2020
Karen Margrethe Nielsen on 'Deliberation and Practical Truth in Aristotle's Ethics'
We are very pleased to announce that Karen Margrethe Nielsen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar will be virtual, and open to everyone.
Time and place: Dec. 11, 2020 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Zoom
Abstract
Deliberation, as Aristotle defines it, is a type of inquiry that seeks to determine how we should act. It is directed at the future: ‘we do not decide to do what is already past; no one decides, for instance, to have sacked Troy. For neither do we deliberate about what is past, but only about what will be and admits of being or not being; and what is past does not admit of not having happened’ (EN VI 1139b7-10). If we deliberate well, we will grasp the truth about practical matters (EN VI 2, 9). But how, by Aristotle’s lights, can there be truths about how we should act in the future?
In this talk, I present an analysis of Aristotle’s theory of deliberation and practical truth in Nicomachean Ethics VI, and argue that it is not incompatible with his remarks about future contingents in De Interpretatione IX.
In the course of my investigation, I aim to clarify what it means to treat the future as open for the purposes of deliberation, and I further specify the content of true propositions about how one should act.
Dynamic Territory with Alejandra Mancilla
We are pleased announce the first Philosophical seminar of the semester, inviting you to celebrate and learn more about Alejandra Mancilla´s research project Dynamic Territory (DynamiTe), for which she was recently awarded the prestigious ERC starting grant. The seminar is open to everyone, and will be followed by a Q&A session.
Time and place: Nov. 3, 2020 3:00 PM–4:00 PM, Join Zoom meeting
About Alejandra
Alejandra Mancilla is associate professor in practical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo. She currently leads a three-year project entitled Political Philosophy Looks to Antarctica, which aims to look at key concepts and principles in political philosophy through the prism of the last uninhabited continent on earth.
Alejandra was recently awarded the generous ERC starting grant from the European Research Council for the project Dynamic Territory: A Normative Framework for Territory in the Post-Holocene. The research project will develop a normative framework for territory in a world with rising sea levels, desertification, droughts, crop failure, floods and extreme weather events.
About the project
Climate change will disrupt current political, societal and economic paradigms.
- How should we approach a fair territorial arrangement for countries that will partially or completely disappear due to sea level rise or whose main productive activities, like farming, will be lost due to changed weather patterns?
- How will we consider locals and migrants in a world where climate refugees are estimated to reach up to one billion by 2050?
- How should Global Systemic Resources like rainforests be governed to guarantee their maintenance?
DynamiTe aims to provide normative criteria to solve conflicts of interest around land and natural resources. The project will develop a novel framework for territory on a global scale, and reassess the traditional rights and duties associated with the ownership of land and natural resources.
Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann
We are very pleased to announce that Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Uppsala, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: May 14, 2020 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
2019
Christel Fricke on "Reflective sentimentalism in Aesthetics: Hume’s Question and Kant’s Answer"
We are very pleased to announce that Christel Fricke, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Nov. 14, 2019 2:14 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 219, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Abstract
‘Beauty’ is an evaluative predicate; the evaluation of an object as beautiful or not is constituted by an aesthetic sentiment. But not all the sentiments that people have in response to a particular object of perception can support an aesthetic judgment all other people have reason to agree with. Only proper aesthetic sentiments can do so. Aesthetic judgments which are well-grounded are based on proper aesthetic sentiments – and vice versa. The challenge for the philosopher is to explain in virtue of what a sentiment is aesthetically proper. Both Hume and Kant tried to provide such an explanation, but they did so in different ways. My claim is that only Kant did so successfully.
About Christel Fricke
Christel Fricke is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. She obtained her Ph.D at Heidelberg University, where she also worked as assistant professor. She has held the position of Visiting Professor at Emory University in Atlanta (USA), Research Lecturer at Karlsruhe University (Germany) and Temporary Chair in Philosophy at Mannheim University. She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, and currently holds the position as research director of the Moral Agency subsection of the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN).
Olav Gjelsvik on "Reasons and oughts: Fundamentals within the normative"
We are very pleased to announce that Olav Gjelsvik, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Oct. 24, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Abstract
There is an ongoing debate about whether reasons, oughts or both of them are fundamental features of the normative domain. This paper is a contribution to this debate. My aim is to provide a partial defence of the view that reasons are fundamental, without arguing that oughts are not. I shall be particularly concerned with arguing against an elegant reduction of reason-talk to ought talk, recently proposed by John Broome. I shall start from an identification of what I take to be Derek Parfit’s view on this matter, and aim to show that it has great potential, not made explicit by Parfit, for understanding fundamental aspects of the normative as such.
About Olav Gjelsvik
Dr. Olav Gjelsvik obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Philosophy at the University Oslo. He has worked as a research associate at the University of California Berkeley and Visiting Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor, EHESS and University of Paris. From 2007-2017 he was Research Director, and later also Director, for CSMN, a centre of excellence at the University of Oslo, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
Finnur Dellsén on "A Surprising Epistemic Advantage of Accommodation over Prediction"
We are very pleased to announce that Finnur Dellsén, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Sep. 19, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 219, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Abstract
Many philosophers have argued that a hypothesis is typically better confirmed by data if the hypothesis wasn't specifically designed to fit the data. 'Prediction', they argue, is normally superior to 'accommodation'. Others deny that there is any epistemic advantage to prediction, and conclude that prediction and accommodation are epistemically on a par. This paper argues that, perhaps surprisingly, there is a respect in which accommodation is typically epistemically superior to prediction. Specifically, the fact that the data was accommodated rather than predicted typically suggests that the data is less likely to have been manipulated or fabricated, which in turn increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is true in light of the data. In some cases, this epistemic advantage of accommodation may even outweigh whatever epistemic advantage there might be to prediction, making accommodation epistemically superior to prediction all things considered.
About Finnur Dellsén
Dr. Finnur Dellsén obtained his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill and was a postdoc at University College Dublin. He currently holds the position of an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland, and he also has a part-time position as associate professor II at Høgskolen i Innlandet. In 2018 he received the semi-annual Lauener Prize for Up-and-Coming Philosophers. In June 2019, he was awarded the Nils Klim Prize for young, nordic scholars in the humanities, social science, law, and theology.
Pavel Gregoric on "Aristotle's perceptual optimism"
We are very pleased to announce that Pavel Gregoric, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: June 13, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Room 452, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Aristotle was a direct realist about perception: he believed that perception puts us in direct contact with the world. What activates our senses are actual properties of physical objects. This secures the infallibility of our senses, at least at the most basic level and in normal circumstances. These properties that activate our senses Aristotle calls ‘special sensibles’ and he defines each sense with reference to one type of special sensible, e.g. vision with reference to colours, hearing with reference to sounds, etc. Aristotle’s division of special sensibles into types is meant to be both exclusive and exhaustive: it is exclusive because a special sensible of one type belongs only to that type, which means that it can be perceived only by the corresponding sense; and it is exhaustive, because there are no types of special sensibles other than those with reference to which the five senses are defined. That Aristotle’s division of special sensibles into types, set out in De anima II.7-11, is indeed exhaustive, follows from his argument at the beginning of De anima III.1 to the effect that there cannot possibly be any sense-organ other than the five familiar ones that house the five senses. With that argument Aristotle secures the thesis that there are no types of special sensibles in the world to which we have no access. Of course, Aristotle would readily agree that there are many imperceptible properties of physical objects, but he would deny that there are any properties which are in principle perceptible, or which are perceptible by some creatures, but not perceptible by us. More to the point, in De sensu 6 and 7 Aristotle seems to argue that there are no special sensibles which are, in principle, too small (or, by extension, too large) for us to perceive. These three theses – perceptual realism, access to all types of special sensibles, and no outlier special sensibles – constitute what I call ‘Aristotle’s perceptual optimism’. In effect, Aristotle thought that we can perceive all there is to perceive. I will argue that Aristotle's perceptual optimism is necessary for his concept of science (epistêmê). Should any one of the three identified theses fail to obtain, Aristotelian science would collapse.
About Pavel Gregoric
Dr. Pavel Gregoric obtained his BPhil and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford, he has taught philosophy at the University of Zagreb from 2000-2017 and now holds the position of a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy in Zagreb. He has held visiting positions at Central European University in Budapest, Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, UC Berkeley, and at the University of Gothenburg.
Dr. Gregoric wrote the book Aristotle on the Common Sense (Oxford University Press, 2007) which has become the standard scholarly work on the Aristotelian notion of a common sense, a higher-order perceptual capacity which monitors operation of the five special senses and compares and integrates their reports. This notion looms large in three texts of Parva Naturalia—in De sensu, De somno et vigilia and De insomniis—and it has been taken up by later Greek, Arabic and Latin commentators. Dr. Gregoric’s expertise on this topic is of interest to the members of the group who are working on related topics for the volume of papers on the senses and for the volume of papers on sleep and dreams, planned for completion by the end of 2019.
Margaret Moore on “Towards a Theory of Resource Justice”
We are very pleased to announce that Margaret Moore, Professor in Political Studies at Queen's University, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: May 16, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Møterom 452, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
This paper rejects a common assumption in both common ownership of resources and equality of welfare theories of resources, as exemplified in Chris Armstrong’s recent book "Justice and Resources", arguing instead in favour of a complex, pluralist and relational theory of resource justice.
About Margaret Moore
Margaret Moore is a professor in the Political Studies department, cross-appointed as a courtesy in Philosophy where she teaches in the Master’s in Political and Legal Theory program. She is the author of three books, all with Oxford University Press: A Political Theory of Territory, Ethics of Nationalism and Foundations of Liberalism and has edited several other books and journal special issues.A Political Theory of Territory was the winner of the Canadian Philosophical Association’s Best Book Prize in 2017, and was translated into Japanese in 2018. She has published in journals such as the Journal of Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Philosophical Studies, Political Studies, and Ethics and International Affairs. In 2018 she was an RSS visiting fellow at the Australian National University and the Olof Palme Visiting Research Professor at the University of Stockholm.
2018
Cara Nine on "Colonization and Territory as Moral Space"
We are very pleased to announce that Cara Nine, Senior Lecturer at University College Cork, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Nov. 29, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 203 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
In a recent article, Lea Ypi argues that territory is not morally relevant for understanding the wrongs of colonialism. Instead, Ypi defends a Kantian account of the wrongs of colonialism that prioritizes the duty to form political associations over any historical rights of territory. In this essay, I agree with Ypi’s claim that there is a duty to politically associate with others. Against Ypi, I argue that this duty can be overridden by existing political or moral commitments. In fact, territory itself can be a understood as a set of joint commitments that may override our duty to politically associate with others. In the course of making these arguments, I use theories developed by Margaret Gilbert and Samuel von Pufendorf.
