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.

Teams link

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa49e6af9675349fda02fee164134326a%40thread.tacv2/1696871238131?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fdb1bbe9-d582-4ba3-8da8-3fb0a6c42dc8%22%2c%22MessageId%22%3a%221696871351606%22%7d

Our next postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar is taking place this Thursday 23rd November from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Fridolin Neumann will present 'Heidegger on Kant and Ontological Intuition'. Everyone welcome!

Abstract:

In the 1920s and 1930s, Heidegger intensively engaged with Kant’s philosophy in a way that he himself acknowledges as “violent” since it always attempts to capture the unsaid in the written word. My talk revolves around a crucial claim Heidegger makes about Kant’s theory of cognition, evoking discomfort in every loyal Kantian: “knowing is primarily intuiting [Erkennen ist primär Anschauen].” I argue that in order to understand what is at stake here this claim must be interpreted along the lines of Heidegger’s distinction between ontic and ontological cognition (that is, cognition of entities on the one hand and cognition of being transcendentally determining our encounter with entities on the other hand). As I propose, the supposed primacy of intuition mainly refers to ontological cognition and hereby offers an account of human responsiveness to ontological norms which determine our ontic experience of entities in the first place. In Heidegger’s account, this (ontological) responsiveness is cashed out in terms of intuition which is structurally similar to (ontic) intuition involved in sensible perception. I proceed by first elaborating on the distinction between ontic and ontological cognition to then argue why Heidegger’s thesis about intuition should be understood as referring to the latter. After that, I sketch what it means to understand ontological cognition in terms of intuition.

Our first postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar of the term is taking place this Thursday 11th January from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Aurian De Briey will present 'From Heidegger's social ontology to his answer to the technological challenge'. Everyone welcome!

Abstract:

In Der Spiegel Interview, Heidegger acknowledges his difficulty in providing a political answer to the technological challenge he depicts in The Question Concerning Technology. I aim to make sense of such difficulty by going back to Being and Time where lies Heidegger’s social ontology and ideal of authenticity. I argue that such an ideal, when translated in collective terms, is one of mere co-existence, where individuals can at best all be authentic alongside each other but never build together a common good. I then show how this feature is transferred in Heidegger’s critique of technology which is one of the way we see the world and then to his solution to it which is a praise of art.

Teams link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa49e6af9675349fda02fee164134326a%40thread.tacv2/1704723859142?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fdb1bbe9-d582-4ba3-8da8-3fb0a6c42dc8%22%7d

The next postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar is taking place this Thursday 30th May from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Gráinne O'Shea will present 'An account of the interdependence of joint and collective intentionality'. Everyone welcome!

Abstract:

The anti-individualist thesis in philosophy of mind is intended to resolve the problem of knowledge of other minds. It is sometimes also thought that this essential sociality of the mind bears some ethical significance. The literature is divided in its focus on interpersonal ethics and the importance of face-to-face interaction (or 'joint intentionality') on one hand, and impersonal ethics and immersion in cultures, forms of life, and history (or 'collective intentionality') on the other. This paper will argue that collective and joint intentionality should be understood as standing in a mutually determining relation, thereby explaining the interdependence that I suggest exists between impersonal and interpersonal ethics.

Teams link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa49e6af9675349fda02fee164134326a%40thread.tacv2/1716885400563?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22f669e777-47fc-445f-9b8f-f1c85c474050%22%7d

The next postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar is taking place this Thursday 6 June from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Davide Versari will present 'Against Political Cognitivism as a Ground of Legitimacy'. Everyone welcome!

Abstract:

Political cognitivism is the commitment to the idea that there exists a standard of correctness for political decisions, and that such a standard can be reached. So-called belief-based approaches to political legitimacy take this to be the ground of legitimacy of a political decision or, more generally, of a political decision-making procedure. My aim is to counter this claim. To do that, I will argue that the epistemic circumstances of politics have some structural problems, linked to the concept of reasonable disagreement, such that the case in favour of cognitivism is not strong enough to justify its use as a ground of legitimacy.

Teams link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa49e6af9675349fda02fee164134326a%40thread.tacv2/1717420412814?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22f669e777-47fc-445f-9b8f-f1c85c474050%22%7d

WiP Week 8 - 'An inheritance to come: Derrida on history, the undecidable future, and the metaphysics of presence' - Efan Owen

The next postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar is taking place this Thursday 13th June from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Efan Owen will present 'An inheritance to come: Derrida on history, the undecidable future, and the metaphysics of presence'. Everyone welcome!

Abstract:

In this presentation I will explore the conclusions I came to in a recent essay and the questions they pose for my dissertation. I will give an overview of Derrida’s understanding of the relationship between that which is already past and that which is yet to come. I will examine here Derrida’s engagement with Heidegger’s rejection of a “metaphysics of presence,” as well as the specific implications of his own notion of différance, in the construction of meaning. Derrida holds meaning to be ultimately non-present and always referring to a presence beyond itself, and at the same time grounded in the material trace which signifies it.

In this sense, a future which is truly futural can only be comprehended as an anticipation of that which will never arrive. It is nevertheless determined by its origin, or past, in the trace signifier. I will argue that this leads Derrida to an understanding of the future as taking the form of an inheritance of things passed.

Finally, I will suggest that this approach allows Derrida to think of our relationship both to history and to the future in a manner which refutes the rationalism and calculability which characterise Kant and Husserl’s philosophies of history. In anticipation of my dissertation, I will also suggest that the decidability of inheritance nevertheless leaves it bearing resemblance to the regulative Idea as employed by Kant and Husserl. I will try to examine avenues I might take in exploring these similarities.

Teams link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa49e6af9675349fda02fee164134326a%40thread.tacv2/1718009669263?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fdb1bbe9-d582-4ba3-8da8-3fb0a6c42dc8%22%7d

​**Please note the change of day for this week. This is also the last WiP of term - there is no WiP in Week 10.**

Dear all,

The next postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar is taking place this Friday 21st June from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Chris Hall will present 'Intending, doing and the broadness of the progressive'. Everyone welcome!

Abstract:

Following Anscombe, one purported feature of practical knowledge is that it is non-observational. A challenge for accounts committed to this feature is to explain how we can have non-observational knowledge of both what we intend to be doing and what we are doing, with the latter considered a more perplexing claim. One strategy for meeting this challenge involves appealing to the broadness of the progressive to highlight a strong connection between intending and doing, so that in certain circumstances knowledge of what we intend amounts to knowledge of what we are doing. In this talk I explore this strategy. I identify two distinct directions in which the idea of the broadness of the progressive is taken, and I raise some preliminary challenges for views in both directions.

Teams link:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa49e6af9675349fda02fee164134326a%40thread.tacv2/1718630397055?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fdb1bbe9-d582-4ba3-8da8-3fb0a6c42dc8%22%7d