CONF CFP: Self and others in Wittgenstein and contemporary analytic philosophy, 2010, University of Southampton, UK

Self and others in Wittgenstein and contemporary analytic philosophy

Avenue Campus, University of Southampton, 26th-28th March 2010

Invited speakers

Anita Avramides (University of Oxford)

Dorit Bar-on (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

William Child (University of Oxford)

David Finkelstein (University of Chicago)

Jane Heal (University of Cambridge)

Andrea Kern (University of Cottbus)

Cynthia Macdonald (Queen’s University Belfast)

Åsa Wikforss (University of Stockholm)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The conference will include four open sessions. If you would like to submit a paper on themes relating to the conference (see below) for consideration for presentation, please send it as an attachment, along with contact information, to d.whiting@soton.ac.uk<mailto:d.whiting@soton.ac.uk>. Submission is open to all and graduate students are encouraged to submit. The organisers intend to publish the proceedings of the conference and accepted papers will be considered for inclusion in the collection.

The paper should be suitable for presentation in 30-40 minutes.

The deadline for submission is *Friday 11th December*.

Conference theme

That Wittgenstein’s work has important implications for our understanding of both self-knowledge and knowledge of others was recognized from the very beginning (for example, in Anscombe’s reflections on the first-person and the debate over criteria). However, while there has been much interesting work inspired by Wittgenstein concerning knowledge of others, it is in discussions of self-knowledge in particular that his work has figured prominently in recent analytic philosophy.

One reason why the ‘problem of other minds’ has to some extent receded from view might be that, as Fodor suggests, ‘[i]t’s gotten hard to believe that there is a special problem about the knowledge of other minds (as opposed to knowledge of anything elses)’ (in A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, ed. S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994, p. 292). But recent Wittgensteinian reflection on self-knowledge doesn’t encourage that thought, in that it proceeds in part by pointing out the special character of self-knowledge (as opposed to ‘knowledge of anything elses’). If, as certain accounts that take their lead from Wittgenstein would have it, the attribution of a mental state to oneself is not based on observation of that state but is constitutive of it, for example, or a commitment to it, or an expression of it, what would another person have to do in order to know what one knows about oneself in one of these distinctive ways? For that matter, much work on knowledge of others inspired by Wittgenstein is likewise at pains to stress its special character. If, as certain accounts would have it, knowledge of others is not based on inference from observable evidence, let alone the bringing to bear of a theory, but involves imaginatively engaging with another’s point of view, for example, or direct perception, or some kind of ‘acknowledgement’, what significance does that have for knowing one’s own mind?

Guided by the thought that models of knowledge of other minds and models of self-knowledge stand and fall together, this conference aims to explore and assess Wittgensteinian perspectives on both forms of knowledge and reflect on how such perspectives relate to one another. In doing so, it would hope to shed light on the nature of the objects of this knowledge-the mental and the self.

The conference is supported by The Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association.

Further information, including how to register, will appear in due course at: http://www.soton.ac.uk/philosophy/news/conferences/self_and_others2010.shtml

CONF CFP: R.G. Collingwood Society Conference, 2010, Italy

R.G. Collingwood Society Conference

Monash University Conference Centre, Prato, Italy, 19th -22nd July, 2010

The Empire of Idealism

Philosophical Idealism dominated British and British Empire universities from the 1880s to the 1920s. At this time the influence of Idealism could also be found in America through figures such as Josiah Royce, and in Italy in the writings of Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile. As a body of thought Idealism was socially and politically engaged and inspired reform across fields such as education, social welfare, politics and international relations. The conference aims to explore not only the major figures of Idealism but also the social, educational and political influence of Idealism from the 1880s to the mid twentieth century in Britain, Australia, Canada, the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Italy. Papers would be particularly welcome on R. G. Collingwood’s relationship to Idealism, or to any of the above issues or people.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words to be sent by 15 December 2009 to the conference organisers:

Associate Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington. Macquarie University, Sydney. Email: mhughesw@humn.mq.edu.au

Dr Ian Tregenza. Macquarie University, Sydney. Email: ian.tregenza@mq.edu.au

The conference is supported by the Australian Research Council.

