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Public Lecture by Franz Berto at Royal Society of Edinburgh (13 Feb; Edinburgh)

Professor Franz Berto (Universities of St Andrews and Amsterdam): Public Lecture 4
‘Knowledge via Imagination’

Wednesday 13 February 2019, at 5.30-7.30: Public Lecture 4
Wellcome West Room, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 28 George Street Edinburgh

The human mind can contemplate the strangest unreal scenarios in imagination, from dragons and unicorns to exotic islands or science fictions. Why? What is the evolutionary utility of such mental escapes from reality?
One promising answer is that imagination helps to answer ‘what if?’ questions. What if I try to jump the stream? Will I get to the other side, or will I get hurt? Will a no-deal Brexit make me lose my job? Instead of actually trying a dangerous jump, or waiting for a no-deal Brexit to come, we imagine these events taking place, and try to guess what would happen then.
Empirical research shows that imagination as mental simulation helps us in a number of ways: skiers imagining the path they’ll follow in the ski run perform better in a downhill race. House movers imagining guiding the couch through the living room door can reliably conclude that it will in fact pass through the door.
But how can it be? If imagination is an arbitrary escape from reality, we can imagine whatever we like. How can this give us knowledge about reality, then? Better understanding how imagination as mental simulation works – which traps we are prone to fall into when we use it, when it can give us new, reliably formed and true beliefs – will help us to become better mental simulators, thus better equipped to deal with the uncertainties of the future. This is what this talk is about.

The lecture will be preceded by a brief drinks reception from 5.00-5.30.
Attendance is free and open to all.

Public Lectures

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Public lecture; Stirling; Sept. 20

Whatever we Know, there is More: the Cyborg Enhancement of Human Experience

 

Public Lecture by Liviu Babitz (CEO, Cyborg Nesthttps://cyborgnest.net/)

 

Sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy

 

When: 17.45 – 19.15, Thursday September 20th

Where: Pathfoot Lecture Theatre, University of Stirling

 

What would it be like to have an extra sense for experiencing the world, something in addition to the usual biological endowment of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste? And what would it be like to have a piece of intelligently designed technology physically, permanently and intimately anchored to your body that gave you that extra sense? How would that change the way you encounter, remember and think about reality? Liviu Babitz can tell you, because, for well over a year now, he has been a real, living cyborg, a technologically enhanced human being. Liviu’s sensory capacities have been augmented by the North Sense, an artificial exo-sense that is fixed onto the upper part of his chest, and that enables him to sense – to experience, not merely to detect – the magnetic field of the planet, and thus to perceive directly where north is.

Beyond any practical advantages such technological augmentation may bring (knowing where north is has been historically significant for human beings across cultures, and some other animals have an evolved, organic north sense), Liviu’s goal, and the goal of his fellow digital pioneers and transhumanists at the company he co-founded, Cyborg Nest, is to change the way we perceive reality. In this public lecture, Liviu will discuss the North Sense and his experience of living with it as part of him, in the context of a broader set of opportunities and concerns associated with our increasingly intimate and powerful couplings with progressively more sophisticated and intelligent technology. To explore these issues, Liviu will be joined by Professor Michael Wheeler (Philosophy, University of Stirling) and Dr Alisa Mandrigin (Anniversary Research Fellow in Psychology and Philosophy, University of Stirling). Everyone is welcome and there will be time to ask questions and join in the discussion. So come along and glimpse our species’ future.

 

This event is free, but if you are intending to come along, it would be helpful if you would register using the following link. This is to assist us with the planning. Thank you.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/whatever-we-know-there-is-more-the-cyborg-enhancement-of-human-experience-tickets-49980125902??