About Cara Nine
Dr. Nine received her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Arizona and her BA in Philosophy from Carleton College. Her work mainly focuses on issues in justice and location, or how one's location (residence, territorial citizenship, etc) can affect what is owed to that person as a matter of justice. Her book, Global Justice and Territory (OUP 2012), won the American Philosophical Association Book Prize in 2013 and the Brian Farrell 2013 Book Prize, awarded by the Political Studies Association of Ireland. Some of Nine's current research looks at border and territorial rights theory, claims to the Antarctic and the Arctic, why particular places matter to us, cognitive structures embedded in particular locations and how place attachment should feature in theories of justice. From 2017-2020, she has been a partner on the Norwegian Research Council Project 'Political Theory Looks to Antarctica', lead by Alejandra Mancilla (Oslo).
Bernhard Nickel on "A Conception of Kinds for Generics (and cp-laws?)"
We are very pleased to announce that Bernhard Nickel, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Nov. 1, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Arne Næss Auditorium 103 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Generic sentences in English, such as “ravens are black” or “tigers have stripes” are non-strict generalizations: some members of the kind fall outside of the scope of the generalization, such as albino ravens or tigers, respectively. This is a prima facie surprising fact, since in various forms of inquiry, we tend to adjust the extension of our kind terms so that we can formulate universal generalizations about them. This is why jadeite is distinguished from nephrite, gold from fools’ gold, and so on. In this talk, I’ll propose a theory of kinds according to which kinds in arenas of inquiry that characteristically articulate non-strict generalizations are formed not in order to support inductive inference, but to serve an explanatory need.
About Bernhard Nickel
Bernhard Nickel is Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He joined the department in 2006 after receiving his Ph.D. from MIT in 2005. Nickel's research centers on the philosophy of language. He is currently investigating the viability of truth-conditional semantics for natural language, working on a broadly quantificational account of generics. This project raises questions in adjacent areas, especially the philosophy of science: what is a natural kind? What is the connection between explanation and generality? He is also interested in debates in the philosophy of mind, especially the nature of representation.
Tito Magri on "The Total Self of Me"
We are very pleased to announce that Tito Magri, Professor of Philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Oct. 11, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Møterom 467 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
The distinction of an objective and a subjective view of the world have taken center place in philosophical discussion, from the Early Modern to our days (think of philosophers like Nagel, Jackson, Stalnaker). Much less attention has been paid to the possibility that, even once the distinction has been secured and we are in no danger of ‘objectivizing’ (and thereby hiding, or deforming, the subject), the subjective view itself turn out to be beset with tensions. Even in its purest, first-personal form. I identify and discuss some such tensions, concerning the necessity or contingency of personal identity, the nature of the contents of subjective, agential or experiential thoughts, and the different specifications of self-awareness. These tensions arise rightly when one occupies the first-personal viewpoint, so that this latter is no safe cognitive haven. I then put some semantic structure on these tensions and on what they seem to indicate about contents in the first-personal perspective. By distinguishing and interconnecting the relevant semantic dimensions and exploring their epistemological implications and their implications for possibilities of existing as persons or selves and as the same persons or selves, I attempt to indicate how the contrasts in this area could be eased and a view of the total self of me, a consistent construal of the first-personal conceptual framework, could be outlined.
About Tito Magri
Tito Magri has been Professor of Philosophy since 1987, first at the University of Bari, and from 1998, at the Sapienza University of Rome. Magri was visiting professor at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in the Fall term of 2006 and a fellow of the Italian Academy at Columbia in the Winter term 2007. His research has mainly been in political philosophy, in the philosophy of emotions, in the foundations of rational choice and in the philosophy of action. He also has interests in the history of philosophy, where he has done work on Hobbes, Rousseau, Hume and Locke. Magri has two ongoing projects. One is in the philosophy of action and attempts to provide a realist conception of the content and intrinsic normativity of actions, deeds and the things we do, along lines inspired to Aristotle, Frege and Anscombe. The other straddles between general metaphysics and the philosophy of mind and attempts a deep revision of the concepts of person, personal identity and the first person, in light of the tension between Aristotle and Descartes.
Agnes Callard on "Valuing and Emotion"
We are very pleased to announce that Agnes Callard, associate professor in philosophy at the University of Chicago, will deliver the first talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Sep. 12, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Møterom 452 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
What is it to value something? One might think that valuing is a form of believing—for instance, believing that the object of value is good or worthy. Alternatively, one might identify valuing with desiring—for instance, desiring to protect, promote, or engage with the object of value. A third possibility is that valuing is an emotional condition—a disposition to experience a range of emotions based on how things are with the object of value. According to the recently popular hybrid theory of valuing (Kolodny 2003, Scheffler 2010, Wallace 2013, Callard 2018), (i) valuing cannot be reduced to believing, or to desiring, or to feeling, but (ii) it can be reduced to believing, desiring andfeeling, taken together. I argue that hybrid theorists are correct with respect to the first point but incorrect with respect to the second. In this talk, I raise three problems for the hybrid theory, and use them to articulate some desiderata for a theory of valuing.
About Agnes Callard
Agnes Gellen Callard is an Associate Professor in Philosophy. She received her B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1997 and her PhD from Berkeley in 2008. Her primary areas of specialization are Ancient Philosophy and Ethics. She is currently Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Her newly published book, Aspiration (OUP 2018), addresses a new form of agency: the agency of becoming. It locates standing assumptions in the theory of rationality, moral psychology and autonomy that preclude the possibility of working to acquire new values. It also explains what changes need to be made if we are to make room for this form of agency, which I call aspiration.
Laurie Paul on "Transformative Experience and Choice"
We are very pleased to announce that Laurie Paul, Eugene Falk Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Professorial Fellow at St Andrews University in Scotland, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: June 11, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Møterom 452 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Going to war, having a baby, being spiritually reborn, betraying your lover, emigrating to a new country – all of these are experiences that can transform us. By transforming us, they change us, and in the process, they restructure the nature and meaning of our lives. I’ll discuss the nature of transformative experience and show how exploring its epistemic structure can help us to understand the distinctive psychological impact of new experience. I’ll extend this idea to discuss the way that new technology, by creating distinctive new kinds of lived experiences, can form and change us, and show how this relates to how we make life choices, both big and small.
About Laurie Paul
Laurie Paul is Eugene Falk Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Professorial Fellow at St Andrews University in Scotland. She specializes in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science, focusing on questions concerning transformative experience, decision theory, the nature of the self, time, temporal experience, mereology, causation, and identity. She also has interests in methodology and the philosophy of science. She is the author of Transformative Experience (Oxford Univ. Press: 2014) and is co-author, with Ned Hall, of Causation: A User’s Guide (Oxford Univ. Press: 2013). She is currently writing a book on transformative experience and the nature of the self to be published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Samir Okasha on "Inter-temporal Choice and the Metaphysics of Time"
We are very pleased to announce that Samir Okasha, Professor at University of Bristol, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: May 16, 2018 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
This talk tries to forge a link between a classic debate in the metaphysics of time – between 'tensed' and 'tenseless' theories – and a classic debate in the theory of rational choice – over whether 'exponential discounting' is the uniquely rational pattern of inter-temporal choice. The traditional metaphysical debate is about whether the tensed or tenseless theory is true. I set aside this matter, and focus instead on a different question: suppose someone believes that the tenseless theory (for example) is true, then how should this affect their behaviour? I suggest that whether an agent believes (perhaps implicitly) in the tensed or tenseless theory may have implications for the pattern of inter-temporal choice that they consider rational. In particular, I argue that the traditional answer to the question of what rational inter-temporal choice amounts to – exponential discounting – is very compelling if one accepts the tenseless theory, but much less compelling if one accepts the tensed theory. Patterns of inter-temporal choice that conflict with traditional rational choice norms, such as hyperbolic discounting, are rationally defensible for an agent who accepts a tensed view of time.
About Samir Okasha
Samir Okasha has broad philosophical interests, though most of his research is related to philosophy of biology and evolutionary theory, and epistemology and philosophy of science. Within philosophy of biology he has written about foundational issues in social evolution theory, particularly those surrounding the 'levels of selection' issue, and the related issue of individual-group conflicts of interest. This culminated in the book Evolution and the Levels of Selection (OUP 2006), which was awarded the 2009 Lakatos Prize for an outstanding contribution to philosophy of science. From 2008 to 2011 Okasha was Principal Investigator on a major AHRC-funded research project, 'Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality', in collaboration with Professor Ken Binmore, which led to a series of publications and an edited volume Evolution and Rationality (CUP 2012). From 2011 to 2016 he was Principal Investigator on a research project entitled 'Darwinism and the Theory of Rational Choice', funded by a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award. The aim of the project is to study connections, formal and conceptual, between Darwinian evolutionary theory and the theory of rationality. Okasha has a forthcoming book on this topic, Agents and Goals in Evolution, to be published by OUP in 2018.
Michael Neu on "Just Liberal Violence: Sweatshops, Torture, War"
We are very pleased to announce that Michael Neu, from the University of Brighton, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Apr. 19, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 205 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Many contemporary moral and political philosophers have published work in defence of sweatshops, torture and/or war. I argue that the liberal framework from which these defences derive is unexamined. It is obsessed with individuals, blind to social hierarchies and interconnectedness, and fanatically fixated on pressing the complex material world into a binary moral structure of right and wrong. In failing to take a step back and reflect critically on the defects of their framework of analysis, however, defenders of just liberal violence contribute to a moral climate characterized by a pervasive amnesia about the histories, structures and politics of violence. My talk is an invitation to think about the ethics of writing about violence, as well as the question of intellectual responsibility.