CONF CFP: The Society for Social and Political Philosophy, 2010, USA

THE SOCIETY FOR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (SSPP) has issued the following two calls for papers:

1. For the Society’s meeting to be held in conjunction with The Eastern APA (American Philosophical Association) in 2010, the SSPP invites papers for two conference panels. We are seeking papers that address issues pertaining to:

Politics of Hope / Politics of Fear

Hobbes famously wrote, “The passion to be reckoned upon is fear.” The connection thus established between the state and fear has been the basis not only of various political regimes, but of political theory by philosophers such as Spinoza, Hegel, Arendt and Massumi. In an age of color-coded warning systems, terrorism, and pandemic disease, the essential link between fear and politics seems beyond dispute, and demands investigation: How does fear work? Does it always reinforce authority, as Hobbes imagined? Can there be a revolt of fear? What is the connection between the fear that the masses fear and the fear they evoke in the corridors of power? More importantly, what remains of fear’s opposite, hope, in this Hobbesian world? How can hope function in a world overrun by fear? Does hope require a vision of a better world? Is there anything beyond the relation of hope and fear, a politics beyond the vacillation of these affects? For this panel we invite papers that examine either the “politics of fear” or the “politics of hope” in terms of both broad theoretical discussions (including examinations of the politics of the affects and imagination) and specific investigations into regimes of fear and hope.

Complete papers of 3000-5000 words (that can be summarized and presented in 20-30 minutes) should be submitted for consideration for the 2010 meeting (deadline: March 1, 2010). The APA Conference scheduled for December 27-30, 2010, Boston, MA.

Authors should include their name(s) and contact information on the cover page ONLY.

Papers should be emailed as attachments in Word or RTF format to: papers@sspp.us<mailto:papers@sspp.us>

2. For the Society’s meeting to be held in conjunction with SPEP (Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) in 2010, the SSPP invites papers for two conference panels. We are seeking papers that address issues pertaining to:

Politics and Ontology

We seek to explore and challenge the hypothesis that all political theory presupposes an ontology. From the presumption of universal rationality, to the potency of class consciousness, to the privileges shaped by the social existence of race, gender and sexuality, political order always is or implies an ontological order. In many respects, the ontological question is the political question. Struggles for political change are as much about the expansion (or contraction) of shared ontological categories as they are about the rewriting of legislation or the redistribution of power and resources . The traditional allocation of rights, for instance, has been determined almost entirely on the basis of who, or what, one is presumed to be. While ontology and politics share a long, interconnected history, for much of modern history the connection between them has been downplayed or denied, since liberalism is premised on bracketing such supposedly insoluble and inherently conflictual metaphysical questions. In recent decades, however, this has changed. The explicit investigation of political ontology has taken center stage and, as a consequence, what we understand to be political or ontological has changed as well. Politics is no longer limited to the state, but permeates all of social existence to include the terrain of imagination, emotions, and representation. Ontology is no longer an ultimate foundation, but is constituted through relations of power and affects. In the works of such authors as Gilles Deleuze, Elizabeth Grosz, Giorgio Agamben, William Connolly, Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière, Jean-Luc Nancy, Antonio Negri, and many others, the subject of political ontology has surfaced in an array of new formulations. For this panel, we invite papers that extend this investigation or that challenge this resurgence, both within the context of work that has already been done and in anticipation of work yet to be conceived.

Complete papers of 3000-5000 words (that can be summarized and presented in 20-30 minutes) should be submitted for consideration for the 2010 meeting (deadline: March 1, 2010). The SPEP Conference is scheduled for October 2010, Montreal, Canada.

Authors should include their name(s) and contact information on the cover page ONLY.

