Archive for the ‘Political Philosophy’ Category
Conference at Koç University (Beyoglu – RCAC)
Conference Program
May 25th 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 26th 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
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: 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”
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.
Antonio Negri in Istanbul for conference organised by Monokl (27th and 28th of April, 2013)
Monokl is organising a conference next Saturday and Sunday on:
‘New Forms of Freedom and the Subject’
The participants include: Antonio Negri, Judith Revel, Marco Assennato, and Ahmet Soysal. Details can be found here.
Two talks on Ancient Philosophy at Koc University: Nicholas D. Smith (Lewis & Clark College) and Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos (University of Cambridge) [22/04/2013 & 24/04/2013]
Nicholas D. Smith (Lewis & Clark College)
‘Socrates on Practical Deliberation’
Monday 22 April 15.30-17.00, room CAS B34, sponsored by CSSH
An argument has recently been made for the claim that Socratic philosophy leaves little room for practical deliberation. The gist of this argument is both simple and powerful: Socrates appears to regard any decision-making that is done in ignorance to be unjustified. Contemptuous, for example, of the opinions of those he calls “the many,” Socrates seems only to offer, as an alternative, only the exhortation to “lead the examined life.” But this advice can hardly serve to tell anyone (for example Euthyphro, as he considers whether to prosecute his father) what they should do in any given case. In this paper, I offer an explanation of how Socratic philosophy can actually support a wide range of practical deliberation—even for those who, like Socrates, recognize that they are ignorant of “the most important things.”
Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos (University of Cambridge)
‘The ability to rule versus the ability to become a ruler in Plato’
Wednesday 24 April, 12.30-14.00, room CAS 124, co-sponsored by GSSSH, CASE, and GSB
ABSTRACT: In this paper, I argue that there are more subtle reasons behind Plato’s pessimism that reside within the philosopher herself and the training that she has to undertake in order to become a philosopher. In particular, I argue that Plato had three additional reasons behind his belief in the incompatibility, within the same person, of the abilities to rule and the abilities to become a ruler. First, physical limitations would most likely prevent one from becoming a philosopher while still having enough time to train and engage in the ways of conventional politics, needed in becoming a ruler. In the terms of the ship of state simile (Republic, 488a-489c) there is not enough time in one’s life to both learn to read the stars and the winds, and learn how to get the ship owner drunk and flatter the crew. Second, for psychological reasons, a philosopher most likely cannot compete for political power without having a disadvantage in such a competition. Third, the two abilities, ruling and becoming a ruler, are, according to Plato, as incompatible with one another as are the abilities of the cook and the doctor (Gorgias 465b) or more to the point the rhetorician and the philosopher, who is trained in dialectic.
Talk at Yeditepe: Manuel Knoll (Fatih University) on ‘Machiavelli’s Political Ethics’ (18/04/2013)
Professor Manuel Knoll (Fatih University) will give a talk at 2pm on,
“Machiavelli’s Political Ethics”
18/4/2013, at Yeditepe University. Room: Hukuk 329 -
Information from English Language and Literature Dept, 8th floor Güzel Sanat Binası
Talk at Bogazici, Joseph Prud’homme (Washington College) on “Religion and Politics in Aquinas.” (05/04/2013)
UPDATE: This talk has been CANCELLED due to the hospitalization of the speaker. (He is now in a stable condition but was very sick).
Joseph Prud’homme (Washington College) will give a talk at Bogazici University on Friday, April 5th from 5-7pm in TB130
“Religion and Politics in Aquinas.”
Workshop on Kant’s Doctrine of Right at Bogazici, run by Nuria Sánchez Madrid (University Complutense of Madrid) and Lucas Thorpe (Bogazici University), March 28th and 29th.
Nuria Sánchez Madrid (University Complutense of Madrid) and Lucas Thorpe (Bogazici University) will run a two day workshop on Kant’s political philosophy at Bogazici on Thursday March 28th and Friday March 29th from 2-6pm, in room TB130. Everyone is Welcome.
In this workshop we will provide an overview of Kant’s Doctrine of Right, as well as presenting some of our own recent work. The Doctrine of Right is the first section of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). We will be using the English translation by Mary Gregor found in Kant’s Practical Philosophy.
The event will be run as a seminar, with the possibility for discussion. The schedule and some suggested readings can be found below the fold.
UPDATE: I’ve added a handout here for the first two sessions.
A Book for International Women’s Day.
Routledge just reminded me that my new book was a particularly good fit for today, so here is:
Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the greatest philosophers and writers of the Eighteenth century. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children’s book. Her most celebrated and widely-read work is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This Guidebook introduces:
- Wollstonecraft’s life and the background to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- The ideas and text of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Wollstonecraft’s enduring influence in philosophy and our contemporary intellectual life
It is ideal for anyone coming to Wollstonecraft’s classic text for the first time and anyone interested in the origins of feminist thought.
Happy International Women’s Day.
Talk at Bogazici: Manuel Knoll (Fatih) on “Who Should Rule? Aristotle’s Theory of Constitutions.’ 1/03/2013
Manuel Knoll (Fatih) will give a talk on Friday 1/03/2013 at Bogazici University, TB130, 5-7pm. Everyone welcome!