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Axel Honneth in Edinburgh 28 June

From Mirko Canevaro (Classics, Edinburgh):

Honour in Classical Greece
Public Lecture Series

28 June 2018

5:10–7:30pm

Speaker: Professor Axel Honneth (Frankfurt/Columbia)

Venue: Playfair Hall, Royal College of Surgeons, Nicolson St, Edinburgh EH8 9DW

Our project is delighted to welcome as its second public lecturer Axel Honneth, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia and Frankfurt Universities and Director of the latter’s renowned Institut für Sozialforschung.

The theme of Professor Honneth’s lecture is ‘Recognition in Modern Europe’.

The lecture will be followed by a reception.

All are welcome. The event is free to attend, but registration is required. Please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/axel-honneth-hcg-lecture-recognition-in-modern-europe-tickets-46450397389.

Dr Mirko Canevaro

Reader in Greek History
Department of Classics
The University of Edinburgh
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Lacan in Scotland; Edinburgh; May 8

From Amanda Diserholt (Edinburgh Napier):

Please join us for a seminar by Aaron Schuster on: From Hedonism to the Symptom: The Destiny of Lust

In this seminar, we will examine Lacan’s notion of jouissance, through the lens of Plato’s dialogue Philebus, his most advanced treatment of the question of pleasure and the good life. How is Lacan’s notion of enjoyment both grounded in Plato’s theory on pleasure as well as a decisive break from it? What are the moral and ontological implications of Lacan’s idea of enjoyment? How does it relate to Freud’s attempts to theorize the nature of Lust? In addition to the interpretation of Lacan, we will sketch a history of pleasure, starting with Plato’s critique of hedonism and ending with Freud’s paradoxical notion of the “unfelt pleasure” of the symptom. From Greek hedonism to the neurotic symptom: is this the destiny of Lust?

Aaron Schuster is a philosopher and writer, based in Amsterdam. He is the author of The Trouble with Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis (MIT Press, 2016). He was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in 2016, and will be at the Society of Fellows, Cornell University in 2018-2019.

You are invited to read Aaron Schuster’s texts:
Is Pleasure a Rotten Idea?

Being and Enjoyment in Plato’s Philebus: A Lacanian Perspective

Tuesday May 8 at 18:30 – 20:00 
Edinburgh Napier University, Merchiston Campus, Room G24

**FREE AND OPEN TO ALL**

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Paul Boghossian at the Royal Society of Edinburgh; 23 May

?The Knowledge Beyond Natural Science project at the University of Stirling would like to announce the third of the project’s series of Public Lectures.  The lecture will be given on Wednesday 23 May 2018 by Professor Paul Boghossian of New York University. He will address the question: ‘Should we be Relativists about Morality?’

Many people, philosophers and non-philosophers alike, regard themselves as relativists about morality. They are suspicious of there being any objective truths about how we should conduct our lives. In this talk, Professor Boghossian will argue that relativism about morality is not an option: we face a stark voice between eliminating moral discourse altogether or accepting a certain measure of objectivity about the moral domain. He will conclude by arguing in favour of the latter option.
 
The lecture will be held in the Wellcome West Room of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s building at 28 George Street, Edinburgh. Attendance is free and open to all.
 
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Scottish Aesthetics Forum, Edinburgh, 2 November, Dr Angela Breitenbach

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its next lecture:

Dr Angela Breitenbach (Cambridge)

“Aesthetic reflection and scientific understanding”

Thursday, 2 November, 2017, 4:15 – 6:00pm

Room 7.01, Dugald Stewart Building,

University of Edinburgh

The lecture is free and open to all!

Abstract: “Scientists routinely speak of the aesthetic merit of theories, proofs and explanations, often regarding the experience of beauty and elegance in science as a motivation for their work and an indication of its truth. But aesthetic judgments in science are as controversial as they are widespread. On one side, aestheticians have worried that statements about the beauty of a theory or the elegance of a proof are merely metaphorical and lack genuine aesthetic status. On the other side, philosophers of science have wondered why aesthetic concerns should play any role in the search for scientific knowledge. I address this two-fold challenge by asking how judgments of beauty could be both aesthetic and relevant for scientific enquiry. I propose an answer inspired by the Kantian idea that aesthetic experience is grounded, at least in part, in the subject’s spontaneous intellectual activities. I argue that relevant aesthetic judgments are grounded in the subject’s awareness of her creative intellectual activities in devising and grasping a theory. And I suggest that judgments of this kind may offer a heuristic tool for scientific enquiry by indicating achievements of understanding.”