Papers should be emailed as attachments in Word or RTF format to: papers@sspp.us<mailto:papers@sspp.us>

For information on the society, and to become a member, please consult our web page at www.sspp.us<http://www.sspp.us/> or our blog at http://socialpolitical.wordpress.com

For other questions or information, please email us at information@sspp.us<mailto:information@sspp.us>

CONF CFP: Symposium on Religion, Philosophy, and the Question of a Clash of Cultures, Concordia University, Canada

CALL FOR PAPERS / Invitation à proposer une communication (SECOND CALL/ deuxième appel)

Symposium on / Colloque sur Religion, Philosophy, and the Question of a Clash of Cultures / La religion, la philosophie, et la question d’un conflit de cultures

Sponsored by the Canadian Jacques Maritain Association / parrainé par l’Association canadienne Jacques Maritain under aegis of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences / sous l’égide du Congrès des sciences humaines, Canada

Monday, May 31 – Tuesday, June 1, 2010 / le lundi 31 mai et le mardi 1 juin 2010 / Concordia University – Montréal – L’université Concordia

The programme committee invites papers, in English or French, that focus on the conference theme. Those who wish to submit a paper should contact the organisers immediately for further details or send an abstract or proposal (of no more than two pages) to:

Le comité organisateur du colloque vous invite à lui proposer des sujets de conférences. Ceux qui désirent faire un exposé doivent immédiatement contacter les organisateurs ou envoyer un résumé du sujet (d’au maximum deux pages) à:

Professor William Sweet, Department of Philosophy, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5, Canada, e-mail wsweet@stfx.ca // fax 1 902 867 3243

Deadline for the submission of proposals: October 15, 2009

Veuillez envoyer les propositions avant le 15 octobre 2009.

Papers must not exceed 30 minutes reading time.

Les exposés ne devraient pas dépasser trente minutes.

Information on the conference theme

Even the most casual survey of political and social events reveals a variety of confrontations, disagreements, misunderstandings, lacks of mutual comprehension, and changing viewpoints. Within many countries, but also on the international level, one finds major debates between fundamentalists and reformers, religion and secularism, the wealthy and the dispossessed, the first world and the developing world, the urban and the rural, the young and the old, and so on. Recently, particular attention has been given to how religion – at least in the sense that which expresses one’s ultimate commitments – is part of, or is drawn into, such debates.

These phenomena invite philosophers and scholars in cognate disciplines to examine not just the phenomena themselves but the underlying issues. The purpose of this conference is to investigate and review some of these underlying issues, to see what responses have or might be appealed to in order to address what have been called ‘clashes of cultures’, but also to see what problems have arisen or may arise in attempting to address these questions. Specific questions that may be addressed here are, then: What is it to speak of a clash and, particularly, a ‘clash of cultures’? Is clash a characteristic of cultural (but not local or individual) conflict? Is there any particular method that can be drawn on, to address putative clashes of culture? What is, or has been, the place of religion and philosophy in such clashes and in addressing such clashes? And how might philosophers respond to such clashes?

Même l’enquête la plus désinvolte d’événements politiques et sociaux révèle un assortiment de conflits, un assortiment de désaccords, un assortiment de malentendus, un assortiment de manques de compréhension mutuelle, et les changements de points de vues. Dans beaucoup de pays, mais aussi sur le niveau international, l’un trouve des débats majeurs entre les fondamentalismes et la réforme, la religion et le laïcisme, les riches et les dépossédés, le premier monde et le monde en développement, l’urbain et le rural, les jeunes et les vieux, et ainsi de suite. Récemment, l’attention particulière a été donnée à comment la religion – au moins dans le sens qui exprime un engagement ultime – fait partie de, ou est dessiné dans, tels débats.

