Upcoming Conference
Neo-Pragmatism: Truth and Justification
December 6–7, 2012
Co-Sponsored by SHAPE research seminar (Sydney) and Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (Oslo)
Organizers: David Macarthur, Bjorn Ramberg.
Venue: S421, Main Quad, University of Sydney
Synopsis
The aim of this conference will be to explore the latest neo-pragmatist approaches in epistemology with a central focus on the debate between Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty – the two fathers of neo-pragmatism – on the nature of truth and justification and their relationship. Key questions that we will pursue include: What is the most fruitful non-essentialist approach to truth? Is truth the goal of inquiry? In what sense is truth a norm of inquiry (if at all)? What is the connection between truth and justification if we are to avoid the mistake of identifying the two with each other? What is the relation between justification and a community of inquirers (believers)?
6 December
- 8.45-9.00 tea/coffee
- 9.00-10.30 Barry Allen (McMaster, Canada) – “Disepistemology”
- 10.30-10.45 tea/coffee
- 10.45-12.15 Nicholas Kompridis (Western Sydney) - "Critique, Justification, and World-Disclosure: On Forms of Philosophy and Philosophy's Image of Itself"
- 12.15-1.45 lunch
- 1.45-3.15 Bjorn Ramberg (Oslo, Norway) – “Rorty on Truth and Justification: A s Stab at a Defense.”
- 3.15-3.30 tea/coffee
- 3.30-5.00 Paul Redding (Sydney) – "Pragmatism, Idealism and the Modal Menace: Rorty, Brandom and Truths about Photons"
- 5.00-6.30 David Macarthur (Sydney) – “Price, Rorty & the Unimaginability of Truth’s Evolution”
7 December
- 8.45-9.00 tea/coffee
- 9.00-10.30 Cathy Legg (Waikato, NZ) – “Semiotic Platonic Realism”
- 10.30-10.45 tea/coffee
- 10.45-12.15 Gary Ebbs (Indiana, USA) – “Entitlement at the Limits of
Doubt” - 12.15-1.45 lunch
- 1.45-3.15 Massimo Dell’Utri (Sassari, Italy) – “The Realist Wager: Challenging Rorty on His Home Ground".”
- 3.15-3.30 tea/coffee
- 3.30-5.00 Jonathan Knowles (NTNU, Norway) – “The World Well Lost Twice Over”
- 5.00-6.30 Ramón Del Castillo (UNED, Spain) – tba
Download Conference Timetable
Download Conference Flyer
Contact information:
Dr David Macarthur
P +61-2-9351-3193
E
Recent Conferences
Themes from Cavell
Sponsored by the SHAPE seminar and research group
The McRae Room, Quadrangle Building A14
University of Sydney
Mon 27- Tue 28 February, 2012.
Stanley Cavell (b.1926-) is an uncategorisable American philosopher who is indispensable for anyone who wishes to think fruitfully about why philosophy matters to us, or who is uncomfortable about having to stand on one side or other of the analytic/continental divide, or who wishes to give reflections on art and aesthetics and culture a more central role in their philosophical thinking. In this conference we shall explore themes from across Cavell's vast and wide-ranging writings: from his radical re-thinking of the problematic of skepticism in the context of a ground-breaking reading of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and the fruitfulness of his conception of the ordinary and the related concept of acknowledgement, and his defence of the procedures of ordinary language philosophy, to his influential readings of Hollywood cinema of the 1930s-1940s and his articulation of a form of moral perfectionism.
Speakers Included
- Nikolas Kompridis (UWS),
- David Macarthur (Sydney),
- Jennifer McMahon (UAdel.),
- Andrew Norris (UC, Santa Barbara),
- Paul Patton (UNSW),
- Robert Sinnerbrink (UMacq.),
- Paul Thom (Sydney)
- Stephen White (Tufts),
- Greg Strom (Sydney).
Download Conference Program
For more information please contact the Conference organiser:
Dr David Macarthur
Room S412, Quadrangle A14
Ph +61-2-9351 3193
Fax +61-2-9351 6660
The Sublime: A Re-Evaluation
Sponsored by the SHAPE seminar and research group
21-22 February, 2011
The Refectory, Quadrangle Building
University of Sydney
This is the first conference sponsored by SHAPE (Social, Historical, Aesthetic, Political and Environmental Philosophy), a group dedicated to explorations in the philosophy of value broadly conceived. This conference brings together members of the Philosophy Dept at Sydney University who have a research interest in aesthetics with new and interesting voices from overseas who are involved with the SHAPE group.
The topic of the sublime, which was one of most widely discussed matters in C18 aesthetics, has received scant attention in Anglo-American philosophy, at least when compared with beauty. And when we turn to Kant scholarship we find the same asymmetrical treatment ? despite the fact that, for Kant, the sublime is akin to the beautiful in so far as it involves the disinterested response that he saw as central to aesthetic experience. But recently there has been a revival of interest in the sublime stimulated in large part by its apparently embracing various stimulating paradoxes (e.g. taking pleasure in pain; gaining insights by way of an apprehension of limitation; the understanding in a fraught relation with the imagination). In this conference we aim to re-examine the sublime and its importance for aesthetic experience and our appreciation of art.