About Michael Neu
Michael Neu completed his PhD on The Dilemma of Justified War at Sheffield University (2010), and was subsequently awarded the Political Studies Association (PSA) Sir Ernest Barker Prize for the best dissertation in Political Theory. He is interested in political and moral philosophy, specifically moral questions pertaining to justice, equality and violence. Neu is committed to interdisciplinary and collaborative work. He is currently working towards completing two monographs: one, with Robin Dunford, on Just War and the Responsibility to Protect: A Critique (Zed Books, 2018); another, single-authored, on Just Liberal Violence: Sweatshops, Torture, War (Rowman and Littlefield International, Oct, 2017). He also researches on the question of intellectual complicity in violence, including structural violence, and has recently co-edited and co-authored a volume on Exploring Complicity: Concept, Cases and Critique (with Robin Dunford and Afxentis Afxentiou, Rowman and Littlefield International, Dec 2016). With Bob Brecher and Robin Dunford, he is co-editor of a new book series, Off the Fence (with Rowman and Littlefield International). He was also, with Andy Knott, the Convener of the 2016 Political Studies Association "Politics and the Good Life" Conference held at Brighton.
Constance Meinwald on "Rolling Around Between Being and Not-Being: Plato and Context Dependence"
We are very pleased to announce that Constance Meinwald, Professor at University of Illinois, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Mar. 22, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Plato famously claims that sensibles are beautiful and ugly, large and small, equal and unequal, double and half, and so on; as he sums it up, they mix Being and Not-Being. This is what makes him rule them out as fundamentally real and as objects of the highest cognitive states; those honors go to Forms such as The Beautiful and Largeness Itself. But claims key to Plato’s characterization of sensibles are thought by some today to lead to such problems that they conclude that there’s no such thing as Largeness, Goodness, etc. What are the resources and strengths of Plato’s approach, and does it have some limitations?
About Constance Meinwald
Constance Meinwald did her Ph.D. work in Princeton’s Classical Philosophy program and strives to combine the resources of classics with philosophical activity in reanimating the dialectic of philosophy in antiquity. Connie’s earliest work took the form of her book, Plato’s “Parmenides” (Oxford, 1991). She has published a variety of journal articles and conference pieces on Plato, as well as studies in the history of the notion of consent. She has contributed substantial essays to the Cambridge Companion to Plato (1992) the Oxford Handbook of Plato (2008), and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Her wide-ranging and broadly accessible Plato (2016) has just been published in the Routledge Philosophers Series. Prof. Meinwald has been a Junior Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, a Fellow of the UIC Humanities Institute (twice), and has taught as a visitor at Cornell and at Barnard/Columbia.
Torfinn Huvenes on "From Faultless Disagreement to Disagreement in Attitude"
We are very pleased to announce that Torfinn Huvenes, Senior Lecturer at Umeå University, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Mar. 1, 2018 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
This talk takes as its starting point two questions about disagreement. The first question is whether there is faultless disagreement. Are there cases of disagreement in which neither party is wrong or making any kind of mistake? The second question is whether there is not only disagreement in belief, but also disagreement in attitude. Do all cases of disagreement involve conflicting beliefs or are there also cases of disagreement involving other attitudes, such as desires or preference? I am going to defend two claims. The first claim is that there is faultless disagreement. The second claim is that the existence of faultless disagreement means that not all disagreement is disagreement in belief. There is also disagreement in attitude.
About Torfinn Huvenes
Torfinn Huvenes is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Umeå University. He has previously been a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo and the Arché Philosophical Research Centre at the University of St Andrews. He obtained his PhD in 2011 as a double-badge degree from the University of St Andrews and the University of Oslo under the supervision of Professor Herman Cappelen.
2017
Kristin Gjesdal on "Shakespeare and the Development of Modern Aesthetics"
We are very pleased to announce that Kristin Gjesdal, Associate Professor at Temple University and Professor II at IFIKK, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception
Time and place: Dec. 7, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
In eighteenth-century European culture, Shakespeare’s work was translated, staged, and discussed with a passion that has remained unrivaled. Philosophy was no exception to this trend. Lessing, Herder, the Schlegel brothers, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others turned to Shakespeare’s work and used it as an anchoring point for reflection on theater and dramatic poetry. The changing attitudes toward Shakespeare reflect, in turn, a changing attitude toward literature and art. In my presentation, I focus on the reception of Shakespeare in the period before and around Kant’s third Critique and trace the way the reception of Shakespeare went hand in hand with a reception of empiricist philosophy of taste.
About Kristin Gjesdal
Kristin Gjesdal holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oslo. She has been a visiting scholar at the Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, and Columbia University, a post-doctoral Fulbright Fellow at the University of Chicago, and had a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. In 2014, she was appointed a Professorial Fellow (Professor II) of philosophy at the University of Oslo. She has been awarded the The Eleanor Hofkin Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Alumni Board at the College of Liberal Arts at Temple (2014). In her work, Kristin Gjesdal covers the areas of phenomenology and hermeneutics, enlightenment, romanticism, idealism, and aesthetics. She also writes on tragedy and philosophy of theater and has published a number of articles on Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and modern literature.
Leif Wenar on "The Free Unity of Humanity"
We are very pleased to announce that Professor Leif Wenar, Chair in Philosophy and Law at King's College London, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Oct. 19, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 219 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
From solidarity and love to competition and cruelty, the goodness of human relations is defined by their (dis)unity. Ideals of free unity are also common to very many philosophical and spiritual traditions. Seeing unity as foundational in moral and political thought is an advance beyond Kantianism and utilitarianism--and shows that Hobbes's injunction to 'seek peace' is merely a theorem of a deeper imperative: seek unity.
About Leif Wenar
Leif Wenar holds the Chair of Philosophy & Law at King’s College London. After earning his Bachelor’s degree from Stanford, he went to Harvard to study with John Rawls, and wrote his doctoral thesis on property rights with Robert Nozick and T.M. Scanlon. He has worked in the UK since 1997. His most recent book Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World was published by Oxford University Press in 2016 and has since been translated into numerous languages.
Jason Stanley on "Non-Ideal Philosophy of Language II"
We are very pleased to announce that Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, will deliver a talk for Filosofisk seminar this semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Oct. 12, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Møterom 652 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Political Philosophy and Epistemology have, in the last decade, undergone non-ideal revolutions. In both cases, theoretical change has happened by questioning the idealizations of the disciplines. For example, feminist epistemologists critiqued the individualist assumptions of mainstream epistemology, critical race theorists critiqued the focus on knowledge rather than ignorance, and both joined naturalized epistemology in critiquing the assumption that humans are ideal rational agents. In political philosophy, Charles Mills and others critiqued the focus on justice to the exclusion of the study of oppression. Feminist philosophers of language and semanticists such as Rae Langton and Sally McConnell-Ginet have engaged in analogous critiques of ordinary practice in philosophy of language and semantics. The goal of these talks, which will be chapters of my forthcoming co-authored book with David Beaver, The Politics of Language, is to spell out a program for non-ideal philosophy of language, building on the work already done by feminist theorists.
Om Jason Stanley
Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to Yale in 2013, he was Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has also been a Professor at the University of Michigan (2000-4) and Cornell University (1995-2000). His PhD was earned in 1995 at the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT (Robert Stalnaker, chair), and he received his BA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1990.
Serena Parekh on "Rejecting Long-Term Encampment"
Serena Parekh, Associate Professor at Northeastern University in Boston, will deliver the talk "Rejecting Long-Term Encampment: Towards a Moral Framework for Refugee Resettlement" for Filosofisk seminar. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Sep. 28, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
For many in the West, the primary moral question about refugees has to do with whether we have a moral obligation to admit them into our states, either through resettlement from refugee camps or through claims of asylum, and if so, how many. This approach, I suggest, does not give sufficient moral consideration to the treatment of the displaced who will not be resettled. The vast majority of refugees are neither able to make claims for asylum nor be resettled and are likely to remain as refugees for, on average, 17 years. Philosophers have not given adequate consideration to how we ought to treat the majority of the world’s refugees who remain for years, often decades, sometimes generations, in refugee camps or informal urban settlements.
In my talk, I claim that we have a moral obligation to reject the long-term encampment of refugees as the de facto solution to the global refugee crisis. I argue that we ought to reframe our understanding of the harms refugees are subjected to. I suggest that many of the harms of current migration governance must be understood as structural injustices, injustices in which Western states can be held remedially responsible. Structural injustices are not necessarily the result of deliberate wrongdoing or explicitly unjust policies, but are the unintentional outcome of the actions of different agents each working for their own morally acceptable ends. This account requires for an understanding of responsibility that is different from the more traditional conceptions, which no longer serve us when thinking about global issues like refugees. I suggest we ought to understand our responsibility for global displacement as ‘remedial’: we are responsible for fixing the problem in front of us because of the various ways we are connected to the situation, even though we did not cause it. In short, I suggest a new paradigm for understanding our moral responsibilities to refugees, one that is grounded on a novel understanding both of the harms experienced by the long-term displaced and the kind of responsibility that states are required to assume.
About Serena Parekh
Serena Parekh is Associate Professor of philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston, where she is the director of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Program. Prior to this, Professor Parekh taught at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Philosophy and Human Rights Institute. Her primary philosophical interests are in social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and continental philosophy. Her book, Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights, was published by Routledge in 2008 and translated into Chinese. She has also published numerous articles on social and political philosophy in Hypatia, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and Human Rights Quarterly. Her current research focuses broadly on global justice, responsibility, and statelessness. She is in the process of completing a manuscript concerning our moral obligations to refugees and the forcibly displaced.
Robert B. Pippin on "Hegel on Life as a Logical Concept"
We are very pleased to announce that Robert B. Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, will deliver the talk "Hegel on Life as a Logical Concept" for the first Filosofisk seminar of the semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception.
Time and place: Sep. 7, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Møterom 452 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
The question at issue is the status of the difference between living and nonliving beings, an issue that gained in importance in the late eighteenth century when Kant, in his Critique of Judgment (1790), in effect admitted that his earlier critical philosophy had not “grounded” such a distinction as a pure or categorical distinction, knowable as such a priori, and that this omission was unacceptable. But for Hegel, in his Science of Logic (1812-1816), Kant’s attempt to argue for some sort of “subjectively necessary” status to the distinction, and so to teleological judgments, failed. Hegel’s analysis of this failure and his own attempt to justify the non-empirical and objective status of the category of life are the topics discussed in this paper.