Ces phénomènes invitent des philosophes et des érudits dans les disciplines analogues pour ne pas juste examiner les phénomènes mais aussi les problèmes fondamentaux. Le but de ce colloque est d’examiner et réexaminer certains des problèmes fondamentaux ici, voir quelles réponses ont ou pourraient être faites appel pour adresser ce qu’a été appelé ‹les conflits de cultures›, mais aussi voir quels problèmes peuvent se présenter. Parmi les questions spécifiques qui pourraient être adressées: Le quel est pour parler d’un conflit et, notamment, ‹ le conflit de cultures › ? Où a été le lieu de la religion et de la philosophie dans tels conflits? Comment l’un pourrait-il répondre à tels conflits?

For more information / Pour de plus amples renseignements

please contact / n’hésitez pas à contacter:

Dr. William Sweet, wsweet@stfx.ca

or see the theme website at: http://people.stfx.ca/wsweet/maritain2010a-call.html

CONF ANNOUNCEMENT: The Philosophical Association of the Philippines, Mid-year Conference 2009, Paranaque City, Philippines

The Philosophical Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PAP) is happy to announce its forthcoming midyear conference. This will be held on October 28, 2009 at Don Bosco Center of Studies/Seminaryo ng Don Bosco, Better Living Subdivision, Paranaque City.

The topic for this midyear conference is Philosophy of the Human Person.

For this one-day affair, the pre-registration fee is P1,500.00 and on site registration is P1,800.00. Undergrad student’s fee (including undergrad seminarians) is P800.00. The fee will cover two meals, (lunch and dinner) and two snacks, conference kits and certificate of attendance. The deadline for pre-registration is on October 10, 2009. Kindly make checks payable to the Philosophical Association of the Philippines, Inc., and send to the UST Graduate School or College of Accountancy, Espana, Manila.

Participants who want to either become a member of the PAP or renew their membership to the PAP will pay an additional P850.00. This includes the membership fee and two recent volumes of the Philosophia. The three volumes of the PAP Anthologies are still available at P400.00 each, but the three volumes can be bought at a discounted price of P1,000.00.

For more information, kindly send e-mail to jovejim24@yahoo.com. Or text at 09178304234. You may also join our yahoogroup: philophilippines@yahoogroups.com.

We hope to hear from you, and participate in yet another successful PAP Conference.

CONF CFP: Knowledge: (Trans)Formation, 2010, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Supérieur des Etudes Littéraires et Humaines, Tunisa

Call for Papers

“Knowledge: (Trans)Formation”

2nd Joint Conference

Ecole Normale Supérieure

English Department, Institut Supérieur des Etudes Littéraires et Humaines Tunis (Tunisia)

3-4 March 2010

The Ecole Normale Supérieure of Tunis & The English Department of the Institut Supérieur des Etudes Littéraires et Humaines of Tunis are pleased to announce their second joint conference on “Knowledge: (Trans)Formation”.

One of the defining features of our modern life is the unremitting accumulation of knowledge. Indeed, we live in an era governed by a race for knowledge and described by such catchphrases as “the age of knowledge” or “the knowledge society.” In earlier phases of the modern project of Enlightenment, the positive aspects of knowledge were emphasised. Rational knowledge was deemed essential to human liberation and accomplishment. Knowledge, however, has darker sides and may have dire consequences. Francis Bacon’s aphorism, “knowledge is power,” stated some four centuries earlier, operates at its best now. For knowledge, like any other type of power, can be transformed into a tool of coercion. In our age of impressive development of

cognition, it is significant to interrogate the role of knowledge and its effects on individuals, societies and humanity in its entirety. This conference, therefore, will focus on knowledge as a cultural form, liable to produce meanings and construct new socio-political practices as well as modes of resistance. It will attempt to engage a debate on the formation and transformation, uses and abuses, origins and consequences of different types of knowledge.

Participants are invited to bring their contribution to the following thematic areas:

- Knowledge and artistic production: how can art (literature, painting etc.) construct, manipulate and reorient our knowledge of the world?

- Knowledge and postmodernism: does the world provide us with a foundational reality? Is it possible to authenticate any form of knowledge as ‘truth’?