About the speaker: Angela Breitenbach is a Lecturer in philosophy at King’s College at the University of Cambridge. Her work includes Kantian conceptions of aesthetics and beauty in science and mathematics, the relationship between laws and unity, causality and causal knowledge, as well as Kantian perspectives on biology and nature, among other things. Along with being a Fellow at King’s College, she’s also a ProFutura Fellow at CRASSH and a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. She’s recently done a TEDx Talk called “Can theories be beautiful?” which is available on YouTube.

Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by 26 October.

*** There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ***

Don’t miss our upcoming events!

7 December 2017 – Michael Newall (Kent) and

24 January 2018 – Kathleen Stock (Sussex)

– To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

– For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk

– Or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum
and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottishaestheticsforum

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The Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence; 26 May, Glasgow

The Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence

The Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence seeks to make productive in a contemporary context the distinctive approach of the Scottish Enlightenment to legal philosophy. The Lecture invites some of the world’s most distinguished legal and political philosophers whose ideas have reached out beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries, to shape innovative thinking on key philosophical, political and social aspects of law and government. It is envisaged that these lectures will form landmark moments in our understanding of contemporary debates on law and its place in an interconnected world.

2017 Lecture

T?he 2017 Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence will take place on Friday 26 May.  The invited speaker is A J Julius (UCLA) who will be presenting on ‘Free production through and against property’.

The event will take place at 5:30pm, Humanities Lecture Hall, Main Building.  A drinks reception will follow the lecture.

Free Entry – All welcome

Abstract

This lecture will arrange for Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Kant, and Fichte to agree about property by arranging for them to agree with Karl Marx. The project of using what’s mine to make what’s mine is an attempt at producing freely. It fails: the general interdependence of individual production activity as it’s organized by private property is a mutual subjection. The attempt will succeed only when propertyless workers free themselves to work together on purpose.

More information: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/adam-smith-lecture-in-jurisprudence-tickets-34573781110?aff=es2

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Scottish Aesthetics Forum: Dr Cain Todd; 27 April; Edinburgh

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its next lecture:

Dr Cain Todd (Lancaster)

“Transparency, Imagination, and Time in
Aesthetic Experience”

Thursday, 27 April, 2017, 4:15 – 6:00pm

Room 1.20, Dugald Stewart Building,

University of Edinburgh

The lecture is free and open to all!

Abstract: The main aim of this paper is to explore some connections between imagination and time in aesthetic experiences, where such experiences are not confined solely to an engagement with works of art. In the process, I will examine how aesthetic experiences differ significantly from perceptual experiences in respect of their transparency, their employment of attention, and their effects on temporal representation. This will lead to a discussion of some implications for how we should characterise aesthetic experiences in general, as well as how to understand the normative dimension of the judgements that are held to express them.

About the speaker: Cain Todd is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Lancaster. His main research interests span predominantly issues in aesthetics that intersect with concerns in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. Currently, he focuses on the nature of emotion and imagination with a view to outlining their roles in value judgement. As part of this project he also works on buck-passing accounts of value, evaluative disagreement and relativism, the phenomenology of evaluative experience, meta-cognition, and the nature of epistemic emotions. He is the author of the monograph The Philosophy of Wine: A Case of Truth, Beauty, and Intoxication (London: Acumen 2010).

Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by Monday, 24 April.

*** There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ***

– To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

– For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk

– Or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum

SAF is generously supported by the
British Society of Aesthetics & the Scots Philosophical Association.