About Robert B. Pippin
Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books and articles on German idealism and later German philosophy, including Kant's Theory of Form; Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (1989), Modernism as a Philosophical Problem (1991), and Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations (1997). In addition he has published on issues in political philosophy, theories of self-consciousness, the nature of conceptual change, and the problem of freedom. More recently Pippin has also published widely on topics such as film and philosophical aesthetics with books such as Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy (2012), After the Beautiful: Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism (2013), and his most recent project The Philosophical Hitchcock: Vertigo and the Anxieties of Unknowingness due out in October (2017). Pippin was twice an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, is a winner of the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities, and was recently a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the American Philosophical Society. He is also a member of the German National Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ariel Zylberman on "The Bounds of Rights"
Ariel Zylberman, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCLA, will deliver the talk "The Bounds of Rights" for this session of Filosofisk seminar. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: May 11, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
The possibility of conflicts of rights raises a puzzle: if with the utilitarian tradition we seek to resolve conflicts by appealing to a balancing model of reasons, then we risk losing from view the peremptory character of rights as moral norms, but if with the deontological tradition we seek to make conflicts impossible by deeming moral rights absolute, then we risk becoming committed to an empty and dogmatic rule fetishism. My aim in this article is to introduce and defend a relational alternative to these familiar accounts. For the relational account, any moral norm, including rights, is ultimately grounded in a basic reciprocal relation of respect. Focusing on the relational grounding of rights opens up a non-balancing framework for resolving (apparent) conflicts of rights. This framework distinguishes the absolutely binding form of morally justified rights (rights as bounds) from the limited content of morally justified rights (the bounds of rights). My argument is that drawing this distinction enables us to see how morally justified rights can bind in a peremptory fashion without having an absolute or unbounded scope.
About Ariel Zylberman
Ariel Zylberman is a postdoctoral research fellow in Law and Philosophy at the School of Law and the Department of Philosophy at UCLA. He has published numerous articles in ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of law. His current research develops an irreducibly relational account of the foundations of moral norms. Zylberman completed his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 2013.
"Killing in the Name of Poverty?" Lars Christie and Susanne Burri on the enforceability of duties towards the world's global poor
Lars Christie, Associate Professor at UiO and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), and Susanne Burri, Assistent Professor at London School of Economics and Political Science, will deliver a talk on the enforceability of duties towards the world's global poor entitled "Killing in the Name of Poverty?" for this session of Filosofisk seminar. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Mar. 31, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Most philosophers agree that we -- the world's affluent citizens -- are violating our duties towards the world's global poor. There is some disagreement, however, on what duties exactly we are violating. According to some philosophers, we are primarily failing in our positive duties to aid the global poor. Such aid-based duties arise from the fact that we are much better off than the world's poor, which means that we are able to significantly improve their fate at little cost to ourselves. Other philosophers argue that we are not only failing in our positive duties, but that we are also failing in our negative and allegedly much more stringent duties not to harm the global poor by, for instance, supporting autocratic regimes in poor countries and by imposing trade agreements that systematically disadvantage the global poor. In our talk, we investigate whether or not our duties towards the poor are morally enforceable, such that the world's poor may be permitted to use physical force to compel us to fulfill these duties. We argue that our duties are enforceable and that the distinction between positive duties to aid and negative duties not to harm is less fundamental than it may seem. On the other hand, we also explain why the enforceability of our duties towards the poor will usually fall short of entailing a permission to kill in the name of poverty.
About Lars Christie
Lars Christie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford University, affiliated with Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC). He is also a researcher at Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Arts and Ideas at the University of Oslo.
About Susanne Burri
Susanne Burri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Logic & Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests include the ethics of war and normative ethics more generally, decision-making under risk and uncertainty, and the philosophy of death.
Jeff Malpas on Heidegger and The Black Notebooks: "In the Brightness of Place: From History to Topology"
Jeff Malpas, Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania, will deliver the talk "In the Brightness of Place: From History to Topology" for this session of Filosofisk seminar. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Mar. 24, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
In the midst of the contemporary hubbub that surrounds the publication of Heidegger’s Notebooks from the 1930s and 1940s, this talk will focus on the way the Notebooks shed light on the shift in Heidegger’s thinking towards what he calls a ‘topology of being’ (Topologie des Seyns) – a shift that culminates in the later work from the ‘Letter on “Humanism”’ onwards. In doing so, my aim is to show the way the Notebooks reinforce the central role of place (Ort, Ortschaft) in Heidegger’s thinking more broadly, and especially the way his concern with the topology of being comes to replace his earlier focus on the history of being.
About Jeff Malpas
Jeff Malpas is Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania. He has published more than twenty books and numerous essays on a wide range of topics from architecture to the transcendental. Engaging with thinkers in both the analytic and continental traditions, he has written on the work of Davidson as well as Heidegger, and is especially well-known for his work on questions of place and space.
Martin Sticker on "Kant’s case against Heterosexual Marriage"
For this session of Filosofisk seminar, in cooperation with Norsk Kant-selskap, research fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Martin Sticker, will deliver the talk "Kant’s case against Heterosexual Marriage". The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Feb. 10, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
My paper reconsiders Kant’s conception of marriage against the background of his remarks on the differences between men and women. I argue that, despite what Kant says about the immorality of homosexual intercourse, his framework of marriage and gender is more open to same-sex marriage than to heterosexual marriage. For Kant, marriage requires equality between the spouses. Given Kant's notion of the inequality between men and women Kant cannot approve of heterosexual marriage, according to his own account. Matters are different for same-sex couples, since same-sex partners are not immediately affected by the inequalities that obtain between the sexes. Same-sex couples therefore more easily satisfy the crucial equality condition Kant puts on marriage.
About Martin Sticker
Martin Sticker received his PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2014 on a thesis on "Common Human Reason in Kant's Philosophy - A Study in Kant's Moral Psychology and Philosophical Method". In 2012, Sticker was an academic visitor at the University of Notre Dame's philosophy department. From 2014 to 2016 he was a lecturer at the University of Göttingen. Since October 2016 Sticker is an IRC funded research fellow in Trinity College Dublin's philosophy department and with a desk in the Trinity Long Room Hub, Arts & Humanities Research Institute.
2016
Gösta Grönroos on “Pleasure and two kinds of perfection in Aristotle”
For this session of Filosofisk seminar Gösta Grönroos, researcher at the University of Stockholm, will deliver the talk "Pleasure and two kinds of perfection in Aristotle". The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Nov. 25, 2016 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Aristotle assigns to pleasure a particular kind of role in relation to virtuous activity. In Nicomachean Ethics 10.4, pleasure taken in an activity is said to have an impact on that activity by perfecting it. But what that perfecting amounts to raises some difficult questions. I suggest that Aristotle distinguishes between two different kinds of perfection, and that pleasure is responsible for only one of them. In the first sense of perfection, an activity may be perfect by being the full actualisation of a disposition. But pleasure may still perfect such activity, albeit in another sense of perfection. To better understand the distinction between the two kinds of perfection, I suggest a way of unpacking one of the analogies (1174b23–26), which Aristotle puts forward to explain in what way pleasure perfects an activity.
About Gösta Grönroos
Grönroos is a researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University. His dissertation was on Platon on Perceptual Cognition, and his publications include papers on Plato and on Aristotle’s ethics.
Suzanne Stern-Gillet on "Errant and Pure Souls"
For this session of Filosofisk seminar Suzanne Stern-Gillet, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Bolton, will deliver a talk on the philosophy of Plotinus, entitled "Errant and Pure Souls: Reflections on Ennead IV 8 [6]." The seminar is open for students and faculty alike.
Time and place: Nov. 4, 2016 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Seminarrom 141 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
The opening lines of Plotinus’ early tractate On the Descent of Souls into Bodies (IV 8 [6]) have a claim to being the most memorable in the history of western philosophy:
"Often I have woken up out of the body to my self (eis emauton) and have entered into myself, going out from all other things; I have seen a beauty wonderfully great and felt assurance that then most of all I belonged to the better part; I have actually lived the best life (aristēn energēsas) and come to identity with the divine; and set firm in it I have come to that supreme actuality, setting myself above all else in the realm of Intellect (to noēton). Then ... when I have come down (katabas) from Intellect to discursive reasoning (eis logismon), I am puzzled (aporō) how I ever came down, and how my soul has come to be in the body when it is what it has shown itself to be by itself (kath’ heautēn), even when it is in the body." (IV 8 [6] 1.11, trans, A.H. Armstrong)
The paper will be devoted to a philosophical exploration of the eccentric conception of self-identity expressed in the passage and to the questions that the experience described in it prompted Plotinus to address. Having situated himself within the Platonic tradition as broadly conceived, he asked: (1) Why do souls descend to associate with a body? Is it as a result of a fault or error (hamartia) on their part? (2) What are the risks involved for them in the temporary association with a body? (3) Are there benefits to be drawn from the association? (4) Is it possible for an individual soul to be (or to remain) altogether uncompromised by embodiment?
The paper will proceed by means of an analysis of a key passage in chapter 5 of the tractate, with the aim of drawing attention to specific features of Plotinus’ style, to identify the philosophical difficulties that the passage raises and to suggest how he would address those difficulties in the late tractates.
No knowledge of Greek will be presupposed and a handout will be provided.
About Suzanne Stern-Gillet
Suzanne Stern-Gillet is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Bolton, and is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Manchester. Having early in her career translated Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind into French and published in the tradition of analytical philosophy, she now concentrates her research on ancient Greek philosophy, specialising in the moral psychology and the poetics of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus. Her publications include Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship (SUNY Press, 1995), and Ancient and Medieval concepts of Friendship (edited with G. Gurtler, S.J., SUNY Press, 2014), as well as numerous papers.
Sigrún Svavarsdóttir on "The Rationality of Ends"
Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Associate Professor at Tufts University, will deliver a talk on "The Rationality of Ends" for the first session of Filosofisk seminar of the semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception on the 2nd floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Aug. 19, 2016 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 207 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Neo-Humeans have often identified the ends or goals of an agent with the objects of his desires and accepted Hume’s view that strictly speaking an agent is not subject to evaluation in terms of rationality on account of his desires and, hence, not on account of his ends, at least not his intrinsic desires or final ends. In this lecture, I contest the identification of ends with objects of desire and, moreover, argue that rationality may be displayed in the selection of ends, even final ends. Instead of turning that conclusion against Humeanism about practical rationality, I argue that a sensible neo-Humean about practical rationality can and should concede that an agent is subject to evaluation in terms of rationality on account of his ends, even final ends. The disagreement between Humeans and anti-Humeans should be focused on the standards for that evaluation.
About Sigrún Svavarsdóttir
Sigrún Svavarsdóttir received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1993. Her research focuses mainly on issues within metaethics: moral motivation, objectivity in ethics, evaluative concepts, evaluative attitudes, practical rationality, and personal integrity. Her papers are published in The Philosophical Review, The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Issues and various anthologies. Her dissertation Thinking in Moral Terms is published in the series Dissertations in Ethics, edited by Robert Nozick.
