Departmental Equality and Welfare Events
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WiP Seminar - Eve Poirier 'Plausible Abstractions: The role of fiction, truth and history in Genealogy and State of Nature Philosophy'
Eve Poirer will present 'Plausible Abstractions: The role of fiction, truth and history in Genealogy and State of Nature Philosophy'. Everyone welcome!
Abstract
What is the place of historical truth in Genealogy? Why appeal to State of Nature stories even when we know they could never have happened? How far can philosophy abstract from reality while still having explanatory relevance? Pulling from Bernard Williams, Nietzsche, Nozick, Foucault and others, I will attempt to tackle some of these questions: exploring broadly the interaction between supposedly true historical happenings and fictional abstractions in Genealogies and State of Nature stories. I will discuss the purposes for which Genealogy is employed, the way in which State of Nature stories attempt to abstract from history, and the importance of 'plausibility' or 'conceivability' in the explanatory relevance or effectiveness of Genealogy. From this, I hope to suggest some conclusions about the appropriate and inappropriate use of Genealogy. That said, this is a work very much in progress on a very broad topic, so I hope that there will be further conclusion to be found in the discussion.
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