Archive for March 2024
Philosophy Talk. Friday 5th April. Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium. Andrew Fyfe ‘If I Were You: Plan-Based Expressivism and Planning in Another’s Shoes’
Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium Talk
Friday 5th April 17:00
Andrew Fyfe (Lecturer, University of Maryland)
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‘If I Were You: Plan-Based Expressivism and Planning in Another’s Shoes’Abstract
Expressivism views moral judgments (“Murder is wrong”) not as assertions about what actions possess “wrongness” but rather as expressions of non-belief mental states — such as a negative feeling (“Boo Murder!”) or a directive (“Don’t murder!”). Plan-based expressivism (PBE) is expressivism’s latest iteration. PBE interprets moral judgments as expressions of personal planning commitments (“I will never murder.”).
However, PBE faces a challenge. Moral judgments aren’t only about us. They also concern others. So, how does a personal no-murder pledge encompass the wider assertion that others also shouldn’t murder? PBE’s solution depends upon the notion of “If I were you” planning. This involves projecting into others’ shoes and deciding from there. I plan not to murder, even if I were you.
However, the coherence of “If I were you” planning is questionable. Can one plan for what to do as someone else? It doesn’t seem so. In this talk, I will attempt a rescue. I aim to reconcile the colloquial use of ‘If I were you’ in our common-sense practices of advising one another with the philosophical demands of PBE. Ultimately, I argue for the feasibility of “If I were you” planning exactly as envisioned and needed by plan-based expressivist metaethicists.
Location
Boğaziçi University
South Campus
John Freely Building
JF 507
Bebek
Istanbul
Security Policy
Due to campus security policy, anyone planning to attend the talk who does not have a Boğaziçi University ID should send me their name at least 24 hours before the event, so that I can I pass it onto campus security, who will have a list of guests at the main gate.
Please send your name to my institutional email: barry.stocker(at)bogazici.edu.tr
Philosophy Talk. Friday 29th March. Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium. Ömer Aygün ‘Socrates without Plato: Evaluating the Images of Socrates in Non-Platonic Sources’
Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium Talk
Friday 29th March 17:00
Ömer Aygün (Assistant Professor, Galatasaray University)
‘Socrates without Plato: Evaluating the Images of Socrates in Non-Platonic Sources’Abstract
The main source of our idea of Socrates is Plato and his followers. Nevertheless, in the 20th century, Plato has often been accused of distorting the figure of Socrates in his works in order to make an overly sharp distinction between philosophy and sophistry, and to dissimulate his own repressive political agenda behind the more democratic and ethical figure of Socrates. The aim of this paper is to evaluate this accusation by reviewing the accounts of Socrates in non-Platonic sources, particularly in the Laks & Most 2016 Loeb edition of Early Greek Philosophy and by comparing them with the “Platonic image of Socrates”. Is this dePlatonized, so allegedly undistorted, image of Socrates philosophically reliable, or at least more reliable than the “Platonic image of Socrates”? We shall suggest that the images of Socrates in these sources do not substantially contradict the Platonic images of Socrates, and that, when they do contradict them, the non-Platonic images of Socrates mostly prove themselves to be less reliable than the Platonic ones. If our mistrust in the “Platonic image of Socrates” is unfounded, then we may question Socrates’ characterization by Laks and Most as a “sophist” as well as his removal from his pivotal position in the history of Ancient philosophy.
Location
Boğaziçi University
South Campus
John Freely Building
JF 507
Bebek
Istanbul
Security Policy
Due to campus security policy, anyone planning to attend the talk who does not have a Boğaziçi University ID should send me their name at least 24 hours before the event, so that I can I pass it onto campus security, who will have a list of guests at the main gate.
Please send your name to my institutional email: barry.stocker(at)Bogazici.edu.tr
Philosophy talk. Wednesday 20th March. Boğaziçi University, Zeynep Talay Turner ”On Being Annoyingly Forgiving’
Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium. 20/03 (next Wednesday), 17:00
Zeynep Talay Turner (Assistant Professor, Bilgi University)
‘On Being Annoyingly Forgiving’
Abstract
The problem of forgiveness is a longstanding philosophical problem. What is forgiving? Is it possible to forgive and if so, what are the conditions of it? The answers depend on whether forgiveness involves two parties, that is, the wrong-doer and the injured-party or just one party, that is, the injured-party. The different approaches in the literature resolve themselves into ideas of conditional versus unconditional forgiveness. In the first part, I will give a general overview of these different perspectives. Thereafter I will focus on Derrida’s account of forgiveness. Here we will see that though Derrida holds a broadly unconditional account of it, his differs notably from others of the same type. Finally, I will refer to Nietzsche, who suggests we abandon forgiveness altogether, on the grounds that whether it is conditional or unconditional, it is impossible or meaningless.