Marko Malink on Aristotle's thought of "Principles as Elements”
Marko Malink, Assistent Professor of Philosohy and Classics at the University of New York, will deliver the talk "Aristotle on Principles as Elements" for the last session of Filosofisk seminar of the semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception on the 2nd floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: June 15, 2016 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 203 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
In his discussion of the well-known four causes, Aristotle makes a puzzling claim to the effect that 'the hypotheses are material causes of the conclusion' (Physics 2.3, Metaphysics 5.2). This is usually taken to mean that the premises of any valid deductive argument are material causes of the conclusion. By contrast, I argue that Aristotle's claim applies not to deductive arguments in general, but only to scientific demonstrations, i.e., to explanatory deductions from unproved first principles. For Aristotle, the theorems of a given science can be viewed as compounds consisting of the first principles from which they are demonstrated. Accordingly, the first principles of a science can be regarded as elements from which theorems are obtained by composition (synthesis), much like a syllable is obtained by composing letters. First principles are thus material causes of the theorems demonstrated from them.
About Marko Malink
Marko Malink is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Classics. His primary area of research is ancient philosophy, especially ancient logic and metaphysics. Malink also has interests in the history of logic, philosophy of language, and linguistics. His book Aristotle’s Modal Syllogistic was published by Harvard University Press in 2013. His co-authored article “A Method of Modal Proof in Aristotle” (with Jacob Rosen) was selected by The Philosopher’s Annual as one of the ten best articles published in philosophy in 2012.
Berit Brogaard on "Parental Love and the Loss of Autonomy"
Berit Brogaard, Professor at the University of Miami and Director of the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research, as well as Professor II at IFIKK, will deliver the talk "Parental Love and the Loss of Autonomy" for this session of Filosofisk seminar.
Time and place: June 10, 2016 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Having a child isn’t something that automatically makes you snort-laugh in the morning or fall into a permanent state of awe. Studies show that the first eighteen years of parenting are the most challenging, exhausting and unfulfilling periods of a person's life.
Why is parenthood so unsatisfying? Here I argue that it’s because it steals away your autonomy as a person, and the loss of autonomy normally makes people less satisfied with their lives. This hypothesis, however, raises the question of whether there is any personal reason to bring children into the world? Based on previous work I argue that there is: it can add significantly to the meaning of people’s lives, owing to the particular ontological structure of parental love.
About Berit Brogaard
Berit (Brit) Brogaard is Professor at University of Miami and Director of the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research, as well as Professor II at IFIKK. Her areas of research include perception, consciousness, emotions, philosophical psychology, semantics and philosophical logic.
In addition to a vast number of peer-review articles, she is the author of three books: Transient Truths (Oxford University Press, 2012), On Romantic Love (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Superhuman Mind (Penguin, 2015).
Olav Asheim on "Purely doxastic objects"
Olav Asheim, Professor of Philosophy at UiO, will deliver a talk on "purely doxastic objects" for the first session of Filosofisk seminar of the semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception on the 2nd floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Feb. 19, 2016 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
If quantification into belief contexts makes sense, then constructions like “Ralph believes that ( ) is a spy” will be predicates, either true or false of any arbitrary object. I shall talk about objects such predicates will be true of as doxastic. Doxastic objects as I use this term will (in normal cases) be ordinary objects someone happens to believe something de re about, given that there is a real distinction between de re and de dicto in belief. But that is not obvious, for it is far from clear that quantifying in makes sense. There is the problem that “Ralph believes that the man in brown hat is a spy” may be true and “Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy” false in spite of the fact (in Quine's fiction) that Ortcutt is the man in brown hat, and in addition there seems to be no guarantee that there always is an object to quantify over, for the doxastic object of a certain belief may not exist, as shown by examples like “Anissa believes that Santa Claus will bring her gifts for Christmas”. So it is not clear that there are objects that can be rightfully called “doxastic”. But if doxastic objects are purely doxastic if they are not the objects they are believed to be, but still identifiable by their doxastic and additional intentional properties though by no nonintentional property, and even so acceptable as values of quantificational variables, the situation will be different. Then we have a solution to the first problem, for a purely doxastic object, which is in lack of the nonintentional properties it is believed to have, will for that reason always be said not to exist, but can even so be quantified over. Assuming purely doxastic objects will also bring us closer to a solution to the second problem by introducing the possibility that the man in brown hat is not Ortcutt after all, but a purely doxastic object. Allowing doxastic objects to be purely doxastic helps making sense of quantification into belief contexts, so there will be doxastic objects if and only if doxastic objects can be purely doxastic. In my talk I shall defend the view that purely doxastic objects can be quantified over against some objections.
About Olav Asheim
Olav Asheim is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. His research interests lie mainly within the fields of philosophical logic and metaphysics. Among his publications is the book Reference and Intentionality, Solum forlag 1992, with a Chinese translation published by Nanjing University Press in 2014.
2015
Lars Leeten on "Sophistic Discourse Ethics"
Lars Leeten, Assistent Professor of Philosohy at the University of Hildesheim and Visiting Researcher at UiO, will deliver the talk "‘Sophistic Discourse Ethics’: The Conception of logos in Gorgias of Leontini" for the last session of "Filosofisk seminar" of the semester. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by an informal reception on the 2nd floor of George Morgenstiernes hus.
Time and place: Nov. 27, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 219 George Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
It has often been pointed out that the sophists were not as bad as they appear in Plato. But what exactly was the “sophistic movement”, if there was one? In his talk, Lars Leeten will take a look at Gorgias of Leontini, particularly at his Encomium of Helen and the picture of logos that it draws. Gorgias depicts the logos as a “mighty lord”, a “body” and a “drug”, which has often been taken as evidence that he was engaged in a formal technique of persuasion. However, other passages indicate that Gorgias was rather concerned with a culture of speech that aimed at ethical education. This talk is an attempt to reconstruct this discursive culture.
About Lars Leeten
Lars Leeten received his PhD from the TU Berlin in 2008 and has since been Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim in Germany. In his work, he is concerned with ancient and modern ethics, with the relationship of philosophy and rhetoric and with the philosophy of discursive practice. He is the author of a monograph on the ethical dimension of interpretation (Zeichen und Freiheit. Über Verantwortung im theoretischen Denken) and the editor of a volume on the forms of moral discourse (Moralische Verständigung. Formen einer ethischen Praxis). At present, he is Fellow at the Research Institute of Philosophy in Hannover and Visiting Researcher at the University of Oslo.
Asher Jiang, "The Semantic Dimension of Hume’s Secret Power"
Time and place: Aug. 25, 2015 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Seminarrom 141 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Abstract
Hume frequently states that we are ignorant of genuine power. There is a well-known internal difficulty concerning this claim concerning ignorance. According to Hume, we do not have an impression-based idea of genuine power; on the other hand, every noun needs a corresponding idea to be meaningful. Is his claim concerning ignorance, which makes use of the noun ‘power’, meaningless in light of his own criterion of meaningfulness? I focus on two exegetical approaches to this difficulty proposed in the literature of the ‘New Hume Debate’: 1) we may read Hume’s own positive definitions of power (not using any idea of genuine power) back into his claim of ignorance to ensure the meaningfulness of ‘power’; and 2) ‘power’ may correspond to a relative idea of genuine power and derive its meaning from this relative idea. I argue against both of these solutions and offer my own solution that is quite close to the text. However, adopting my proposal demands a price: a considerable part of Hume’s argumentative undertaking does not meet his own standard of philosophical precision.
About
Dr. Asher Jiang, Since 2012 Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Philosophy of the Heidelberg University.
Main Areas of Research: 1. History of Philosophy (British Empiricism, Early History of Analytic Philosophy ) 2. Systematic Philosophy (Ontology, Epistemology, Philosophy of Language).
Dissertation (published in 2014): The Reconstruction of a Worldview - Re-evaluating Carnaps´s Logical Construction of the World.
Current Research: David Hume's Philosophy of Language and Metaphysics
Agustin Rayo, "Modality and Being"
Time and place: Aug. 21, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 219 George Morgenstiernes Hus
Some discussions of modal metaphysics assume that quantification is neutral — that it is well-defined independently of the sorts of issues that are at stake in the debate. I cast doubt on that assumption, and use the resulting standpoint to develop a conception of modality.
Agustín works in the intersection of philosophy of logic and philosophy of language. He has done work on understanding the relationship between our language and the world it represents, on clarifying the connection between logic and mathematics, and on investigating the limits of communicable thought. Among his many publications is the book The Construction of Logical Space (OUP 2013).
Carla Bagnoli, "The moral problem: a defense of kantian constructivism from a standard objection"
Time and place: Apr. 29, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 152, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern
Abstract
According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. I argue that the case largely rests on the false assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. There is no moral domain of objects before, and independently of, reasoning. The relevant practical subjects decide what to include in the relevant domain via reasoning. Consequently, moral obligations do not have decisive normative status insofar as they protect real moral values, but only if, and to, the extent that they are determined by practical reasoning. The argument attempts to make some progress in the debate by showing that construction names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative.
About
Carla Bagnoli is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Modena and Visiting Professor at the Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Earlier she has been affiliated to Harvard University and University of Amsterdam. Professor Bagnoli has broad research interests in moral philosophy, which has resulted in a number of publications in journals such as Philosophical Review, European Journal of Philosophy, Dialectica, and Analytic Philosophy. In recent years, she has become particularly interested in constructivism in ethics – the idea that moral truths are upshots of an idealized process of rational deliberation – and the connection between ethics and emotions. The first line of research has resulted in Constructivism in Ethics (Cambridge University Press) and the second in Morality and Emotions (Oxford University Press).
Irene McMullin, "Death and the Dear Self"
Time and place: Apr. 10, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 219, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern
Abstract
Definitions of courage struggle with the problem of being too restrictive or too inclusive. Aristotle suggests that courage is a virtue that can only be displayed when facing death on the battlefield, for example, while others characterize virtually any kind of life struggle as courageous. Though Aristotle’s definition initially seems too restrictive, in this paper I use Heideggerian interpretations of the notions of “death” and “battle” to create an Aristotle-inspired account of courage that has appropriate scope, providing limiting criteria sufficient to distinguish courage from fortitude or endurance, without restricting it solely to conditions of war. In particular, I will show that courage involves choosing one’s better self in situations of crisis where one’s identity is at stake.
