Research Seminar in Post-Kantian European Philosophy, 2019/2020
Unless otherwise stated, Post-Kantian European Philosophy Research Group seminars take place on Tuesdays, 5:30–7:30pm in Room S0.11 (ground floor of Social Studies). All welcome. For further information, please contact tbc
Fri 15 May, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 3: The State of Nature - A Rough GuideBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Wed 20 May, '20- |
MAP SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Richard Moore Title: Inequality in Times of Crisis Please contact Giulia Lorenzi for further details |
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Thu 21 May, '20- |
'Working in Lockdown'MS TeamsTom Crowther and David Bather Woods will share a bit of their experience of how they have been managing under the lockdown conditions, and how they have been trying to change their working habits so that they can stay remotely productive. It would be really good to hear from students too and to hear about how you have been getting on; whether you have been finding things pretty straightforward, or finding things tough going. Everyone is welcome, and Tom and David want to hear from you all. |
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Thu 21 May, '20- |
Knowledge and Understanding SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Simon Wimmer (TU Dortmund) Title: 'What if Knowledge and Belief Took Different Objects?' Abstract: Suppose one knows and believes that it is raining. What relation do one’s knowledge state and one’s belief state bear to each other? The aim of this paper is to explore what constraints on answering this question follow if knowledge is an attitude to a fact, whilst belief is not. |
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Fri 22 May, '20- |
Seminar by Zoom: 'The Unity of Knowledge' with Professor Katalin Farkas (CEU)By ZoomThis is to announce that the seminar with Katalin Farkas (CEU) which was originally scheduled for April 16th has been **rescheduled** as a Zoom meeting. Title: 'The Unity of Knowledge' Speaker: Professor Katalin Farkas (CEU) Abstract:
"English uses the same word, “know”, for knowing things, knowing that something is the case, and knowing how to do things. Many other languages distinguish among two or three of these types. Is the English word simply polysemous, or is there an insight here - is there a conception of knowledge that covers all three cases? One option has been to claim that the first and the third are in fact reducible to the second: all knowledge is knowledge of truth, and this gives knowledge a unity. This talks surveys alternative proposals for a unified conception of knowledge. On these proposals, objectual or practical knowledge is not reducible to factual knowledge, yet there is a broader conception of knowledge that covers both, or all three. For example, Linda Zagzebski claims that knowledge is cognitive contact with reality that arises from the exercise of an intellectual virtue. The contact can be direct contact with an object, or mediated contact with a fact through the awareness of a proposition. Other ideas about finding a common essence for objectual, factual and practical knowledge will be considered."
Format: Professor Farkas will give a talk, followed by a short break and then a Q&A. No previous reading is required. Please contact Lucy Campbell if you would like to register to join this event.
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Fri 22 May, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 4: Truth, Assertion and BeliefBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Thu 28 May, '20- |
Knowledge and Understanding SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Christoph Hoerl (Warwick) Title: 'Episodic Memory and Knowledge' Abstract: According to Locke, memory is the power of the mind "to revive perceptions which it once had, with this additional perception annexed to them, that it has had them before". I will refer to theories that fit Locke's general description as 'two-factor theories' of memory, and I will assume that they are meant specifically to provide an account of episodic memory. Such two-factories have been very popular historically, and they have seen a resurgence in recent years, because they are seen to be in line with certain empirical findings about the neural structures underpinning episodic memory. I will sketch a number of problems facing two-factor theories of episodic memory, and suggest that they have a common root, which is that the concept of knowledge is absent from the account two factor theories give of episodic memory. An account that instead puts centre stage the idea that episodic memory involves the retention of a certain type of knowledge can avoid the problems that two-factor theories of episodic memory face. |
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Fri 29 May, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 5: Sincerity: Lying and Other Styles of DeceitBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Wed 3 Jun, '20- |
Philosophy Department Colloquium: Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa)By ZoomSpeaker: Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa) Title: What could cognition be, if not human cognition?