For more information please contact the Conference organiser:
Dr David Macarthur
Room S412, Quadrangle A14
Ph +61-2-9351 3193
Fax +61-2-9351 6660
Keep up to date with this conference on the SOPHIstry blog
The Rise of Empiricism
6 – 7 September, 2010
Darlington Centre,
Institute Building boardroom
Empiricism is often regarded as the characterising feature of modern scientific method, and, in those approaches to psychology and the social and economic sciences that seek to model themselves on successful scientific practice in the physical and life sciences, it often acts as a model of good practice. Yet what is advocated is a very simplified model in which a rarefied notion of method as value-free inquiry is presented as the essence of empiricism. The failings of such a conception have long been evident, but the motivations behind the various forms of empiricism have remained obscure. The conference will explore new avenues to the original form of empiricism and show how it was able to directly engage questions of value in a novel and revealing way, and how its connection with ‘hard’ sciences was not merely to provide a methodological gloss on these, but went to the core of what scientific explanation consisted in.
Speakers
- Peter Anstey (Otago University)
- Millicent Churcher (Sydney University)
- Stephen Gaukroger (Sydney University)
- Peter Kail (Oxford University)
- Rhodri Lewis (Oxford University)
- David Macarthur (Sydney University)
- Liam Semler (Sydney University)
- Dejan Simko (Sydney University)
- Alberto Vanzo (Otago University)
- Anik Waldow (Sydney University)
- Charles Wolfe (Sydney University)
Contact
Dr. Anik Waldow
Lecturer
Department of Philosophy, SOPHI
University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Telephone: +61 2 91141245
Fax: +61 2 9351 3918
Email:
Religion and Post-Kantian Research Cluster Conference
Hegel and Religion
University of Sydney, Australia
14 – 15 September, 2010
Sponsored by the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney.
Hegel occupies a critical position within the history of modern Western attitudes to God and religion. Traditionally, Hegel's philosophy had been regarded as an expression, perhaps the last and most luxuriant, of the world-view that inextricably linked orthodox theological and metaphysical notions. However, according to some more recent interpretations, Hegel's "absolute idealism" should be thought of as advancing the spirit of Kant's critical project beyond the problems of the "letter" within which it had been expressed. The conference aims at addressing various issues related to Hegel’s account of religion, and at showing the relevance of Hegel’s approach for contemporary debates over religion.
Confirmed Keynote speakers:
- Stephen Houlgate (University of Warwick, UK)
- Maurizio Pagano (University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy)
- Paul Redding (University of Sydney, Australia)
Further information
For further information, or enquiries, please contact
Professor Paul Redding
or Dr Paolo Diego Bubbio .
For further information about the Religion and Post-Kantian Philosophy Research Cluster, see: the Research Cluster website
Previous years
New Horizons in Political Philosophy 2009
Annual Australian Postgraduate Conference
26-27 November 2009
University of Sydney
Enter the conference website
Persons by Convention
December 16-18, 2008
The Refectory, Main Quad, The University of Sydney.
Some things in the world are perfectly real, but not perhaps instances of natural kinds. Corporations, nations, swimming pools are all rightly so called because of sets of conventional practices in which they are involved. Could persons fall into this category? In the last decade or so a number of theorists have argued so. This conference focuses on the state of this debate–both exploring new ways to make sense of the idea, and new stumbling blocks to its progress.
Contact:
Michael Slezak
Russellian Society
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry
Main Quad, A14
University of Sydney, NSW 2006
Violence and the Post-Colonial Welfare State in France and Australia
October 18, 2007
Department of Philosophy and Department of Sociology
The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2006
The guiding hypothesis of this workshop is that there are fruitful and
currently underdeveloped connections to be made between two groups of
scholars: those whose work relates to the violence occurring in
indigenous communities in Australia and those with expertise on
violence as it manifests in immigrant communities in France. We
anticipate that the comparative approach to the topic will provide an
innovative and stimulating avenue to explore highly significant (and
politically charged) issues of contemporary violence and
responsibility in the post-colonial welfare state.
Contact:
Russellian Society
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry
Main Quad, A14
University of Sydney, NSW 2006
Conference website
Norms and Analysis - From Personal Identity to the Rationality of Desire
Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney
26-28 June 2007
There is a picture of the world which is disenchanted – a world that contains only the ingredients of the natural sciences, with no mention of norms; no reasons to govern desires or obligations. But some of the objects in this world – one case is persons – seem to have among their persistence conditions norms and reasons. Is there a way to reconcile these pictures? Can we reconstruct reasons in an austere world? This conference explores these themes.
Enter website
Spinoza, politico-theology and the notion of authority, July 2006
On the 18th of July 2006 The Department of Philosphy hosted Spinoza, politico-theology and the notion of authority at St Paul’s College, University of Sydney speakers included Moira Gatens (University of Sydney), Stephen Gaukroger (University of Sydney), Jonathan Israel (Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton), Susan James (Birkbeck College, University of London), Genevieve Lloyd (Sydney), Theo Verbeek (University of Utrecht).
Papers for the Conference (click on name to download paper):
Click here for more information about the Program of History