Speaker: Gordon Finlayson (Sussex)

Title: Understanding Meaning in the History of Philosophy

Abstract:

I advance a new and mainly internal criticism of Quentin Skinner’s claim, first made in his seminal “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” (1969), and subsequently never retracted or weakened, that ‘there are no perennial questions in philosophy’, and that Cambridge school style historical interpretation should have sole custody over the proper meaning of texts and theories in the history of philosophy. I lay out two premises to which Skinner is committed: an Austinian conception of linguistic practice, and an Anscombian conception of ‘intention-in-action’. From these I argue that there are, and will continue to be, ‘perennial questions’ in philosophy in the very sense that Skinner denies. My overall aim is to limit Skinner’s conception of historical interpretation, to make room for methodological pluralism in the history of philosophy.

Guest Speaker: Andrew Huddleston (Warwick)

Title: 'The Idea of a 'Religion of Art': The Case of Wagner'

Speaker: Andrew Huddleston (Warwick)

Title: The Idea of a "Religion of Art": The Case of Wagner

Date: Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Time: 5.30pm-7.15pm (UK time)

 Abstract:

This talk draws on a wider project of mine considering a theme in the aesthetic theorizing and art-making of the post-Kantian period, especially pronounced in German Romanticism, and going through the 19th century, and into the 20th century to certain key segments of artistic, literary, and musical modernism. An oft-expressed ambition is that art will somehow step in and fill the void left behind by waning religion. In this talk specifically, I use Richard Wagner’s theoretical writings (and some responses to his works and his agenda) as one lens for better understanding this exalted ambition for art and the limitations of this ambition. 

The seminar will be held in hybrid mode: in person (room R1.13) and online on MS Teams.

Workshop on Stephen Houlgate's Hegel on Being (Bloomsbury, 2021)

 Comments from Elena Ficara (Paderborn) and Robert Stern (Sheffield)

Reply from Stephen Houlgate (Warwick)

Guest Speaker: Rachel Cristy (KCL)

Title: 'Nietzsche and William James on Scientism and Fanaticism'

Guest Speaker: Mark Kelly (Western Sydney University)

Title: 'We Voluntary Victorians: Foucault's History of Sexuality Volume 1 Revisited'

The speaker is Tobias Keiling - join us to celebrate Tobias’ inaugural talk at Warwick!

Talk: Gadamer on Openness as Epistemic Virtue

Abstract: This paper presents the discussion of open-mindedness in recent virtue epistemology to argue that it can be supplemented by a hermeneutical model. After introducing basic distinctions, I sketch the account of open-mindedness found in the work of Jason Baehr (2011) and Wayne Riggs (2010, 2015). I then zoom in on two problems in the recent debate: how to determine when open-mindedness is epistemically beneficial and how to construe its epistemic value. While Adam Carter and Emma Gordon (2014) argue that these problems are insurmountable for Baehr and Riggs, I outline the idea that their account can be modified in such a way as to avoid these problems. Specifically, Gadamer’s discussion of the structure of prejudice and the importance of openness for understanding in Truth and Method (1960) can be developed as an alternative hermeneutical model for understanding open-mindedness. The key idea is that the circular structure Carter and Gordon find at work in Baehr’s attempt to define open-mindedness represents a version of the hermeneutical circle rather than an infinite regress.

Guest Speaker: Maudemarie Clark (University of California, Riverside)

Title: 'Does Nietzsche Overcome The Birth of Tragedy's Nihilistic View of Tragedy in His Later Work?'

Abstract: Our topic is the relationship between the account of tragedy we find in Nietzsche’s first book and his later view of that artistic genre. Aaron Ridley has argued powerfully that Nietzsche’s later view does not overcome the problems that afflict his earlier account. We agree completely with Ridley and we [Clark] have previously argued that Nietzsche’s original account of tragedy is a failure, that it fails to do what he was attempting to do. But we will argue contra Ridley that Nietzsche does overcome his early (and nihilistic) view of tragedy in his later work. The plan is to explain what we take to be the aim of The Birth of Tragedy and why we take it to be a failure. We will then look at Ridley’s argument for reading Nietzsche’s later view of tragedy in Twilight of the Idols as exhibiting the same failure, and explain our reasons for rejecting that account. These reasons will then lead us, indeed force us, to say something about Nietzsche’s later view of art more generally. 

 The session will be held online.

Guest Speaker: Charlotte Knowles (University of Groningen)

Title: 'How to Dress Like a Feminist: Towards a Relational Account of Complicity'

Guest Speaker: Dean Moyar (Johns Hopkins University)

Title: TBC

Guest Speaker: Andreja Novakovic (University of California, Berkeley)

Title: "Hegel on Transformative Experiences"

"The Philosophy of Helene Druskowitz"

Alison Stone (University of Lancaster)

"Spirit is Artist: On the Aesthetic Dimension of Ethical Life and Why the State is not a Work of Art"

Thomas Khurana (University of Potsdam)

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.

Workshop: Species-Being, Monday 26th June, 11:30 - 18:00

11:30AM- 1PM: Vanessa Wills (George Washington University), “On ‘Mystical Veils’: Marx’s Account of the Human Eye as a Product of Labor

1PM-2PM: Lunch

2PM-3:30PM: Christoph Schuringa (Northeastern University London), “Gattungswesen and Universality”

3:30PM-4:30PM Break

[**online only**]

4:30PM-6PM: Karen Ng (Vanderbilt), “Metabolism and Natural Limits: Rethinking Species-Being in Hegel and Marx”

6PM: Drinks and dinner

Those interested in dinner should contact Andrew Huddleston.

All the best,
Andrew and Tobias (Co-Convenors, PKEP)

Link to join via Teams:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ad399c3b1bb984eba8c4ac547183fd8d5%40thread.tacv2/1685109050098?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22dd402742-2e3e-475c-b957-274f82d13acf%22%7d

Ellie Anderson (Pomona) – “The Critical Phenomenological Turn"

Gregory Moss (Hong Kong) – “From Identity to Ground: The Principle of Sufficient Reason in Hegel's Science of Logic"

To join via Teams click here

Eliza Starbuck Little (Warwick) – "Seeing with the Eyes of Reason, or, Hegelian Conceptual Amelioration"

To join via Teams click here

Timothy Stoll (Warwick) – "Myth and Metaphysics in The Birth of Tragedy“

To join via Teams please click here

Anthony Bruno (Royal Holloway) – book workshop on Facticity and the Fate of Reason After Kant (forthcoming OUP)

Sean D. Kelly (Harvard) " The Proper Dignity of Human Being"

Nicolas de Warren (Penn State) - "Phenomenology of the After-Life"

Toril Moi (Duke - online) - "Simone de Beauvoir and the Experience of Otherness"