Abstract: We have long thought about cognition from an anthropocentric perspective, where human cognition is treated as the standard for full-fledged capacities throughout the biological world. This makes no evolutionary sense. I will discuss the theoretical and methodological shifts away from this perspective in comparative research — shifts that lie behind recent discoveries of advanced cognition in many non-humans — and how these changes bear on the debate between those who see human and non-human cognition as continuous (a difference in degree) vs. those who see them as discontinuous (a difference in kind).
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Thu 4 Jun, '20- |
Extraordinary Department MeetingMS Teams |
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Thu 4 Jun, '20- |
Knowledge and Understanding SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Richard Gipps (Oxford) Title: 'On the Importance of Not Understanding the Patient' Abstract: "One kind of everyday understanding that we seek has to do with making sense of what someone’s getting at or on about with her initially opaque words or actions. The retrieval of such meaning is a mainstay of everyday life and an ambition that psychology often brings with it to the clinical setting – even when the thought there under consideration is psychotic. It’s also presupposed by such efforts at understanding, causally, why the patient thinks as she does as invoke the notion of a mistake or illusion: we can’t understand why someone makes a particular mistake unless we already understand something of its content. (The understanding here is captured by suggestions like: ‘Were I in her cognitive/perceptual/somatosensory/existential/environmental predicament, I’d come to that conclusion too’).
In this paper I suggest that certain theories of thought disorder, passivity experience and delusion – theories which hope to understand the patient by retrieving his speaker’s meaning – radically fail. They do so because they trade on an alienated conception of ordinary mental life which is itself only sustained by illusions of sense; they attempt to reduce delusion to illusion; and they fail the patient by evading the fact of, rather than meeting him in the midst of, his brokenness. Despite the impossibility of retrieving speaker’s meaning from truly psychotic discourse, this does not render unavailable other forms of understanding (symbolic/motivational, neurological, situational etc.) of the psychotic subject. Even so, if we’re to achieve, with the psychotic subject, that (moral) form of understanding which can be said to be shown someone, we must first learn to avoid the temptation of attributing speaker’s or agent’s meaning to his psychotic words and acts. To this end this paper outlines what I’ll call an ‘apophatic’ (as opposed to a ‘cataphatic’) psychopathology. This ‘apophatic’ approach aims at understanding the patient not through positively understanding her words’ meaning but instead through understanding just why some of the things we’re most tempted to say of her fail her." |
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Fri 5 Jun, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 6: Accuracy: A Sense of RealityBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Tue 9 Jun, '20- |
CANCELLED: CELPA: Chris Lewis (Harvard)Papers are circulated prior to the seminar. Please contact Tom Parr (T.Parr@warwick.ac.uk) for further information. |
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Thu 11 Jun, '20- |
'Still Working in Lockdown'MS TeamsHosted by Tom Crowther and David Bather Woods |
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Thu 11 Jun, '20- |
Knowledge and Understanding SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Johannes Roessler (Warwick) Title: 'Self-Understanding' Abstract: "Intentional agents seem to have a distinctive ‘first-personal’ way of knowing what they are doing (Anscombe’s ‘practical knowledge’) as well as, connectedly, a distinctive ‘first-personal’ way of understanding why they are doing it, in terms of their practical reasons. In this talk I consider a puzzle generated by two further plausible suggestions: traits of character play an essential (if perhaps implicit) role in reason-giving explanations of intentional actions; but we have no first-person knowledge of our character. I won’t try to solve the puzzle, merely to get a better understanding of it (drawing on work by Hursthouse, Kant, and Montaigne)." |
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Fri 12 Jun, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 7: What Was Wrong with Minos?By ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Mon 15 Jun, '20- |