About
Irene McMullin (PhD Rice University) is Senior Lecturer in philosophy at University of Essex. She has published a monograph on Heidegger and intersubjectivity, "Time and the Shared World: Heidegger on Social Relations" (Northwestern University Press, 2013), as well as articles on Kant, Sartre, Arendt, and on topics in moral psychology. At present, she is working on a new book that combines existentialism and virtue ethics, tentatively titled "Existential Flourishing. A Phenomenology of the Virtues".
Gerhard Øverland (1964-2014) in memoriam: "Risks, benefits, and moral intuitions"
Time and place: Mar. 20, 2015 2:15 PM–4:30 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern
Program
- 14.14-14.45: Alexandra Couto: "Liable to Benefit? The Beneficiary Principle from a Strict Liability Perspective"
Abstract: According to the beneficiary principle, individuals who benefit from injustices ought to bear remedial responsibilities towards the victims of these injustices. In this talk, I examine the relation between the beneficiary principle and the well-established principle of strict liability in law. I argue that both principles might have a legitimate role to play in attributing remedial responsibilities. Finally, I suggest some insights that can be gained from considering the relation between these two principles.”
Biography: Alexandra Cuoto is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the CSMN, UiO. She works in political philosophy and applied ethics, and has a book forthcoming defending a minimal form of liberal perfectionism.
- 14.45-15.00 Jacob Elster: "Minimizing risk and maximizing benefit"
Abstract: In his article “Contractual Killing”, Gerhard Øverland wrote: “The world sometimes ties itself into knots from which it appears impossible to escape without leaving at least some dead behind. In some of these situations it might be considered permissible to kill one nonthreatening innocent person in order to save a larger number.” Generalizing from this point, we can say that it can sometimes be acceptable to perform an action through which we save one group of persons from harm or risk, but at the same time expose another group of persons to harm or risk. It is an important task of moral philosophy to establish which constraints exist on such actions, as well as which considerations come to bear on our judgement as to whether the risk we expose one group to is proportional to the benefit gained for the other group. This task was a central theme in Gerhard’s work.
In my talk, I will first give a brief description of how this general task can be conceived, and then concentrate on one of the many topics which are relevant when we assess proportionality and acceptable risk imposition. The topic is the following: it is common to claim that it can only be acceptable to impose risk on group A in order to benefit group B if the risk is minimized. If the same benefit can be gained by imposing a lesser risk, it is wrong to impose the larger risk. It is less clear, however, whether there is a symmetrical requirement that we maximize the benefit to group B: If we have the choice between two actions, both of which impose the same risk on group A, but the second of which involves a greater benefit for group B than the first action, can the first action nevertheless be permissible?
Biography: Jacob Elster is Senior Adviser at the Regional Committees for Medical Research Ethics. He works ethics (both ethical theory and practical ethics) and political philosophy, and in the philosophy of criminal law.
- 15.30-16.00 Robert Huseby: "The Beneficiary Pays Principle and Luck Egalitarianism"
Abstract: According to the Beneficiary Pays Principle an agent who, even innocently, benefits from an injustice may have a special duty to compensate the victim of that injustice. According to Luck Egalitarianism, it is unjust if someone is worse off than others, through no fault or choice of her own. These two principles differ widely, both in extension and justification, but tend nevertheless to yield similar conclusions in many cases. One reason is that, typically, the beneficiary and the victim of an injustice become better and worse off through no fault or choice of their own. This paper discusses the differences and similarities between the two principles, and asks whether they are compatible, or, if they are not (easily) compatible, which of the two are more plausible.
Biography: Robert Huseby is Associate Professor of Political Science, UiO. He works on political philosophy, normative ethics, and applied ethics.
- 16.00-16.30 Guy Kahane: "Trolleys, Armchairs and Experiments"
Abstract: Ethical theory often starts with our intuitions about particular cases and tries to uncover the principles that are implicit in them—work on the trolley problem is a paradigmatic example of this approach. Gerhard Overland made some brilliant contributions to this way of doing ethics and, before his death, had proposed an intriguing new solution to the trolley problem. But moral philosophers are no longer the only ones chasing trolleys. Over the past decade, psychologists and neuroscientists have also turned to study our moral intuitions and what underlies them. In this talk, I will aim to clarify the relation between these two inquiries, which investigate similar examples and intuitions, and sometimes even produce parallel results. Some moral philosophers assume that psychological experiments investigating moral intuitions have no ethical relevance. Others argue that such experiments undermine the very appeal to intuition that characterises much of ethics. I will propose a third approach: I will argue that psychological evidence can positively inform—and perhaps even sometime replace—the armchair project of trying to uncover the principles underlying our intuitions. I will end by briefly sketching some potential implications of this argument for Overland’s proposed solution to the trolley problem.
Biography: Guy Kahane is Fellow and Tutor of Philosophy at Oxford University, as well as Deputy Director and Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, He works in all areas of ethics, including the ethics of neuroscience and psychology, and has published extensively in these fields.
Dragana Bozin: "Understanding scientific models: The case of space-time"
Time and place: Mar. 13, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 141, Georg Morgenstiernus hus, Blindern
Abstract
Scientific models are without any doubt an indispensable element in doing science in any context: in formulating new theories, in implementing and testing current ones as well as in explaining theories in educational settings. In the article “Learning to use scientific models: multiple dimensions of conceptual change” C.A. Chinn and A. Samarapungavan address difficulties students have in learning to understand and use scientific models. It has been suggested that the source of these difficulties is in the fact that the learning process is thoroughly intertwined with the problem of conceptual change - without conceptual change in how new models are understood students will misunderstand and misapply the models they are learning. I propose that the interplay between concepts and models in doing as well as in explaining science, the interplay between conceptual change and models associated with it, is more complex than the article suggests and that their roles as the source of difficulty could be reversed. I support this with the case of spacetime as an example of conceptual change where models facilitated understanding of the conceptual change rather than that they were obscured by inadequate understanding of it.
Biography
Dragana Bozin received her PhD form Rice University, and has been an associate professor at University of Oslo since 1998.
Roberto Vinco, "Meister Eckhart’s natural theology"
Time and place: Mar. 6, 2015 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 141, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern
Abstract
In my talk I would like to highlight a particular and non-standard aspect of Meister Eckhart’s natural theology.
While in traditional standard-conceptions, natural theology is regarded as an internal branch of general metaphysics (ontology), according to Meister Eckhart’s philosophical perspective general metaphysics and natural theology form a unity. This particularity has a major consequence especially in relation to the question of God’s existence: In the non-standard conception the existence of God is not the result of an inference, but it is regarded as metaphysical evidence.
To better reveal the particularity of this position, I will divide my talk into two major parts: In the first introductory part, I will outline the standard conception of natural theology, its relation to general metaphysics and some problems connected with it. I will then move to a general exposition of the non-standard conception of natural theology. In order to achieve a better presentation of these positions, I will connect them with the scholastic debate concerning the “subject of Metaphysics”. In the second shorter part, I will show that this non-standard conception of natural theology is at the center of Eckhart’s metaphysical thought.This thesis will be proved by an analysis of Eckhart’s major and unfinished Latin Work (Opus tripartitum/Tripartite Work) and especially of its central Thesis: esse est Deus/Being is God.
Biography
Roberto Vinco studied Latin and Italian literature and philosophy at the Catholic University in Milan, where he graduated in 2001.
He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen, with a doctoral Dissertation on Hegel’s influence on Martin Heidegger’s fundamental ontology.
From 2008 to 2009, he worked both at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Tübingen and at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame on a post-doctoral project on Meister Eckhart’s Metaphysics.
Since 2010, he has been working at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg, where he currently serves as Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat auf Zeit).
His research interests lie in the areas of philosophy of religion and metaphysics, with particular focus on classical German philosophy (Hegel and Heidegger) and medieval scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart).
Martin Kusch and Nils Roll-Hansen
Time and place: Feb. 27, 2015 2:15 PM–4:30 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern
Program
- 14.15–15.00 Martin Kusch: "Scientific Pluralism and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: A Critique of Hasok Chang's Account of the Chemical Revolution"
Abstract: In a number of papers and in his recent book, Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism, Pluralism (2012), Hasok Chang has argued that the correct interpretation of the Chemical Revolution – the controversy between “the phlogistonist system” and the “oxygenist system” – provides a strong case for “prescriptive scientific pluralism”, that is, the view that progress in science is served by maintaining several incommensurable “systems of practice” in the same discipline, and concerning the same region of nature. This paper is a critical discussion of Chang’s reading of the Chemical Revolution. It argues that Chang’s historical-cum-philosophical case for pluralism fails because he ignores the social-political dimensions of science. The criticism draws on ideas from the social history of science in general, and the sociology of scientific knowledge in particular. This paper seeks to establish, first, that Chang’s assessment of Lavoisier’s and Priestley’s work and character follows th phlogistonists’ “actors’ sociology”; second, that Chang misconstrues late-eighteenth-century chemical debates by reducing them to an alleged conflict between two systems of practice; third, that Chang’s evidence for a slow transition from phlogistonist theory to oxygen theory is flawed; and fourth, that he is wrong to assume that chemists at the time did not have overwhelming good reasons to favor Lavoisier’s over the phlogistonists’ views. The fourth criticism is the most important: it is here that work on testimony and trust in science, as well as the “Experimenters’ Regress”, will prove crucial.
- 15.00–15.15 Questions and answers
- 15.15–15.30 Break
- 15.30–16.00 Nils Roll-Hansen: "A Rationalist and Realist interpretation of Louis Pasteur's Campaign against 'Spontaneous Generation' of Life"
Abstract: Louis Pasteur was the most renowned biologist of the 19th century, more highly praised than for instance Charles Darwin. Pasteur made fundamental contributions to the understanding of living organisms by his discoveries in microbiology. He also showed how this new theoretical knowledge translated into unprecedented progress in human health and food production. Pasteur’s heroic status in the history of science also made him a favorite target for science critics. His campaign against “spontaneous generation” was traditionally presented as one of the greatest triumphs of science over superstition. But constructivists of the late 20th century claimed to have turned the tables by showing that Pasteur in fact violated proper scientific method (at least no less than his opponents), and that his success was due to support from the scientific and political elites. I will take a revisionist look at this externalist explanation, and discuss implications for constructivism.