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Scottish Aesthetics Forum, 6 April, Edinburgh, Dr Hans Maes

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its next lecture:

Dr Hans Maes (Kent)

“Portraits of Philosophers and the Philosophy of Portraits”

Thursday, 6 April, 2017, 4:15 – 6:00pm

7 Bristo Square, Room G.009 – Richard Verney Health Centre,

University of Edinburgh

The lecture is free and open to all!

Abstract: This paper presents a close analysis of Steve Pyke’s famous series of portraits of philosophers. By comparing his photographs to other well-known series of portraits and to other portraits of philosophers we will seek a better understanding of the distinctiveness and fittingness of Pyke’s project. With brief nods to Barthes, Baudrillard, Berger, Hegel, and Schopenhauer and an extensive critical investigation of Cynthia Freeland’s ideas on portraiture in general and her reading of Steve Pyke’s portraits in particular this paper will also aim to make a contribution to the philosophical debate on portraiture.

About the speaker: Hans Maes studied at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and graduated there with a PhD in Philosophy. His dissertation, focusing on problems in ethics and moral psychology, was published as a book in Belgium and The Netherlands. He has since made aesthetics and the philosophy of art the main focus of his postdoctoral activities. He worked at the Department of Aesthetics of the University of Helsinki, Finland, and the University of Maryland, USA, before moving to Kent where he is currently Senior Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Art. He has authored papers on a variety of topics in aesthetics, including the role of intention in the interpretation of art, the notion of free beauty, the art of portraiture, and the relation between art and pornography. The latter is the subject of two essay collections: Art and Pornography (co-edited with Jerrold Levinson, OUP, 2012); and Pornographic Art and The Aesthetics of Pornography (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013). Hans Maes is Co-Director of the Aesthetics Research Centre at Kent and from 2010 until 2013 was President of the Dutch Association of Aesthetics. For more information about Hans Maes’ work please visit: https://kent.academia.edu/HansMaes

Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by Monday, 3 April.

*** There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ***

– To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

– For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk

– Or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum

SAF is generously supported by the
British Society of Aesthetics & the Scots Philosophical Association.

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The Scottish Aesthetics Forum (7 March, Univ. of Edinburgh)

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its next lecture:

 

Professor Derek Matravers (Open University)

“Those Pesky Categories of Fact and Fiction”

Tuesday, 7 March, 2017, 4:15 – 6:00pm

Sydney Smith Lecture Theatre – Doorway 1 (Medical School, Teviot)

University of Edinburgh

 

The lecture is free and open to all!

 

Abstract: This paper will consider whether works in genres such as biopics, docudramas, and Shakespeare’s History Plays are fiction or non-fiction. It will argue that (a) some of them are non-fictions and (b) that, for others, it is a mistake to classify them under either heading. This will lead to a consideration of what motivates authors of non-fiction, and argues that a commitment to truth has both an epistemological and a non-epistemological function. Along the way it will conclude (as does Kendall Walton) that it is misguided to think that fiction is more of a philosophical puzzle than non-fiction.

 

About the speaker: Derek Matravers is Professor of Philosophy at The Open University. His main interests are in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, while he also works in political philosophy, ethics, and the philosophy of mind. Currently, he is considering how to integrate the protection of cultural property into Just War Theory, whist also working on some problems from his recent monograph Fiction and Narrative (OUP: 2014). Other recent books by Derek Matravers include Empathy (Polity: 2017), and a collection, edited with Damien Freeman, entitled Figuring Out Figurative Art (Routledge: 2014). Derek Matravers is on the Executive Committee of the Royal Music Association Music and Philosophy Study Group, and a founder-member of the International Network of Sympathy, Empathy, and the Imagination. For more information: http://www.open.ac.uk/people/dcm4.

 

Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by Friday, 3 March.

*** There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis. ***

 

• To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

• For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk

• Or find us and like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum

 

SAF is generously supported by the

British Society of Aesthetics & the Scots Philosophical Association.