PG Professional Development SeminarBy ZoomPreparing and publishing publications Job Application guidance with Lucy Campbell, Andrew Cooper and Daniele Lorenzini |
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Tue 16 Jun, '20- |
CANCELLED: CELPA: Gina Schouten (Harvard)Papers are circulated prior to the seminar. Please contact Tom Parr (T.Parr@warwick.ac.uk) for further information. |
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Wed 17 Jun, '20- |
Philosophy Department ColloquiumBy ZoomSpeaker: Sameer Bajaj (Warwick) Title: "Democratic Mandates and the Ethics of Representation." Democratic Mandates and the Ethics of Representation A day after the Tories achieved a decisive victory in the December 2019 British general election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared that he had received a “huge great stonking mandate” to get Brexit done and implement his domestic policy agenda. Whether or not what Johnson received is appropriately described as huge, great, or stonking, his statement reflects a more general idea that has wide currency in conventional democratic thought—namely, that larger electoral victories give representatives greater mandates to govern. Despite its important role in the practice of democratic politics, democratic theorists have paid little attention to the questions of whether larger electoral victories actually give representatives greater mandates to govern and, if so, what the moral implications of having a greater or lesser mandate are. My aim in this essay is to answer these questions and, in doing so, lay the groundwork for a normative theory of democratic mandates. I suggest that the key to answering the questions lies in understanding the relationship between two functions of democratic votes. Votes have a metaphysical function: they authorise representatives to govern. And votes have an expressive function: they express attitudes about the representatives they authorise. I defend what I call the dependence thesis: the content, size, and moral implications of a representative’s mandate depend on the attitudes expressed by the votes that generate the mandate. I then argue that, given certain ineliminable features of large-scale democratic politics, real-world democratic representatives are rarely in a position to justifiably claim greater mandates based on the size of their electoral victories. |
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Thu 18 Jun, '20- |
Experience of Teaching and Learning OnlineBy Zoom |
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Thu 18 Jun, '20- |
Knowledge and Understanding SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Maria Corrado (Warwick) Title: 'Action, Force, and Auditory Perception' Abstract: "In chapter 2 of Individuals, Strawson (1959) explores the case of a purely auditory world, which he considers to be exempt of material things, to test whether there could be a conceptual scheme that accommodates the existence of objective particulars which does not rely on material things. Strawson’s assessment of a purely auditory world raises a question as to whether purely auditory perceptual experience does enable direct cognitive contact with an objective, material world. I pursue the thesis that the purely auditory delivers materiality through the notion of force. My leading reasoning is that (1) insofar as exertion of force is a mark of materiality, and (2) insofar as force is apparent in purely auditory perceptual experience, (3) there is a mark of materiality that is apparent in auditory perceptual experience. On this occasion, I focus on providing motivation for the claim that (2) force is apparent in auditory perceptual experience by defending the thesis that it is possible to directly observe force in things interacting at a distance from one. My strategy is to argue that a cogent explanation of our ability to successfully act or bring about the desired changes in the world requires that we are capable to perceptually observe the force that objects exert at a distance from us. Accepting that force is observable at a distance from one brings us a step closer to the view that force is apparent in auditory perceptual experience of collisions. The plan is to then use this insight as a starting point to defend, at a later stage, the thesis that purely auditory perceptual experience provides us with the material to justify the objectivity of our sensory experience." |
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Fri 19 Jun, '20 - Sat 20 Jun, '2010am - 6pm |
POSTPONED: New Date TBC: Blood on the Leaves and Blood at the Roots: Reconsidering Forms of Enslavement and Subjections Across DisciplinesRuns from Friday, June 19 to Saturday, June 20. This event will be re-scheduled for a future date. |