“Who Should Rule? Aristotle’s Theory of Constitutions“
ABSTRACT: According to Aristotle’s theory, kingship, aristocracy and polity (politeia) are good constitutions. In all of them the rulers govern for the common good and not for their personal advantage. However, among scholars it is disputed which of these three constitutions Aristotle prefers, and how his outline of the best constitution is to be understood. The talk introduces this controversy and argues that Aristotle’s political preference is an aristocracy in which the morally and intellectually best citizens rule. It concludes with some reflections on whether such a constitution could serve as a model to reform contemporary democracies.
Koc University Political Philosophy Symposium – February 15 2013 Friday in Beyoglu
February 15, 2013 Friday 9:00am-5:30pm
Philosophy Department, Koç University
Political Philosophy Symposium
Friday February 15, 2013
Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations
Details under the fold:
CFA: PLURALISM AND CONFLICT: DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE BEYOND RAWLS AND CONSENSUS – Fatih University, June 6-8th 2013
PLURALISM AND CONFLICT: DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE BEYOND RAWLS AND CONSENSUS
June 6-8 2013
Convenors: Prof. Dr. Manuel Andreas Knoll (mknoll@fatih.edu.tr), Nurdane Şimşek, M.A. (nsimsek@fatih.edu.tr), Department of Philosophy, Fatih University
Call for Abstracts
Following Rawls, the prevailing political thought aims at some form of consensus about justice. Rawls conceives of this as a consensus about an initial choice situation for principles of justice, as a rational consensus about which principles to choose, or as an “overlapping consensus”, which a pluralist society should reach with regard to the political conception of justice he proposes.
The idea of a consensus on justice was questionable from the beginning. For some theorists this was made evident through Robert Nozick’s strong disagreement with Rawls’s fundamental moral intuition that the inequalities of natural endowments are undeserved and call for social redress or compensation. Likewise, Rawls’s idea that individuals are equal as moral persons does not allow for a consensus. Going back to Aristotle, John Kekes argued that people who habitually harm others have a lower moral worth than people who habitually do good. In this case, isn’t Rawls’s rationalist creed that all persons should be convinced by the same arguments, and must therefore reach a rational consensus on principles of justice, highly questionable? In her systematic study of justice Dagmar Herwig showed, as early as 1984, that throughout the history of political philosophy there are irreconcilable conceptions of social and political justice. While egalitarians hold it is just to establish arithmetic, numeric or simple equality, non-egalitarians like Plato, Aristotle or Nietzsche conceive of a just distribution of goods as a distribution in proportion to existing inequalities. For non-egalitarians, it is just to allot equal shares only to equals, not to everyone.
The conference takes as its point of departure the well-researched conviction that there are fundamental disagreements about social and political justice. On the one hand, the conference strives for a more detailed comprehension of the various aspects of the irreconcilable pluralism of conceptions of justice. On the other hand, it investigates the reasons for the fundamental opposition of existing moral intuitions and conceptions of justice. Are these reasons social, cultural, psychological, historical, or even biological? One main focus of the conference will be the relation between conceptions of justice and images of humanity. Do the opposing conceptions of justice derive mainly from opposing anthropological convictions about the equality, or inequality, of men? Do the different understandings of human worth, or value, provide a key to comprehending the fundamental disagreements about social and political justice? In addressing these questions, the conference aims at a more adequate understanding of the concept of justice and the human sense of justice, which can be achieved beyond the idea of the consensus.
Abstracts of no more than one page for talks and suggestions for panels should be sent to both convenors by March 1, 2013. Decisions will be made within two or three weeks. The length of the talks will depend on how many proposals are accepted, but will be at least 25 minutes. The registration fee of 100 USD covers three lunches and the final conference dinner on a boat on the Bosporus. For students who want to participate in the conference the registration fee is reduced to $ 50.
CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS: Professor Renato Cristi (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada), Professor Maria Dimitrova (Sofia University, Bulgaria), Professor Giovanni Giorgini (Bologna University, Italy), Louis I. Jaffe Professor Lawrence Hatab (Old Dominion University, Norfolk, USA), Professor Michael Haus (Heidelberg University, Germany), Professor Christoph Horn (Bonn University, Germany), Professor Peter Koller (Graz University, Austria), Professor Angelika Krebs (Basel University, Switzerland), Professor Chandran Kukathas (London School of Economics), Professor Francisco L. Lisi (Carlos III University Madrid), Professor Lukas Meyer (Graz University, Austria), Professor John Skorupski (University of St Andrews, Scotland), Professor Ulrich Steinvorth (Hamburg University), Assist. Prof. Barry Stocker (Istanbul Technical University), Professor Kok-Chor Tan (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Professor Harun Tepe (Hacettepe University, Ankara), Professor John Tomasi (Brown University, Providence, USA), Professor Jonathan Wolff (University College London)
Two talks by Ken Westphal at Bogazici. (29 & 30/11/2012)
Ken Westphal (East Anglia/ Bielefeld), the internationally renowned Kant and Hegel scholar, will give two talks at Bogazici next week.