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John Stuart Mill lecture, St Andrews, 3 Feb 2016

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of John Stuart Mill’s inaugural address as Rector of the University of St Andrews:
A lecture by Prof. Helen Small (Oxford): ‘The Liberal University and its Enemies’
Response by Catherine Stihler MEP, the current Rector.
5pm, Friday 3 February 2017
School 3, St. Salvator’s Quad, North Street, St. Andrews
All welcome.
For further information, please contact James Harris at jah15@st-and.ac.uk
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Dudley Knowles Memorial Lecture in Political Philosophy: Victor Tadros, Glasgow 25 January

THE STEVENSON TRUST FOR CITIZENSHIP

Dudley Knowles Memorial Lecture in Political Philosophy

 

 

Professor Victor Tadros

Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory

University of Warwick

 

‘A Moral Law for War’

 

Wednesday, January 25th 2017 at 6 p.m.

 

 

Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre

(Corner of Gibson Street and University Avenue)

 

 

A substantial body of recent work in just war theory claims that the moral considerations that determine whether acts of individual combatants during a war are permissible or wrong are not reflected in the laws of armed conflict. Whereas morality prohibits the killing of combatants on the just side of a war, the law does not. And whereas morality sometimes permits the killing of non-combatants on the unjust side, again the law does not. Many also defend these divergences between law and morality. I will offer a cautious case for revising the law to achieve greater convergence between morality and the laws of war.

 

 

Professor Dudley Ross Knowles (1947 – 2014) was a renowned political philosopher who taught at Glasgow University from 1973 to 2011.  He was a staunch supporter of the Stevenson Trust and insisted that the Trust’s commitment to public education must include the contribution of political philosophy to examining issues of contemporary relevance in a manner accessible to all citizens.  In 2015 the Stevenson committee endorsed his view by instigating an annual public lecture on political philosophy in his memory.  

 

 

 

The lecture will be followed by discussion and a drinks reception at 7.30 p.m.  All staff, students, and members of the public are welcome.  No advance booking is necessary.  For further information contact: stevensontrust@glasgow.ac.uk

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Peter Fritz talks in St Andrews (4 – 9 December)

Dr Peter Fritz (Oslo) will be visiting the Arché Research Centre at St Andrews from 4-9 December. He will give three talks, as follows:
Tues Dec 6, 3 till 5 pm: Peter Fritz (Oslo): ‘Higher-Order Contingentism’

I will give an overview of some of my recent work on higher-order contingentism, roughly the view that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are. I first consider closely related versions of this view proposed by Kit Fine and Robert Stalnaker, and show that they provide satisfactory answers to a challenge for higher-order contingentism posed by Timothy Williamson. The formal development of the view due to Kit Fine turns out to be in need of revision, as it appeals to resources not available according to the view itself. I then consider another challenge for higher-order contingentism, namely to account for our seemingly intelligible talk of possible things which according to their metaphysics do not exist; versions of this challenge have been put forward by several authors in different contexts. It can be shown that even in extremely rich languages, the higher-order contingentist views considered here have difficulties meeting this challenge, as there are no plausible ways of paraphrasing the relevant claims concerning merely possible entities.

Wed Dec 7, 10 am till 12 noon: Peter Fritz (Oslo): ‘Logics for Propositional Contingentism’

Robert Stalnaker has recently advocated propositional contingentism, the claim that it is contingent what propositions there are. He has proposed a philosophical theory of contingency in what propositions there are and sketched a possible worlds model theory for it. Such models can be used to interpret two propositional modal languages: one containing an existential propositional quantifier, and one containing an existential propositional operator. I present results which show that the resulting logic containing an existential quantifier is not recursively axiomatizable, and that a natural candidate axiomatization for the resulting logic containing an existential operator is incomplete.