Location
Boğaziçi University
South Campus
John Freely Building
JF 507
Bebek
Istanbul
Security Policy
Due to campus security policy, anyone planning to attend the talk who does not have a Boğaziçi University ID should send me their name at least 24 hours before the event, so that I can I pass it onto campus security, who will have a list of guests at the main gate.
Please send your name to my institutional email: barry.stocker(at)bogazici.edu.tr
Philosophy Talk at Marmara: Prof. Dr. Zeynep Direk on “Einfühlung and Entanglement in Phenomenology” (27.03.2024)
Prof. Dr. Zeynep Direk (Koç University) will give a talk at Marmara on Wednesday. All are welcome.
Date: Wednesday 27 March, 2024
Time: 13:00 – 15:30
Location: Marmara University Göztepe Campus, at the old Faculty of Technology building (above TÖMER, A block Room 301).
“Einfühlung and Entanglement in Phenomenology”
About The Speaker: Zeynep Direk was born in Istanbul in 1966, graduated from Galatasaray High School in 1984 and from Boğaziçi University in 1990. In 1992, she received her MA degree from Boğaziçi University and her PhD degree from the University of Memphis in 1998. Until 2014, she worked as a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy at Galatasaray University. Since 2014, she has been a faculty member at the Department of Philosophy at Koç University. Her research focuses on various problems in Contemporary French Philosophy, Ethics, and Feminist Philosophy. She is the editor of Derrida Critical Assessments (Routledge, 2001) and A Companion to Derrida (Blackwell, 2014). Her books include Başkalık Deneyimi (Yapı Kredi 2005), Cinsel Farkın İnşaası (Metis 2018), Ontologies of Sex: Philosophy in Sexual Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) Çağdaş Kıta Felsefesi (FOL Yayınları 2021) and Derrida İstanbul’da: Sekülerizm, Öteki ve Sorumluluk (FOL Yayınları 2022). She has numerous articles in Turkish, English and French. She has prepared many Turkish compilation books for publication such as Cinsiyetli Olmak (Yapı Kredi, 2004), Cinsiyeti Yazmak (Yapı Kredi, 2017) Sonsuza Tanıklık (Metis 2003) Dünyanın Teni (Metis 2017), Jean-Paul Sartre: Tarihin Sorumluluğunu Almak (Metis, 2010), Irk Kavramını Kim İcad Etti? (Metis, 2001) Çağdaş Fransız Düşüncesi, (Epos, 2004), Levinas Okumaları (Pinhan, 2011), Platon’un Eczanesi (Pinhan, 2011).
Abstract: In Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, a work that is classified within the transcendental turn in Husserl’s thought, the problem of the other, a difficult problem for philosophers who begin philosophizing with subjective consciousness, is claimed to be resolved. How does Husserl’s argument work? What presuppositions does it make? How did Merleau-Ponty in The Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible, respond to Husserl’s argument? What modifications does Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology bring to the phenomenological consideration of the problem of the Other? Finally, I shall try to show that Merleau-Ponty’s indirect ontology is intersectional.
Talk at Bilkent, March 14: Heidi Maibom on The Instrumentalist: Psychopathy and Moral Psychology
Title: The Instrumentalist: Psychopathy and Moral Psychology
By Heidi Maibom (Philosophy, Cincinnati)
Date: Thursday, March 14, 2024
Time: 1530-1700
Room: H-232
Abstract: It is uncontroversial that psychopaths have a severe moral deficit. But whereas philosophers typically recast it so as to fit on either side of the sentimentalism vs. rationalism divide, I proceed directly from the data to suggest a new way of conceiving of amoralism. Psychopaths are driven by a will to dominate, use almost exclusively means-end reasoning, and have poor attachment to others. Ideally, this will turn out to be the reverse of what we might call good moral functioning, namely desire to get along, respect, and attachment to other people. As such, this constitutes a substantially new proposal when it comes to the moral underpinnings of morality.
