrid): 

Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick,
Coventry, United Kingdom

Zoom

Keynote Speakers: 

Prof. Peter V. Zima (Universität Klagenfurt)

Dr. Koshka Duff (University of Nottingham)

Call for Abstracts

The aim of the fifth edition of the WCPC is to stage a discussion of the subject and identity, and the relationship between the two. We hope to prompt a discussion around the various ways in which differing perspectives on subjectivity and identity may serve as philosophical methods of framing experience, reason, and one’s circumstances in the world. The central problem for this conference is: how does the fraught and often politicised notion of identity, around which there are disparate and contradictory interpretations, problematise the traditional Western notion of the Subject who is assumed to be universal and prior to identity formation. The conference aims to address these issues through an engagement with contemporary debates on the subject and identity, as well as by tracing how the meaning of these concepts has transformed within the history of philosophy. The goal of the discussion being an intervention in the relational dynamic between the two.

Throughout the history of philosophy, subjectivity and identity have been interpreted in radically different ways: from views of a universal (e.g. Cartesian or Kantian) Subject, to subjectivity arising through a historical development (Hegel and Marx), and more contemporary accounts of historically contingent subjectivities and identities constituted, for example, by structures of power (Althusser, Foucault, and Deleuze). Recently, debates on these issues have sought to incorporate non-Western conceptions - such as the concept of Xin (heart-mind) in Chinese Philosophy, or the post-colonial research of Fanon and Bhabha - in order to enrich our understanding of the diverse contexts and traditions in which subjects are positioned. The conference aims to push these historical discourses around subjectivity forward by challenging traditional notions, as well as by interrogating how the many meanings assumed by these concepts throughout history affect our present understanding of them.

To further elucidate the relationship between identity and subjectivity, the conference also intends to explore the tension of whether one’s identity is self-determined, or rather, whether one’s identity is thrust upon them by external conditions. The complicated relationship between one’s individual sense of self and one’s sense of their social standing is made explicit, for example, in the debate of whether LGBTQ+ identities are formed in resistance to normative standards of gender and sexuality, or whether they are formed independently in ever-developing queer theory. Another tension that speaks to the problematic of self-determination is the role of nationalist discourses in the constitution of one’s sense of identity. This tension is particularly evident in the case of refugees acquiring new citizenships: regardless of their own relationship to nationalism and the more or less conscious choice to incorporate this into their sense of identity, they are nonetheless thrust into a national identity. In both of these examples, one finds a reflection of the Althusserian's 'subject interpellation', in which, regardless how one views themselves, one is thrown back onto themselves and made an ideological subject in the gaze of the Other. Here, the problem of how one is to orient themself as a ‘self’, in the face of various socio-political circumstances (such as oppression, class and racial struggles, uncertainty and instability) is made more explicitly into the problem of how one is to understand the relationship between one’s subjectivity and one’s identity. That is to say, is one’s identity constructed by a supposed ‘essential’ and ‘rational’ self, the thinking subject, or is one’s identity thrust upon them in such a way that conditions the very parameters of one’s supposedly independent rationality?

With this said, some of the questions we hope to engage with in the fifth edition of WCPC are:

• What is the role of the subject in contemporary philosophical discourse?
• Are we in a post-Subject era or does the traditional a priori Subject linger?
• How do accounts of unconscious drives problematise the traditional notion of the self?
• Is there an inherent problem in the subject-object distinction and relation? Is it problematic to, as Adorno suggests, place the subject as the locus from which external ‘objects’ are to be understood?
• What is the relationship between an individual’s subject position and their wider collective identities? What role might various kinds of identities: national, ethno-racial, gender, sexual, etc., play in shaping ongoing discourse?
• How could this discussion contribute to, and reframe, certain methodological and theoretical insights of the history of philosophy as a discipline?
• How the present debates on subject and identity are determined by their shifting in meaning throughout the history of philosophy?
• How have thinkers of the continental tradition historically addressed such problems? And how do contemporary philosophers approach these? What relevant insights can theorists continue to provide on questions of the subject and identity?

While our focus will be on the continental tradition, we encourage applicants from all areas of philosophy, and welcome interdisciplinary research that connects philosophy with social science.