Thursday November 29th, 5-7pm, TB130
“Natural Law, Social Contract & Moral Objectivity: Rousseau’s Natural Law Constructivism”
Friday November 30th, 5-7pm TB130
“Conventionalism & the Impoverishment of the Space of Reasons”
Ken Westphal has published almost 100 articles and the following books:
As Author:
Kant’s Transcendental Proof of Realism.
Hegel’s Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit.
Hegel, Hume und die Identität wahrnehmbarer Dinge: Historisch-kritische Analyse zum Kapitel Wahrnehmung in der Phanomenologie von 1807.
Hegel’s Epistemological Realism: A Study of the Aim and Method of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
As Editor:
The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Pragmatism, Reason, & Norms: A Realistic Assessment.
An Introduction to Hegel’s Logic , by Justus Hartnack.
Pragmatism and Realism , by Frederick L. WILL (Foreword by Alasdair MACINTYRE).
William Caldwell: Pragmatism and Idealism – and Responses and Reviews (with John Shook).
Abstracts below the fold.
Barry Stocker at Fatih {repost, with room}
Yard. Doç. Barry Stocker of İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi will speak at Fatih University.
The title of Barry’s talk is
Active Liberty and Freedom of Speech in Michel Foucault
Date: Thursday, 18 October 2012
Time: 3pm
room: M229
How to reach us:
By public transport: Metrobus direction Beylikdüzü/TÜYAP, get off one stop before terminus (Hadımköy), take the blue bus 418 or the yellow (sometimes green or red and white) HT18 towards Hadımköy (ca. 15 min. to Fatih Kampüsü). After the event, there is an E-60 express bus to Mecidiyeköy at 5pm
By car: leave the TEM at Hadımköy gişeleri, turn right and follow the signs for Fatih Üniversitesi
Medical History Workshop at New Research Institution for Medical Humanities in Istanbul
On 11 September 2012, the first ever event will be held at the new Besikcizade Medical Humanities Center (Beşikçizade Tıp ve İnsani Bilimler Merkezi, BETİM), launched by hayatvakfı (http://www.hayatvakfi.org.tr/ ).
Prof. Dr. Werner Kümmel from Mainz University Medical Center (Germany) will lead a one-day workshop on the topic ‘Medicine and National Socialism’ from 9.15am to 3.30pm.
Workshop languages are Turkish and German (with simultaneous translation provided).
Registration is required electronically asap, please, contact betim.bilgi@yandex.com, providing your name, institutional affiliation, mobile phone number, and e-mail address
Jeremy Bell at Fatih Üniversitesi
Taking Pains: Plato on the Care of Self and Others
Mon. 10 Sept. 2012 12:00 noon
Hadımköy Campus, room A-306 (İbn-i Haldun Anfisi, previously known as Blue Hall)
Speaker’s abstract:
In this paper, I analyze the relationship between ethics and politics in Plato’s thought in order to demonstrate that Plato understood this relationship to be characterized by an ineradicable element of agonism and instability. Drawing upon texts such as the Apology, Alcibiades I, Gorgias, and Symposium, as well as upon Foucault’s late works, I take the epimeleia heautou, “the care of the self,” as the organizing theme of my analysis, in order to show that this agonism has the aporetic result that, though Plato conceived of the ethics of the care both of oneself and others as the truest form of statesmanship, he was nevertheless unwilling or unable to generalize it into an unproblematic political system.
How to reach us:
By public transport: Thankfully, the metrobus extension has been completed. Direction TÜYAP, get off one stop before terminus (misleadingly called Hadımköy), take the blue bus 418 or the yellow (sometimes green or red and white) HT18 towards Hadımköy (ca. 15 min. to Fatih Kampüsü)
By car: leave the TEM at Hadımköy gişeleri, turn right and follow the signs for Fatih Üniversitesi
Istanbul Seminars May 19-24, 2012 – Bilgi University – ‘Philosophers bridge the Bosphorus’
Next week is going to be quite busy philosophically here in Istanbul. Details can be found here.
“The promise of democracy in troubled times” faces several challenges that are notably related to altered material conditions: Western democracies have to find new answers in the face of a severe economic and financial crises and an ageing population. Arab countries invest all their hopes in democracy in order to confront poverty and inequality as well as an unprecedented youth bulge.
Which are the methods and limits of democratic participation and political deliberation in economics? Does the Arab Spring lead to more rights for women and citizens in the Arab world? How do claims to justice engage new forms of political responsibility, political judgment and leadership?
This is an interesting event that happens every year. Schedule below the fold.
Summer School on Political Philosophy at Bogazici
Together with Kansas State University we’re organising an intensive summer school on political philosophy at Bogazici University. It will take place from July 9th to July 2oth 2012, and is aimed at grad students, advanced undergraduate students and junior faculty. The topic will be Liberalism, Libertarianism and Democracy: Theory and Practice.
The main teachers will be: Sam Freeman, Erin Kelly, David Schmitz and Peter Niesen.
Details can be found here.