About the speaker: go to www.heidimaibom.com
Philosophy talk. Friday 15th March. Boğaziçi University Philosophy Colloquium. Kathleen Harbin ‘Aristotle on Akrasia’
Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium Talk 15.03 (next Friday). 17:00
Kathleen Harbin (Assistant Professor, Ashoka University)
‘Aristotle on Akrasia: Beyond the Ignorance vs. Desire Debate’
Abstract
Akratic agents, like virtuous agents, at least seem capable of recognizing what they should do, and seem motivated to act accordingly. Their practical thinking thus bears strong similarities to that of those who act well, yet they do the wrong thing. This is mysterious, and Aristotle’s explanation of the phenomenon can seem equally puzzling. In the voluminous secondary literature on his account, the central focus has been whether Aristotle argues for a Socratic account of akrasia, which holds that akrasia is the result of ignorance about which course of action is best, or instead a Platonic or commonsense account, which holds that akrasia results from a conflict between desire for the pleasant and desire to do what the agent knows to be best. I hold that Aristotle’s view is not straightforwardly Socratic or Platonic, but seeks to accommodate the intuitions behind both kinds of account. His discussion of the akratic’s thinking shows which of the agent’s practical cognitive capacities fails in cases of akrasia, and this enables us to see both how the thinking of the akratic person diverges from that of the virtuous person, and how, despite this, the akratic (unlike the vicious person) might be cured.
Location
Boğaziçi University
South Campus
John Freely Building
JF 507
Bebek
Istanbul
Security Policy
Due to campus security policy, anyone planning to attend the talk who does not have a Boğaziçi University ID should send me their name at least 24 hours before the event, so that I can I pass it onto campus security, who will have a list of guests at the main gate.
Please send your name to my institutional email: barry.stocker(at)bogazici.edu.tr
Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium, Friday 8th March, Heidi Mailbom, ‘Emotions That Go Together’
Heidi Mailbom
Research Professor, University of the Basque Country/Professor, University of Cincinnati
‘Emotions that Go Together’
When trying to understand what emotions are, we should not simply think of them in terms of distinct and somewhat static affective episodes, but instead of temporally extended affective episodes that are often mixed. That is, emotions are often experienced together. I present three examples to illustrate this fact: distress and concern/empathic distress and sympathy, guilt and shame, and sadness and relief in grief. These three pairs throw light on how emotions work, but each in their own way. The empathy pair suggests that empathic episodes are more complex than they are ordinarily portrayed, which may be why definitions of empathy are so diverse. The guilt-shame pair suggests that because of complex environments, it is often appropriate to experience more than one emotion in one situation. And lastly, the sadness-relief pair indicates that ambivalence is a big part of human life.
The talk will be 17:00 in JF 507 (John Freely Building, South Campus, Boğaziçi University, Bebek, Istanbul)
Due to campus security policy, if you don’t have a Boğaziçi ID and you wish to attend the talk, you should inform me of your intention to participate (at this email address barry.stocker(at)bogazici.edu.tr, preferably at least 24 hours in advance) so that I can pass on your name to campus security.
Talk at Bilkent, March 5: Kendy Hess on the Inevitability of Corporate Character
Title: The Inevitability of Corporate Character
By Kendy M. Hess (Holy Cross, Philosophy)
Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Time: 1730-1900
Room: H232
Abstract: If we assume — as I will, here — that firms and other highly organized groups can qualify as rationally autonomous actors in their own rights, I argue that they will necessarily possess Aristotelian characters as well. I will begin with a brief introduction to collective agency in general and corporate agency in particular. I will sketch some of the very different mechanisms that enable rational autonomy at the level of a collective agent and draw out some of the philosophical implications, then turn to the argument about character. Making this argument requires us to abstract somewhat from the human version of character that Aristotle developed, but the abstraction changes less than might be imagined. With characters, corporate agents like firms can also have virtues, vices, enkratic and akratic states, and all the rest.
The more interesting question, as I will suggest at the end, is not whether corporate agents can have virtues and vices but what counts as a virtue or a vice for such an entity. For example, claims from Carr (1968), French (1984), and Heath (2014), among others, about the exotic nature of business entities and market transactions might seem to suggest that the “virtues” of a firm, at least — the excellences of character that enable it to navigate its particular social setting well — might include ruthlessness, dishonesty, and greed. Aristotle again provides everything we need to refute such claims, and to guide us back toward holding collective agents to the same moral standards and human agents … which is a relief, for those of us who have to live with them.
About the speaker: Click here.
Hesperus is Bosphorus 