Programme of Events 2025-26

"Kafka’s Double Bind: Freedom and Predestination in The Trial"

 Abstract: The Trial is delightfully mysterious in a whole host of ways, but none more than this: the protagonist is both responsible for what happens to him and not responsible for what happens to him. While the Court is cruel and capricious, there’s plenty of evidence that Josef K. is not entirely innocent either. So what’s going on here? The solution, on my proposal, involves an innovative take on Christian theology, in which we’re responsible for making our souls ready for Grace, but in which no amount of preparation will guarantee its arrival. This is not a “message” sent by the novel; it is, instead, a shape for thought, a framework through which even secular readers can inspect a host of phenomena, from love to art, from inquiry to vocation. In more ways than one, we are all in Kafka’s world.

In person in OC1.08 and on TeamsLink opens in a new window

CRPLA Talk Wed 13 May, 4pm S0.17 

Daniel Star (Boston University)

Appreciation as a Process, and Well-being (from a coauthored project with Joel Van Fossen)

Aesthetic appreciation is here understood to be an at least partly conscious process, with respect to which agents exercise a significant degree of intentional control, that involves attending to objects and their aesthetic properties, where such are objects are taken to be worth appreciating aesthetically, and cognitively and affectively engaging with them. There are significant differences between this process and two other mental processes about which more has been written: practical deliberation and epistemic inquiry. Some of the similarities and differences between these processes concern the metaphysics of them, but some concern the value and role of the processes. One important conclusion reached is that appreciation, unlike the other two processes, is primarily to be valued in itself as a process, rather than merely instrumentally in relation to the value of its outcomes. And the fact that this is how appreciation is to be properly valued is closely related to what appreciation does for us, so far as our well-being is concerned. A key alternative for what might be thought to be of primary value as a product of appreciation — correct aesthetic judgment — is considered and rejected.