Conference at Koç University (Beyoglu – RCAC)

Conference Program

May 25^th  Saturday

9.30 Opening

 

9.45-11.45 First Session

Hilmi Demir: “A Recent History of Philosophy of Mind: Convergence Points Between Cognitive Sciences and Phenomenology”

Barış Korkmaz: “Self: Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis”

Aziz Zambak: “Plasticity: The Forgotten Principle of Artificial Intelligence”

11:45-12:00 Coffee Break 

12:00-13:00  Second Session

Bernard Stiegler: “From Neuropower to Noopolitics”

13:00-14:30 Lunch Break

 

14:30:16:30 Third Session

Patrick Roney: “On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Neuroaesthetics for Life”

Zeynep Direk: “Neuroethics and the question of alterity”

Stephen Voss: “What do I mean when I say I”

May 26^th Sunday (Second Day)

9:30-11:30 First Session

Alva Noë: “The Fragile Manifest: Presence in Thought and Experience”

Barry Smith: “Are Flavours in the Brain? The Phenomenology and Neuroscience of Flavour Perception”

11:30-11:45 Coffee Break

11:45-13:45 Second Session

Fuat Balcı: “Reward Maximization: The Role of Time and its Psychophysics”

Emrah Aktunç: “On Bickle’s ‘Ruthless Reductionism in Cellular/Molecular Neuroscience: What are they Reducing?”

Hakan Gürvit: “Plasticity: Via Regia to the Neuroscientific Subjectivity”

Venue: Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations – Beyoglu

Roderick Long (Auburn University, Philosophy) at Bilgi University, Istanbul, 23.05.13;17:00.

Talk at Bogazici: Aret Karademir (USF) on “BUTLER AND HEIDEGGER: ON THE RELATION BETWEEN FREEDOM AND MARGINALIZATION” 23/05/2013

Aret Karademir (USF) will give a talk on Thursday, (23/05/2013) from 5-7pm in TB130 on

“BUTLER AND HEIDEGGER: ON THE RELATION BETWEEN FREEDOM AND MARGINALIZATION”

ABSTRACT: The names of Judith Butler and Martin Heidegger rarely come together in Butler and Heidegger scholarship. As a matter of fact, the basis for the lack of a dialogical exchange between Butlerian and Heideggerian scholars is straightforward. After all, it seems prima faciethat there is an unbridgeable gap between Butler’s and Heidegger’s philosophical and political stances. For example, while Butler is a social constructivist, Heidegger, at least in Being and Time, interrogates the universal structures of human existence. While Butler is a radical democrat, Heidegger supported National Socialism whole-heartedly in the years of 1933 and 1934 and, even in his last interview in 1966, stated that “I am not convinced that it is democracy” that can solve the shortcomings of modernity. Be that as it may, I believe, the critical encounter between Butler and Heidegger might be philosophically/politically promising—especially for inquiring into the relationship between freedom and marginalization. My aim in this paper is to re-appropriate Butler’s philosophy from the perspective of the Heidegger of Being and Time. That is, I will read Butler with the aid of Heideggerian concepts such as “Being-in-the-world,” “Being-towards-death,” “(in)authenticity,” “anxiety,” “guilt,” “authentic solicitude.” Due to this reading, I will claim that one’s freedom is dependent on the resuscitation of socially-murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities. More specifically, I will claim that the socially-sanctioned subject’s freedom is dependent on the marginalized Other’s freedom, and, conversely, the marginalized Other’s freedom is dependent on the socially-sanctioned subject’s freedom.

Talk at Bogazici: Radu Bogdan (Tulane) on “Imagination: Roots and Reasons.” 24/05/2013

Radu Bogdan (Tulane) will give a talk on Friday, May 24th, from 5-7pm in TB130:

“Imagination: Roots and Reasons.”