Thu Dec 8, 11 am till 1 pm: Peter Fritz (Oslo): ‘Predication and Existence’

Contingentists, those who think that it is contingent what individuals there are, face the following question: is it possible for relations to relate individuals there could be, but there aren’t? Higher-order contingentists, roughly those who think that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are, face the analogous question for propositions, properties and relations. I argue first that higher-order contingentists should answer both questions positively: relations relate not only what there is, but also what there could be. I then show that higher-order contingentists have ways of talking about relations, properties and propositions which there could not possibly be, namely by constructing them out of relations, properties and propositions there could be. Such possibilities open up a further question: is it possible for relations to relate lower-level relations, properties or propositions there could not possibly be? I argue that higher-order contingentists should also answer this questions positively: relations relate not only what there is and what there could be, but also what there couldn’t be.

All talks in Edgecliffe, The Scores, St Andrews: Room G03

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Prof. H. Clark Barrett (UCLA) at the University of Edinburgh (April 28)

25th PPLS Interdisciplinary Seminar
Thursday 28th April, 1715 – 1900. Venue TBC.
University of Edinburgh.

Keynote: Prof. H. Clark Barrett (UCLA)
Title: Mindreading, morality, and the search for human cognitive specializations

Further event details: http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/events/view/25th-ppls-interdisciplinary-seminar

Abstract
The question of whether and how evolutionary processes have shaped the human mind is fraught with controversy. In particular, the question of whether humans have any uniquely derived cognitive specializations remains essentially unanswered, in part because of our inability to adjudicate between the many competing proposals in the literature. In this talk I will wade into this controversy and ask what strategies we might use to begin to try to sift through the plethora of hypotheses about specialized mental mechanisms in humans. As a case study, I will consider two abilities that have been proposed to be uniquely elaborated in humans: our capacity to make inferences about the thoughts and feelings of others, sometimes called “mindreading”, and our capacity of moral judgment, thought to be essential for forms of large-scale sociality that humans exhibit. Using data from cross-cultural studies of cognition, I will suggest that both of these abilities are likely to be uniquely elaborated in humans, that they are likely composed of multiple components, and that these components interact in complex ways that can be mixed and matched in different ways across situations, cultures, and individuals. I will use these observations about mindreading and morality to outline a strategy for refining the search for human cognitive specializations.

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Raymond Plant giving the inaugural Dudley Knowles Memorial Lecture, Glasgow 21 January

On Thursday 21 January we will be holding the first Dudley Knowles memorial Lecture in Political Philosophy, hosted by the Stevenson Committee. The speaker will be Professor Lord Raymond Plant, and he will be speaking on the subject ‘Religious Freedom and Identity in the Liberal State’. Everyone is very welcome. The lecture will be from 6pm to 7.30pm in the Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre (the converted church at the top of Gibson Street, very close to the Philosophy Department), and there will be a drinks reception afterwards. Everyone is very welcome; no need to book in advance.

 

Background

 

Professor Dudley Ross Knowles (1947 – 2014) was a renowned political philosopher who taught at Glasgow University from 1975 to 2012 and was a staunch supporter of the Stevenson Trust.  Dudley insisted that the Trust’s commitment to public education must include the contribution of political philosophy to examining issues of contemporary relevance in a manner accessible to all citizens.  In 2015 the Stevenson committee decided to endorse Professor Knowles’s view by instigating an annual public lecture on political philosophy in his memory.

 

Raymond Plant is currently Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Philosophy at King’s College London and has represented Labour in the House of Lords as Baron Plant of Highfields since 1992.  He was also Professor of Divinity at Gresham College and is a Lay Canon at Winchester Cathedral.  He was previously Master of St Catherine’s College Oxford, Professor of European Political Thought at the University of Southampton and has given prestigious lecture series in Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, Manchester and Southampton.  He is well known at Glasgow University as one of our most formidable Stevenson Lecturers.