Submission Guidelines

Submitted abstracts should be approximately 500 words long. Abstracts must be written in English, and should be sent to the WCPC committee at wcpc@warwick.ac.uk. Please use “Abstract, [your name]” as the subject of your email. In the text of the email, please include 1) the title of your paper, 2) your institutional affiliation, and 3) your preferred email contact address. Please exclude any identifying information from the abstract itself.

Please, also clarify in your email whether you would like to be considered for the award of a partial bursary (covering 50% of accommodation costs), which may become available in due course.

The deadline for abstract submission is the 15th of March 2023.

We will be asking the speakers to pre-circulate their papers and provide, during their speaking slot, a short 5-minute introduction, which will be followed by 25 minutes of questions and discussions (maximum). This means that, if your abstract is accepted, we will require you to send us a 3000-word paper in advance and no later than on 13th of May 2023.

Your paper will be shared with other speakers and conference participants, and conference discussions will be based on the submitted version.

We particularly encourage submissions by philosophers from groups who are underrepresented in the discipline.

Summary of Dates

15th of March 2023 - deadline for abstract submission

13th of May 2023 - deadline for the submission of conference papers (3000 words)

8th – 9th of June 2023 - conference dates

Additional information

This conference is made possible by generous funding provided by the University of Warwick Philosophy Department, The Mind Association and The Society for Women in Philosophy, United Kingdom. It is an annual event within The Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy (University of Warwick). The conference is organised in compliance with the BPA/SWIP guidelines for accessible conferences, the BPA/SWIP good practice scheme for gender equality, and the BPA Environmental Travel Scheme.

In this interdisciplinary conference, we bring together philosophers, comparative psychologists, and cognitive scientists from a range of disciplines to discuss their recent work on the ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of syntax, in order to make progress in our understanding of these fundamental issues.

Online attendance will also be possible.

In person attendance is free, although you are requested to register in advance because capacity is limited. To register, please contact giulia.palazzolo.1@warwick.ac.uk.

Confirmed speakers:

Nick Chater (University of Warwick)

Cas Coopmans (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics)

Cathy Crockford (ISC Marc Jeannerod)

Olga Feher (University of Warwick)

Richard Moore (University of Warwick)

Nirmalangshu Mukherji (Delhi University)

Ross Pain (University of Bristol)

Giulia Palazzolo (University of Warwick)

Ronald Planer (University of Wollongong)

Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University)

Simon W. Townsend (University of Warwick and University of Zurich)

Interdisciplinary symposium 'Let me explain: Reason-giving across disciplines' on 10 June 2024

Why do we ask why? And do scholars mean the same by it, regardless of their disciplinary background? Warwick's Institute of Advanced Study will host a symposium on these treacherously simple questions.

Who: Speakers from all of Warwick's faculties; everyone welcome to attend.

When: 10 June 2024, 9:45am–2:30pm (TBC). Lunch provided.

Where: IAS Seminar Room, C0.02

More information to follow in late April. For any questions, get in touch with the event organiser, Simon GansingerLink opens in a new window (simon.gansinger@warwick.ac.uk).

Location: S 0.21, Social Sciences Building

9:30–10:00 – Arrival 10:00–10:50 (Online) Qingxuan Wang (CUHK) “Friedrich Nietzsche and the Religions of Decadence”

10:50–11:00 – Break

11:00–11:50 Asmita Roy (Nottingham) “Foucault’s Theory on Power and Subjectivity, and an Analysis of Islamophobia in India”

11:50–12:30 – Lunch

12:30–13:20 Nathan Conceicao Silva (Durham) “Taking Sceptics to Deleuze”

13:20–13:30 – Break

13:30–14:20 Noah Buckle (Warwick) “Kant on Gesinnung and the Propensity to Evil”

14:20–14:30 – Break

14:30–15:20 Amelie Baker (Nottingham) “Foucault, Zen, and the Education System”

15:30–15:40 Break

15:40–16:40 Henry Somers-Hall (RHUL) – Keynote “Truth, Meaning, and Resemblance in French Philosophy

Click here for the event schedule