- Knowledge and Feminist thought: how can a feminist informed critique destabilize the hierarchal organization of knowledge and the oppressive structures within which it is assembled and propagated?

- Knowledge and language: does language mediate knowledge? What is the role of discourse in the production, deployment and development of knowledge? Cross-cultural knowledge and interlanguage.

- Knowledge, education and digital technology: how is knowledge produced, disseminated and legitimized in the Academia? How does the electronic revolution affect prospects of human knowledge? How can e-learning and the Virtual Divide reshuffle traditional concepts of education? Can we speak now about efficient education with the chasm separating Digital Natives from Digital Immigrants?

- Knowledge and multimedia: what is the role of media, cinema and cyberspace in creating culturally-determined knowledge constructs?

- Knowledge and Globalization: what are the consequences of the growing worldwide economic, political and cultural interdependence? How to cope with the uneven distribution of knowledge?

- Knowledge, history and representation: how do issues of identity, community, time and ideology infiltrate knowledge systems?

- Indigenous or “subaltern” knowledge (memory, heritage, folklore, myths, proverbs, dances etc): how can the revival of indigenous knowledge be a form of resistance?

Submission Instructions: Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Abstracts should have about 250 words.

Contact Information: Please fill in the registration form below and send it to Hager Ben Driss, e-mail: hagerbendriss@yahoo.com

1- Title of paper

2- Section (thematic area)

3- Name

4- Affiliation

5- E-mail address

6- Abstract

Schedule: Deadline for submitting abstracts: December 12th, 2009. Acceptance of proposals will be notified no later than January 9th, 2010.

Contact:

Hager Ben Driss

Institut Supérieur des Etudes Littéraires et Humaines

Email: hagerbendriss@yahoo.com

CONF CFP: Music and Philosophy, 2010, King’s College London, UK

CALL FOR PAPERS

Music and Philosophy: A Royal Musical Association Study Day in association with the British Society of Aesthetics

Saturday 20th February 2010

Department of Music, King’s College London

Keynote speakers:

Prof Mark Evan Bonds (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Prof Andrew Bowie (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Prof Julian Dodd (University of Manchester)

This study day will offer a chance for musicologists and philosophers to share and discuss work in the hope of fostering a dialogue between the two disciplines. Proposals of up to 500 words are invited for individual papers (20 minutes) and collaborative papers (up to 30 minutes). Collaboration between persons from different disciplines would be especially welcomed. Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to):

- interactions between music and philosophy (including historical connections)

- ontology and music

- music, meaning, and language

- perception and expression

- performance, authenticity, and interpretation

Please send proposals by e-mail to Tomas McAuley (tomas.mcauley@kcl.ac.uk) or Dr Víctor Durà-Vilà (victor.dura_vila@kcl.ac.uk). Postgraduate students are particularly encouraged to submit. The deadline for proposals is Friday 4th December 2009.

CONF CFP: Integrating Development and Climate Change Ethics, 2010, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Call for Papers

“Integrating Development and Climate Change Ethics”

Interdisciplinary Conference

Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University

State College, PA (USA)

15-16 April 2010

The Rock Ethics Institute at the Pennsylvania State University is organizing a conference to be held at Penn State on April 15–16, 2010, on “Integrating Development and Climate Change Ethics.” The Rock Ethics Institute has issued a call for papers inviting those interested in presenting a paper at this conference to submit an abstract (max. 800 words) and a two page CV by October 30, 2009.

Because climate change can adversely affect the ability of human development prospects, and climate change policies should take into account human development needs, there is a need to integrate climate change and human development ethics. There is also a significant opportunity for climate change and human development ethicists to learn from each other about the ethical issues that should be understood if climate change and human development ethics were to be integrated. This conference will explore the linkages between climate change ethics and human development ethics. Because these issues are deeply interdisciplinary, organizers of the conference also welcome papers on relevant scientific, economic, and legal issues that should be considered in any ethical analysis of linkages between climate change and development concerns.