 

Professor Plant has written extensively in political, social and legal philosophy.  His range of published work on the Neo Liberal State reflects and informs his public and political service.  He has been a member of the Nuffield Council on Medical Ethics and served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights for the House of Lords.  He also has contributed to party policy making, for instance,  by chairing reports for the Labour Party on Electoral Reform, and (for the Fabian Society) on Taxation and Citizenship.

 

Raymond Plant and Dudley Knowles share many concerns and interests in applying political philosophy to issues such rights, welfare, political obligation and citizenship.  They are also both leading authorities on Hegel’s political philosophy from whom each draws inspiration.

 

The subject of Professor Plant’s lecture arises from reflections on the subject which began during his period of tenure as Professor at Sciences Po (the Paris Institute of Political Studies).

 

All best wishes,

 

Ben

 

Dr Ben Colburn

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy

School of Humanities

University of Glasgow

67-69 Oakfield Avenue

Glasgow G12 8QQ

+44 (0) 141 330 4277

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2015 New Enlightenment Lecture by Professor Alison Wylie

2015 New Enlightenment Lecture by Professor Alison Wylie
14th December 2015, Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
Organisers: Giada Fratantonio, Michela Massimi, Anna Ortín

The Edinburgh Women in Philosophy Group (EWPG) is pleased to announce that the 2015 New Enlightenment Lecture will take place on Monday, 14th December (from 15.00h in room 3.10/3.11 Dugald Stewart Building). Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Professor Alison Wylie (University of Washington -Seattle, Durham University) will give a plenary on

What Knowers Know Well: Why feminism matters, to archaeology for example

http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/events/view/new-enlightenment-lecture-2

The lecture is preceded by a roundtable and followed by a Christmas dinner.

This event has been made possible thanks to the support of the Scottish Philosophical Association, the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences and Philosophy at Edinburgh.

The event is part of an annual series of lectures that started in December 2012 with the idea of providing our graduate community with women role models in philosophy.

For more details, please see:

http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/philosophy/groups/edinburgh-women-in-philosophy-group

All welcome!

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Scottish Aesthetics Forum 2015-2016

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum at Edinburgh will host four talks in 2015-2016:

  • Gregory Currie (York), “The Visible Surface: Painting, Photography, Cinema,” 11th December, 2015, 4:00 – 6:00pm.  Abstract: “Pictures are surfaces with marks on them. Different kinds of pictures have different kinds of marks, produced in different ways. The marks themselves have an interest in painting and drawing which they do not have in photography and cinema. This difference enables us to identify and explain a feature of some pictures which I call “apparent transparency”. This is not the same as Walton-style transparency and pictures which have apparent transparency need not be (and in my view are not) transparent. The interest that marks have in painting are of different kinds depending on whether those marks are co-incident. I explain the notion of co-incidence and use it to highlight some of the aesthetic differences between different kinds of paintings and to extend Wollheim’s notion of twofoldness.”
  • Stacie Friend (London), TBA, 5th February, 2016, 4pm.
  • Catharine Abell (Manchester), TBA, 18th March, 2016, 4pm.
  • David Davies (McGill), TBA, 29th April, 2016, 4pm.

For more information: http://www.saf.ppls.ed.ac.uk/

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Nancy Cartwright in Scotland

Nancy Cartwright (University of San Diego and Durham University) will be in the Scotland in early December, delivering two talks:

  • On Tuesday, 8th December, the Knox Memorial Lecture at St Andrews: “Will this policy work for us? Undertsanding and misunderstanding randomised controlled trials.”  Tuesday 8th December, 5:15pm in School II.  There will also be a seminar the following morning at 11am in Edgecliffe.  For more information: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophy/events/?eventid=689 
  • On  Wednesday, 9th December, a Royal Institute of Philosophy & Royal Society of Edinburgh Lecture: “Scientific Generalizations: What’s So Good about Missing Out All the Differences?”  Wednesday, 9th December, 6:00pm at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  For more information: https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/events/event.php?id=412
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Scottish Aesthetics Forum: Emily Brady

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its fourth lecture:

Professor Emily Brady (Edinburgh)

“Sublimity and Art”

Wednesday, 10th June, 2015, 4:15 – 6:00pm

Dugald Stewart Building, Room 1.20, 

University of Edinburgh

(https://www.facebook.com/events/1590208141234748/)

The lecture is free and open to all!