- 16.00–16.30 General discussion
Biography
Martin Kusch er professor i filosofi ved Universitet i Wien. Han har skrevet en rekke bøker om kunnskapsteori, bl.a. Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge (1995) og Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme of Communitarian Epistemology (2004). For tiden leder han et stort prosjekt om "The Emergence of Relativism – Historical, Philosophical and Sociological Perspectives."
Nils Roll-Hansen er professor emeritus i vitenskapshistorie og -filosofi ved IFIKK. Han har bl.a. kritisert kunnskapssosiologisk relativisme/konstruktivisme i senere årtiers vitenskapsstudier (STS - Science and Technology Studies) gjennom historiske 'case-studies' i genetikk, evolusjonsteori og annen biologisk vitenskap.
2014
Andrew Louth, "Virtue Ethics and St. Maximus the Confessor"
Time and place: Oct. 24, 2014 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, Seminarrom 204, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Virtue Ethics has become a recent fashion in the English-speaking philosophical world. It is, however, essentially an attempt to reintroduce themes from classical philosophy into modern ethical discussion. In their formulation of ethical issues, the Fathers in general, and St Maximus in particular, were indebted to the classical tradition, and their ethical theory can be fairly called ‘virtue ethics’. Mostly this is a matter of unreflected tradition. With Maximus, however, we can press the question of his understanding of ethics more closely. There are two contexts in which this is possible: his understanding of moral behaviour that underlies his ascetical theory, and his attempt to understand the moral actions of Christ, the latter pressed on him in his attempts to rebut the monothelete heresy, which maintained, he thought, that Christ had only a divine will. The same considerations can be seen to underlie both contexts.
About Andrew Louth
Andrew Louth is Emeritus Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at Durham University, and a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church. His interests in research lie mostly in the history of theology in the Greek tradition, especially in periods after the fifth century during the period of the Byzantine Empire to 1453. This interest also embraces the philosophical traditions (often called 'Neoplatonic') of the Byzantine period. His numerous and influential publications include Maximus the Confessor (Routledge 1996), St John Damascene. Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford University Press 2002), and The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford University Press 2007).
Howard Williams: Kantian human rights or how the individual has come to matter in international law
At this open lecture, Howard Williams (Aberystwyth University), will consider the question of the origin of human rights from a Kantian perspective.
Time and place: June 6, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.room 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
The purpose of this lecture is to consider the question of the origin of human rights from a Kantian perspective.
It may seem an odd topic to raise, because contemporary human rights have a very clearly delineated point of origin in the 1948 UN declaration of rights and the founding of the United Nations which surrounded it.
At face value the connection between these historical events and Kant’s philosophical doctrines seems remote.
And, in one respect, this may well be so: Kant’s philosophy may not have had much of a direct inspiring influence on the discussions of the late 1940s, nor indeed on the foundation of the United Nations as an international federation devoted to peace.
Human rights thinking
But here I am not so much concerned with the actual historical record, but rather with human rights thinking as such, its characteristics and the extent to which its aims may overlap with Kant’s political and legal philosophy.
Here I want to open up the possibility that there is a systematic structure to human rights thinking – which was evinced in the debates that led to the setting up of the United Nations and the drafting of the UN declaration of rights – that is also given expression in Kant’s foundational doctrines about law and international relations.
Kant: Positive implications for human rights
My thesis is not that Kant anticipated all that was to unfold in the twentieth century elucidation and development of human rights but rather that the ideas that Kant introduces and expounds in his doctrine of right have clear and positive implications for the human rights culture of today.
As a first step in this lecture we shall take a look at some of the history which leads up to the drafting and the signing of the 1948 UN Declaration to discover what were some of the guiding ideas that inspired the event.
Individual’s role in international law today
Subsequently we shall look at how the individual’s role is today understood in international law. We shall undertake both these inquiries with a view to introducing Kantian ideas on right which I believe excellently complement the human rights culture of today.
Thus, a subsidiary yet important contribution of this lecture is to narrow the divide between what might be called the ideal or philosophical account of the origin of human rights and the historical/legal account of their origin.
About Howard Williams
Howard Williams is Emeritus Professor in Political Theory at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, and member of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (Welsh language national college). He was appointed Lecturer in the Department of Politics in 1979 and received his personal chair in 1992.
He is the author of Kant's Political Philosophy (1983), Concepts of Ideology (1988), International Relations in Political Theory (1992), Hegel, Heraclitus and Marx’s Dialectic, International Relations and the Limits of Political Theory (1996), Kant’s Critique of Hobbes: Sovereignty and Cosmopolitanism (2003), Kant and the end of War (2012) and is currently editor of the journal Kantian Review.
Welcome!
Samuel Wheeler III, "Philosophy and Painting"
Time and place: May 23, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 204, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Derrida, with Rorty’s support, characterizes philosophy as a kind of writing, a special kind of literature. I argue that many puzzling features of contemporary analytic philosophy are illuminated by characterizing this kind of philosophy as an art-form with affinities to painting. Analytic philosophy is a special kind of fine art writing, encompassing a variety of styles.
When I was both painting and doing philosophy, the experience of working on a painting was a great deal like that of working on a paper. One is engrossed, thinking about little else for days at a time, running into problems, solving them, running into more problems, and so on until the thing is done. The resemblance between painting and philosophy is at least as strong as the relation between science and philosophy.
I propose that philosophy is a conceptual art-form. Some important features of philosophy, such as intertextuality, are understandable given philosophy’s characterization as literature. Others, such as the concern about what philosophy is and should be, do not depend being linguistic. Those are the aspects the history and practice of painting makes salient.
This description of philosophy is a defense of the practice of philosophy as it has been carried on for the past century or so. Rorty complains that contemporary analytic philosophy has little cultural role. But this applies equally to ballet. Balletomanes, though, don’t take this to be a crisis. Neither should we.
On the other hand, the continuing existence of ballet and philosophy requires certain cultural conditions. I will conclude the talk by glumly predicting that the conditions for the continued creative existence of the fine art of philosophical writing are starting to disappear.
Samuel Wheeler III (PhD 1970, Princeton) has written on a wide range of topics in analytic metaphysics and philosophy of language. He is well known for his innovative work on Derrida and French deconstruction (Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy, Stanford UP, 2000). Wheeler's latest book is Neo-Davidsonian Metaphysics: From the True to the Good, published this year with Routledge (http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415857284). Wheeler is also a proficient painter.
Dragana Bozin, "Possible implications of incompleteness for knowledge"
Time and place: May 9, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Whether the incompleteness theorem could be extend or applied beyond formal systems or whether it could have consequences or significance for sciences or knowledge in general has been a topic of discussions that periodically flare up. I will discuss and argue against an argument that was put forward in one such flare up, namely the Santa Fe project on limits to scientific knowledge.
Dragana Bozin received her PhD form Rice University, and has been an associate professor at University of Oslo since 1998.
Mark White, "Using Kantian Ethics to Improve Economics"
Time and place: Apr. 25, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
In this talk, Professor White will explain how he incorporates the structure of Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy into economic models of choice. First, he will show how Kant’s perfect and imperfect duties fit surprisingly well into the standard economic model of constrained preference-satisfaction. Next, he will tackle moral fallibility, or contingent rationality, which requires more effort because the deterministic nature of economic models does not leave room to explain how agents can act against their best judgment. Finally, White will discuss judgment itself, explaining why it is necessary to understand economic choice, and how it can offer a way for economics to contribute to moral deliberation.
Mark D. White is chair of the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where he teaches courses in philosophy, economics, and law. He has also authored a number of journal articles, book chapters, and books in these fields, including Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character (Stanford University Press).
Jens Timmermann, "Kant on Practical Irrationality"
Time and place: Mar. 28, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Why do we do what is in some sense bad, unjustified or irrational?
Kant rarely discusses cases of rational failure but a close look at his account of practical deliberation and at the examples he uses by way of illustration shows him to be committed to an unusual theory of what goes wrong when we do what we ought not to do. Crucially, different explanations are given for the different types of practical failure. Imprudence is the result of ignorance. Immorality is the result of a wilful choice. There are wide-ranging implications for Kant's practical philosophy as a whole.
Jens Timmermann is Reader in Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. He was educated at Göttingen and at Balliol College, Oxford, and completed his Dr. phil. under the supervision of Günther Patzig and Konrad Cramer in 1998. Junior Research Fellow at Keble College, Oxford 1997-2000. He is the author of Sittengesetz und Freiheit (De Gruyter, 2003) and of Kant’s ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’: A Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2007); the editor of Kant’s ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2009); and co-editor (with Andrews Reath) of Kant’s ‘Critique of Practical Reason’: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He recently published the first German-English facing-page edition of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Gerhard Øverland, "Solving the Trolley Problem"
Time and place: Feb. 28, 2014 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
What has been termed ‘the trolley problem’ by Judith Jarvis Thomson poses a challenge to moral philosophy. Consider the following two cases:
Side-Track: A trolley is hurtling out of control and will hit five innocent people on the main track unless it is redirected onto a side-track. There is an innocent person on the side-track. A bystander positioned by a switch can throw the switch and thereby turn the trolley onto the side-track, killing the one person and saving the five.
Bridge: A trolley is hurtling out of control and will hit five innocent people on the track unless stopped. A man, big enough to stop the train on the track, is standing on a bridge crossing the track. A bystander is also standing on the bridge and is able to topple the big man down from the bridge and onto the track.
The constraint against harming the person on the side-track seems weaker than the constraint against harming the person on the bridge. The trolley problem is the problem of justifying the claim that there is a difference.
Many attempts have been made to explain the morally relevant difference between acting in Bridge and in Side-Track. The traditional way to justify the difference is to point to specific facts about the agent who does the harming. When the bystander kills the person on the bridge to save the five, she is intending to use him as a means to save the five, but when the bystander kills the person on the side-track as a result of saving the five, she intends no such thing. This explanation, and others like it, is agent-centred.
In my talk I present a victim-centred solution to the trolley problem. The basic premise of my proposal is that, in a situation where a person is under threat of harm, it is fair that those whose presence give rise to cost bear some of the cost. When I say that a person gives rise to cost by his presence, I mean that someone will be harmed or killed as a consequence of this person being where he is. In this sense, the presence of the person on the side-track gives rise to cost, but the presence of the person on the bridge does not. The solution to the trolley problem lies in this difference. Since those whose presence give rise to cost should bear some of the cost, only the constraint against harming the person on the side-track is reduced; the constraint against harming the person on the bridge remains the same.