Radu Bogdan is a professor of philosophy of and director of the cognitive science program at Tulane university. He is the author of numerous articles and five books: Our Own Minds: Sociocultural Grounds for Self-Consciousness (MIT, 2010), Predicative Minds: The Social Ontogeny of Propositional Thinking (MIT 2009), Minding Minds (MIT, 2003), Interpreting Minds (MIT, 2003) and Grounds for Cognition (Psychology Press, 1994).

ABSTRACT: The human mind is able consciously, deliberately and reflectivey to vault itself cognitively out of the enclosure of  current perception, motivation, emotion and action, and leap over to future or past or possible or even impossible facts, situations or scenarios. This is what imagination (in a strong, suppositional, propositional sense) does.The central argument is that imagination is uniquely human,  with no apparent precursors in the animal world. This is one evolutionary puzzle. Furthermore, the capacities to imagine do not seem to have dedicated genetic bases or specialized brain sites, do not operate as modules, and are domain versatile. It is also not obvious what specific pressures in what specific domains may have selected for imagining, which is why the standard explanation by gradual natural selection is unlikely to work. The way out of these puzzles is to reorient the evolutionary analysis toward human ontogeny, regarded as a genuine space of evolution, with its specific and often dated pressures and its adaptive responses. Imagination results from ontogenetic responses to the mostly sociocultural and sociopolitical pressures of later childhood.

Talk at Bogazici: Karim Sadek (AUB) on “Honneth’s Recognition-based Theory and the Recognition of Islamic Identity” (22.05.2013)

Karim Sadek (AUB) will give a talk on Wednesday 22.05.2013 from 5-7pm in TB130.

“Honneth’s Recognition-based Theory and the Recognition of Islamic Identity”

Dr. Sadek received his phd in philosophy from Georgetown University and is currently a Post-Doc at the American University of Beirut.

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Abstract: This paper investigates the ability of Axel Honneth’s recognition-based theory to explain and evaluate the demand for the public recognition of Islamic identity. Drawing on Rached al-Ghannouchi’s dissident thought as representative of a trend in Islamic revivalism, I reconstruct his social and political demands in terms of a demand for the public recognition of Islamic identity. I also argue that to fully and properly capture Ghannouchi’s demand for recognition, we should distinguish between a negative and a positive interpretation of that demand. I then show that while Honneth’s theory succeeds in capturing and addressing the demand for the public recognition of Islamic identity understood negatively, it fails to do so with the positive construal of that demand. This failure, however, can be remedied. Drawing on two sympathetic critics of Honneth’s theory and its contribution to the politics of identity, I put forward an upgraded version of the recognition model that is capable of both normatively grasping Ghannouchi’s demand and adequately responding to it. The outcome of this encounter between Honneth and Ghannouchi not only empowers the recognition model, but also allows for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Ghannouchi’s demands for the public recognition of Islamic identity.

Conference at Bilgi University: The Sources of Political Legitimacy, 16th-22nd of May, 2013

The 6th annual Istanbul Seminars will take place at Bilgi University from May 16th -22nd. The theme this year will be:

The Sources of Political Legitimacy: From the Erosion of the Nation-State to the Rise of Political Islam

Amongst the participants will be: Fahmy Howeidy, Stathis Kalyvas, Seyla Benhabib, David Rasmussen and Roberto Toscano.

Talk at Bogazici: Richmond Campbell (Dalhousie) “Pragmatic Naturalism and Moral Objectivity” (14/05/2013)

Richmond Campbell (Dalhousie)

“Pragmatic Naturalism and Moral Objectivity” 

Tuesday, TB130, 5-7pm. Everyone welcome.

A copy of the talk can be found here. And the handout here.

ABSTRACT: In Kitcher’s “pragmatic naturalism” moral evolution contains only pragmatically motivated moral changes in response to practical difficulties in social life. No moral truths or facts exist that could serve as an “external” measure for moral progress. We propose a psychologically realistic conception of moral objectivity consistent with this pragmatic naturalism yet alive to the familiar sense that moral progress has an objective basis that transcends convention and consensus in moral opinion, even when these are products of serious, extended, and collaborative reflection.