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Fri 19 Jun, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 8: From Sincerity to AuthenticityBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Wed 24 Jun, '20- |
MAP SeminarBy ZoomGuest Speaker: Dr Irene Dal Poz (Warwick) Title: 'Women in Philosophy in a Time of Crisis' Please contact Giulia Lorenzo for details on how to join. |
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Wed 24 Jun, '20- |
Academic Technology for Teaching and Learning in PhilosophyBy Zoom |
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Thu 25 Jun, '20- |
Knowledge and Understanding SeminarBy ZoomSpeaker: Ellisif Wasmuth (Essex) Title: "What the many know and teach: Plato on the knowledge of language users" Abstract. "Plato is known for his low opinion of the epistemic achievements of the many. He usually grants knowledge (epistēmē or technē) only to the expert or master dialectician, but in the First Alcibiades Socrates seems to agree with Alcibiades that even the many have some knowledge – they know Greek (111c3). In this paper I ask what, if anything, the many actually know in knowing Greek. What kind of grasp of reality must they have, according to Plato, in order to be competent users of language, and can knowledge of language be had independently of knowledge of the world? |
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Fri 26 Jun, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 9: Truthfulness, Liberalism and CritiqueBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Tue 30 Jun, '20- |
MAP Summer Online Short Story Reading Group: 'Race and Fiction'By ZoomPlease contact Giulia Lorenzi for further information |
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Fri 3 Jul, '20- |
Truth and Truthfulness Webinar: Chapter 10: Making Sense and Endnote: The Vocabulary of Truth - An ExampleBy ZoomText: 'Truth and Truthfulness' by Bernard Williams (2002) |
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Tue 7 Jul, '20 - Thu 9 Jul, '20All-day |
Online Colloquium: 'The Ends of Autonomy'By ZoomRuns from Tuesday, July 07 to Thursday, July 09. Tuesday 7 July
20.00 Christopher Watkin (Monash), Welcome and introduction
20.15 Ali Alizadeh (Monash), ‘La liberté guide nos pas’: the dialectic of freedom in a French revolutionary poem
20.35 Nick Hewlett (Warwick), Karl Marx and the concept of freedom
20.55 Questions and discussion
21.10 Keynote 1: Peter Hallward (Kingston), A law unto ourselves: autonomy as mass sovereignty
21.50 Questions and discussion
22.10 Serhat Tutkal (National University of Colombia), Autonomy against authoritarian neoliberalism: the removal of Kurdish mayors in Turkey
22.30 Taylor Lau (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Against the economic view of time in the workplace: the claim to free time
22.50 Kayte Stokoe (Birmingham), Crip autonomy and external limitations
23.10 Alex Corcos (Warwick), UK Higher Education in 'A Century for Foxes’: or, a case study in the role of privilege and luck in establishing conditions for radical autonomy
23.30 Questions and discussion
23.50 Close
Wednesday 8 July
20.00 Keynote 2: Louise Amoore (Durham), Of autonomies and algorithms
20.40 Questions and discussion
21.00 Charlotte Heath-Kelly (Warwick), The extremist across history: changing relations of liberty, threat and detection
21.20 Oliver Davis (Warwick), Algorithmic governmentality and the Modern bureaucratic ideal: species of abstraction and autonomy
21.40 Simon Angus (Monash), How liberating is liberation technology?
22.00 Questions and discussion
22.15 Yurii Sheliazhenko (KROK), Informed autonomy: conceptualization of freedom in the digital age
22.35 Alesja Serada (Vaasa), Blockchain owns you: from cypherpunk to a self-sovereign identity
22.55 Ken Archer (independent scholar), Freedom, agency and the hermeneutics of technology
23.15 Questions and discussion
23.30 Close
Thursday 9 July
20.00 Nupur Patel (Oxford), Emancipating the female body: pudeur and Louise Labé’s expression of sexual desire in selected poetry
20.20 Felicity Chaplin (Monash), Freedom and autonomy in the post #MeToo world
20.40 Kirsty Alexander (Strathclyde), The biophilic threads in feminist visions of autonomy
21.00 Ji-Young Lee (Bristol and Copenhagen), Autonomy and assisted reproductive technologies
21.20 Questions and discussion
21.50 Trine Riel (independent scholar and artist, Copenhagen), To what end? Ascetics between renunciation and emancipation
22.10 Andrea Rossi (Koç), Pastoral power: on finitude and autonomy
22.30 Christopher Watkin (Monash), The critique of emancipatory reason
22.50 Questions and discussion
23.10 Close
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