Gerhard Øverland is Professor of Philosophy at Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN). His research is in moral philosophy, and in particular issues related to global justice and ethics of war. Øverland has published in journals like Ethics, Journal of Moral Philosophy, Law and Philosophy, and Canadian Journal of Philosophy. He is currently heading the Norwegian Research Council funded research projects ‘Responding to Global Poverty: On what the affluent ought to do and what the poor are permitted to do’, ‘Who owns it? Land claims in Latin America: their moral legitimacy and implications’, and ‘Innocently Benfiting from Injustice’ at University of Oslo.
2013
Houston Smit, "Kant's Reply to Hume"
Time and place: Nov. 15, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem. rom 204, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
I try to clarify the nature of Kant's reply to Hume, and its anti-skeptical force. I suggest an interpretation on which Kant does aim to defend the rational legitimacy of our probable inferences from Hume's attack. Moreover, this defense turns on an appeal to an account of experience, where 'experience' is understood robustly, as a species of objective perception of just the sort that Hume claims to have shown is impossible for us, in part by drawing on his reflections on causality. I suggest that his reply is, nonetheless, not question-begging, because his anti-skeptical aims are not as ambitious as one might have thought. Kant doesn't intend his transcendental account of the possibility of experience to show that we can have experience, in his robust sense, let alone that we do. He intends it merely to provide a solution to what he takes to be the deepest problem about the possibility of experience that is raised by Hume's arguments: namely, that we can't have experience in this sense because we cannot make intelligible to ourselves what it would be for a succession of appearances of which we are conscious to fall under our concept of cause and effect (one that contains the idea of objectively necessary connection). Kant concedes to Hume that experience is not possible for us, if we cannot supply this intelligibility. Kant's transcendental account of the possibility of experience is intended merely to supply this intelligibility and thereby to defend from Hume the legitimacy of our understanding's operating assumption that it generates experience, in Kant's robust sense.
Houston Smit is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He specializes in the history of medieval and early modern philosophy and is currently at work on a book with the working title "Kant's Theory of Cognition."
Henrik Lagerlund, "Willing Evil: The Case of John Mair"
Time and place: Nov. 8, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
In this talk, I examine the question whether we can will evil for the sake of evil. I look at the history of this idea from Plato and Augustine through Ockham up to John Mair in the early sixteenth century. Very few philosophers argue that we can choose evil for the sake of evil. Ockham is one of the thinkers that argue that ethics and religion require this to be the case. I then argue that John Mair has to be added to the list of thinkers that holds this view.
Henrik Lagerlund is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He has published extensively on medieval philosophy, including the monograph Modal Syllogistics in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2000). Among his edited books are Rethinking the History of Skepticism (Brill, 2010) and Representation and Objects of Thought in Medieval Philosophy (Ashgate, 2008). He is also the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy (Springer, 2011).
Galen Strawson, "Locke and personal identity"
Please note the time and place!
Time and place: Aug. 22, 2013 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Undervisningsrom 2, Georg Sverdrups hus
Many think that John Locke’s account of personal identity is inconsistent and circular. It’s neither of these things: Locke has been massively misunderstood. The blame for this falls principally on two bishops (Berkeley and Butler) and a Doctor of Divinity (Reid). Their influence has been such that almost no one has had a chance to read what Locke wrote without prejudice. The root causes of the misreading are [i] the mistake of thinking that Locke uses ‘consciousness’ to mean memory (in fact Lockean consciousness has nothing essentially to do with memory), [ii] a tendency to take the term person, in Locke’s text, as if it were (only) some kind of fundamental sortal term like ‘human being’ or ‘thinking thing’, a term for a standard temporal continuant, and to fail to take proper account of Locke’s use of it as a ‘forensic’ term (§26). It’s a familiar point that Locke uses person as a forensic term, but its consequences have still not been fully worked out.
Galen Strawson is professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. His main research interests are philosophy of mind, metaphysics (topics including free will, the self, and panpsychism), moral psychology, Hume, Locke, Kant and Nietzche. He is the author of many books, including Freedom and Belief (1986), The Secret Connexion: Realism, Causation and David Hume (1989), Mental Reality (1994), Real Materialism and Other Essays (2008), Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics (2009), and Locke on personal identity (2011).
Mary Margaret McCabe, "From the cradle to the cave: what happened to self-knowledge in the Republic"
Time and place: May 24, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
In the Republic two odd passages, one in Book 7 and the other in Book 10, invite us to think about self-perception and its paradoxes. I argue that the situation of the prisoner in the cave, whose view of himself is limited to his own shadow, is paralleled by the ‘amazing sophist’ of Rep. 597 ff, who holds up a mirror and makes everything, including himself; and I suggest that Plato emphasises the paradoxical nature of both. As a consequence, these passages allow us to rethink how Plato conceives perception as a model for knowledge, and how he thinks that self-perception may be understood as a model for self-knowledge. I suggest that we might understand Platonic knowledge as ‘stereoscopy’, with internalist conditions.
Mary Margaret McCabe is Professor of Philosophy at King's College, London. Her main research interests are in ancient philosophy, particularly Plato, the pre-Socratics, Socrates and Aristotle. In addition to numerous articles her publications include three monographs on Plato: Plato on Punishment (U California P, 1981); Plato's Individuals (Princeton UP, 1994); and Plato and his Predecessors: The Dramatisation of Reason (Cambridge UP, 2000).
Arnon Levy, "Machine-likeness and Explanation by Decomposition"
Time and place: May 3, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus
Machine analogies play a prominent part in the life sciences, especially in such areas as cellular and molecular biology. But while common and intuitive, the content of such analogies is rarely made explicit. In this talk I will provide an account of what makes a system machine-like. Machine-like systems, I will suggest, are internally orderly, in that they display differential contributions by parts and sensitivity to local interactions. Such systems are amenable to decompositional explanation, i.e. to accounts that attend to a system’s fine-grained internal structure. I will also look at models, and suggest that abstraction from parts and relations allows a model to represent a system as being more or less orderly. In closing, I will discuss the (potentially) changing role of machine analogies in recent cell biology.
Arnon Levy is a philosopher of science and biology. His research focuses on modelling and scientific explanation in the life sciences. Levy's research interests also include the connections between evolutionary theory, social behavior and morality. He earned his PhD at Harvard in 2010. Currently he is a Polonsky Postdoctoral Fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. Starting in July 2014, Levy will be a member of the philosophy department and the history and philosophy of science program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
This seminar is arranged in collaboration with PSBio and CSMN.
Julia Konstantinovsky, "Is Christianity a virtue ethics for today, or something else entirely?"
Time and place: Apr. 12, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Can moral theories of the kind that traditional early Christians upheld be useful today? Is the Christian ethics of thinkers such as Evagrius of Pontus and Maximus the Confessor one of many other virtue ethical theories or is it something else entirely? This paper argues that early Christian theories about virtues in the soul are instances of Christian moral theory. Moreover, as a Christian theory, Evagrius’ and Maximus’ moral systems stand apart from non-Christian moral theories, virtue, consequentialist and deontological, ancient or modern. The paper further maintains that this morality is robust, because it is able to undercut some of the strongest critiques generally made against moral theories, notably that of selfishness. It is also successful, because it produced fertile cultural movements that continue at present. The paper concludes, however, that its theistic, kenotic and inverted nature presents a direct challenge to ethical assumptions of today. Bio:
Julia Konstantinovsky is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow at Christ Church College, Oxford. Having completed her doctoral research in Late Ancient Egyptian and Syrian Christianity and monasticism (Oxford), she went on to do postdoctoral research in the early medieval and Byzantine Christian spirituality. Her other interest is in issues of epistemology, freedom and determinism, divine action in the world and the role of Christianity in today’s multiculturalist society. Her publications include The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity (2011; 2 volumes, assistant editor and contributor) and Evagrius Ponticus: the Making of a Gnostic (2009).
Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, "Nature in Mind: Plotinus on the Ontological Status of the Physical World"
Time and place: Mar. 15, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
In this paper Emilsson argues that Plotinus' (and presumably other late ancient thinkers') view on the status of the physical realms cannot be subsumed under any of the familiar headings of dualism, monism, parallelism or (Berkeleyan) idealism. It may be best described as the view that the physical supervenes on the mental.
Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson is Professor of Philosophy at IFIKK. He has published extensively on ancient philosophy, especially on Plotinus, and his publications include Plotinus on Sense-Perception: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge University Press 1988) and Plotinus on Intellect (Oxford University Press 2007).
Frode Bjørdal, "Nominist things and librationist world views"
Time and place: Mar. 8, 2013 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Sem.rom 206, Georg Morgenstiernes hus
Nominism is like nominalism in that it holds that all things have names, but like Platonism in its acceptance of abstract entitites; it is justified by a realist understanding of librationism's break with the tradition of uncountability since Cantor. Possibly I will in part talk on how to incorporate unmathematical things as whirlwinds, blue, between, quarks, persons and God unorderly, un-adically and untypically in librationist frameworks with nominist presuppositions. But focus will be elsewhere. I will argue for the thesis that the world exists, despite the enormous strain put upon it by entanglements in the Cantorian tradition that were understood but eminently popularized for a wider audience by Patrick Grim in his The Incomplete Universe; wisely, Grim in 1991 adopted the caveat within any logic we have. Relatedly, from librationist viewpoints it is not impossible that there is an omniscient being; these viewpoints have noteworthy epistemological repercussions such as that the sentence “Frode knows that the Liar Sentence is true.” is true even though the complementary sentence “Frode does not know that the Liar Sentence is true.” is true as well. Potential applications, whose grades range from “almost quite certainly to be dismissed” to “worthy of further exploration” will be related as per interest; examples: (1) In what sense, if any, may physical things be paradoxical? (2) May a notion of dialectic be rectified by using librationist complementarity in lieu of Hegel's Realwidersprüche? (3) May vagueness be accounted for paradoxically? (4) May Eleatic “paradoxes” be understood in librationist manners? (5) May paradoxical complementarity phenomena enter deontology, utility (cfr. Mikhail Bakhtin), art (cfr. M.C. Escher), theology and other subjects?
For the facilitation of access the participant will benefit from some familiarity with material on librationism; two papers plus documents in connection with recent and forthcoming lectures are available here or on request.
Frode Bjørdal is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. He has broad interests with a doctorate in epistemology and a longstanding engagement with theology and the problem of evil; paradoxes and foundational problems in mathematics and semantics has always been a most central interest.