Abstract: The arts have an ambivalent status in the history of the sublime. Some philosophers have taken poetry, painting, and music to be sublime, while others have clearly designated the arts as capable only of representing, conveying, or expressing it, that is, somehow derivative of sublimity in nature, whether that be through visual depictions of sublime phenomena, through the language of poetry and literature, or through music. Here, I take as a starting point the eighteenth-century view that the arts, on the whole, are not sublime as such and consider it with reference to recent debates in aesthetics. I argue that (1) paradigm cases of the sublime involve qualities related to overwhelming vastness or power coupled with a strong emotional reaction of excitement and delight tinged with anxiety, and (2) because most works of art lack the combination of these qualities and accompanying responses, they cannot be sublime in the paradigmatic sense. Along the way, I discuss differences between sublimity and profundity in art, and consider the inclusion of works of architecture and some forms of land art in the category of the sublime.

About the speaker: Emily Brady is Professor of Environment and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She is a Trustee of the American Society of Aesthetics, and has previously held the positions of President of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, Secretary, Treasurer, and Executive Committee Member of the British Society of Aesthetics. Her research interests and publications span aesthetics and the philosophy of art, environmental ethics, eighteenth-century philosophy, Kant, and animal studies. She has co-edited a number of volumes on environmental ethics and aesthetics, and is the author of two monographs, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment (2003), The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature (2013). She is currently working on her third monograph, Aesthetics of Nature in the Eighteenth Century: A Philosophical History.

Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by Saturday, 6th June. There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, offered on a first-come-first-served basis.

To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

For more information: http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/groups/scottish-aesthetics-forum

Or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum

SAF is generously supported by the British Society of Aesthetics and the Scots Philosophical Association.

Posted by Derek Brown on

Scottish Aesthetics Forum, 22nd April

The Scottish Aesthetics Forum is delighted to announce its third lecture:

Professor Berys Gaut (St Andrews)

“Cinematic Art and Technology”

Wednesday, 22nd April, 2015, 4:15 – 6:00pm

Dugald Stewart Building, 3.10-3.11, 

University of Edinburgh

(https://www.facebook.com/events/678593888935896/)

The lecture is free and open to all!

Abstract: “Cinema was born as technology and rapidly grew into an art. What is the relation of its artistic to its technological properties? In this paper I develop an argument to show that the proper artistic appreciation of cinematic artworks is partly dependent on their technological features. I also illustrate and defend this claim by comparing how digital films can solve certain filmmaking problems with how non-digital films can do so. I then discuss whether the argument shows that digital films are, other things equal, lesser artistic achievements than are non-digital ones.”

About the speaker: Berys Gaut is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, President of the British Society of Aesthetics, and an Editorial Consultant to the British Journal of Aesthetics. His research interests and publications span both aesthetics and moral theory, and especially the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, the philosophy of film and film theory, and the philosophy of creativity. He is the author of two monographs, Art, Emotion and Ethics (OUP 2007) and A Philosophy of Cinematic Art (CUP 2010), and is currently working on a new one, Exploring Creativity: A Philosophical Inquiry.

Additional information: The lecture will be followed by a dinner with our speaker. If you would like to attend the dinner, please contact the organisers by Friday, 17th April. There are limited funds to cover dinner expenses for two students, which will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis.

To contact the organisers: scottishaestheticsforum@gmail.com.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/groups/scottish-aesthetics-forum

Or find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottishaestheticsforum

SAF is generously supported by the British Society of Aesthetics and the Scots Philosophical Association.