Speakers include:

Donald A. Brown, Penn State

Stephen Gardiner, University of Washington

Des Gasper, Erasmus University

Mohan Munasinghe, University of Manchester

Maria Silvia Muylaert, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Thomas Pogge, Yale University

Jon Rosales, St. Lawrence University

Wolfgang Sachs, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy

Asunción Lera St. Clair, Bergen University

Petra Tschakert, Penn State

Nancy Tuana, Penn State

Farhana Yamin, Sussex University

Web: http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/events/idcce/

CONF CFP: War and Self-Defence, 2010, UK

Conference: War and Self-Defence – Final Call for Papers

August 25th – 27th, 2010

University of Sheffield, UK

Keynote Speakers:

Frances Kamm (Harvard)

Jeff McMahan (Rutgers)

David Rodin (Oxford)

Noam Zohar (Bar Ilan)

*Submission deadline: Dec 1st 2009*

Recent years have seen a rapid growth of interest in just war theory. The current political climate has confronted us with important and difficult questions about, amongst other things, the moral status of combatants, the moral status of non-combatants, the possibility of wars waged by non-state actors, and the conditions under which one can be said to have a just cause for war. Many writers take the answers to these questions to be based, at least in part, on considerations about what individuals may do in self-defence, or other-defence. Others have denied the existence of any substantive relationship between the ethics of self-defence and the ethics of national-defence. This conference, hosted by the Department of Philosophy at Sheffield University, will bring together leading researchers in the field, and offer an opportunity for scholars to present recent research in this area. Submissions from those working in related fields, such as Law, Politics and International Relations, are also welcome.

There will be a number of parallel sessions held during the conference. Those wishing to present should submit a paper of no more than 3000 words (exc. notes), suitable for a 30 minute presentation, along with an abstract of 150 words, to H.Frowe@sheffield.ac.uk by the 1st of December 2009. Please note that papers that exceed the word limit will not be accepted. Papers should be prepared for blind review. Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Please note that authors of submitted papers are responsible for all their own expenses.

Suggested paper topics include:

- The relationship between war and self-defence

- The ethics of self-defence

- Wars of humanitarian intervention

- The moral status of combatants

- Killing non-combatants

- Just causes for war

- The idea of legitimate authority

- The moral status of terrorists

- The moral wrongness of terrorism

There are plans to put together an edited volume of a selection of the conference papers. Those authors who would like to have their paper considered for inclusion in this collection should mention this in their submission email. Authors of the selected papers will be notified shortly after the conference.

This conference is generously sponsored by The Leverhulme Trust, the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society.

CONF CFP: The Hannah Arendt Circle Conference, 2010, DePaul University, United States

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Department of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, IL will be hosting the fourth independent conference for the Hannah Arendt Circle April 2010.

We invite individual submissions for papers on any aspect of Arendt’s work, including critiques and applications of her thinking.

Please send an abstract of the paper, by e-mail (750 word limit). Abstracts should be formatted for anonymous review and submitted to the program committee chair, Tama Weisman at tweisman@dom.edu on or before November 30th 2009.

Please indicate “Arendt Circle submission” in the subject heading, and include the abstract as a “.doc” attachment to your message. Program decisions will be announced by the beginning of January.

Program Committee:

Tama Weisman, Dominican University

Sarah MacMillan, Duquesne University

Peg Birmingham, DePaul University

Our first three independent meetings were outstanding, and we are looking forward to the same camaraderie and intense discussion of Arendt’s work at this year’s conference. Each speaker will have approximately 35 minutes for paper presentation and discussion combined —papers should be a maximum of 3000 words (15-20 minutes).

DePaul University is located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Lodging has been reserved at the Willows Hotel.  The hotel is within walking distance or a short train ride to our meeting site at DePaul University.

Program and other information will be available no later than January 30, 2010 at:

www.thearendtcircle.com