UWE Philosophy Visiting Speaker Series
All talks are open to the public.
Talks take place every two weeks during term time, are held in room 4B27 (UWE Frenchay Campus) and start at 16:00 unless otherwise indicated. Our visiting speaker series is kindly funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy
2017 - 2018
Spring term
24/1/18 – Jiri Priban (Cardiff University)
‘Solidarity of the Shaken: on the Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics’
In European and global society, even the solidarity of the shaken is shaken these days. A new politics of fear is spreading fast in old and new democracies and increases the appeal of authoritarianism. This presentation addresses Václav Havel’s concepts of the “power of the powerless” and “existential revolution,” and Jan Patočka’s concept of the solidarity of the shaken. It draws on the current crisis of the British and European society which, instead of an existential revolution, is paradoxically experiencing a counterrevolution, turning politics into an existential matter of decision-making related to bare living in which the lust for power is as strong as the hatred of modern individual and the notion of civil rights and democratic government. Resisting this form of political existentialism – which reduces politics to the problems of bare life, surviving in constant fear, and the hatred that grows out of it – dissent as a microphysics of power reminds us that every politics is existential only to the extent to which human beings look for and find the meaning of their existence in it. However, human existence is not exhausted by politics. No politics, therefore, must become the system of decision-making about the meaning of life and human existence.
14/2/18 – Natasha McKeever (University of Leeds)
‘Against the Hegemony of Monogamy'
In this paper, I argue that the hegemony of monogamy prevents people from constructing and negotiating intimate relationships on their own terms and creates misunderstandings about the purpose and meaning of monogamy. I argue that it is important that monogamy is not just taken for granted as a feature of a romantic relationship and that it is not equated with romantic love. Thus, I oppose the norm (though not the practice) of monogamy.
The paper will be structured as follows: Firstly I will oppose an argument put forward by Michael Wreen (1986) that romantic love is necessarily monogamous, and I will further argue that monogamous relationships are not necessarily more valuable than non-monogamous relationships.
Secondly, I argue that the hegemonic norm of monogamy is problematic in at least three ways:
1. It limits options for people who don’t want to be monogamous.
2. It increases the prevalence and pain of adultery.
3. It diminishes the value of monogamy for people who want to be monogamous.
Finally I suggest that we should work towards making polyamory more acceptable. More realistic options to be openly non-monogamous could lead to less infidelity and greater relationship and life satisfaction for many people.
28/2/18 – Unfortunately this week's talk has been cancelled
14/3/18– Orianne Peteni (Université de Liège/UWE)
‘Visuality and tactility in Hegel's Philosophy’
Drawing on Blumenberg’s claim that the concept has a certain relation to the absence of its object and that this relation can be compared to the one between sight and touch, this talk will try to unfold the antinomic presupositions underlying the two sense’s mode of operating and explain its signification for a philosophy of totality such as the Hegelian one claims to be. The focus on the problem of sight in relation to the production of the concept will lead us to question the antique cosmological reflex of turning one’s eyes to the sky in order to get an immediate image of the totality. Taking into account that Hegel’s inaugural dissertation was on cosmology and that one can notice in the Phenomenology of Spirit a change of his position regarding the subject, I will question the meaning of the sight’s change of focus in the evolution of the Hegelian project and its importance to build a concrete universal. The talk will end up by sketching the political implications of such a revision.
Easter break 26/3/18 – 6/4/18
11/4/18 – Arun Iyer (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
'Foucault and the Essence of the Photographic Image'
This paper attempts to go over the radical contrast Foucault draws between Manet’s Olympia and Titian’s Venus of Urbino, in order to resolve once and for all the apparent ambiguity in Foucault's claim that Manet’s paintings, even if they do nothing but represent the external world, usher in a new epoch in the history of visual art in which painting breaks away from representing the external world. The paper shows how the resolution of this ambiguity brings to the fore a significant, but overlooked implication in Foucault’s reading of Manet, concerning the art of photography. Despite appearances to the contrary, photography becomes in its essence a non-representational art, existing squarely in the shadow cast by Manet’s Olympia.
18/4/18 - Massimiliano Simons (KU Leuven)
‘What would aliens say if .. we asked them the right questions?'
Please note the talk this week will be at 2.00 in 2B065
An often recurring theme in science-fiction is first contact with alien species or objects. Most science-fiction, however, assume that such contact is quite unproblematic and that the real juicy stuff resides in speculating about its consequences. But a more interesting branch of science-fiction aims precisely to explore the problem of contact itself: what if first contact fails and we do not succeed to understand the other? Starting from a survey of the work of authors such as Gregory Benford, Stanislaw Lem, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and Jeff VanderMeer, this problem will be explored. Here the central problem is not that of finding answers to our questions, but of finding the right questions to ask in the first place.
Precisely this dichotomy can teach us something about science as well. In philosophy of science there is often too much focus on the production of answers, while forgetting the work being done on articulating the right questions. First steps towards exploring this aspect of science can, however, be found in traditions such as the ‘philosophers of experiment’ (Ian Hacking, Peter Galison) and in contemporary Francophone philosophy of science (Bruno Latour, Vinciane Despret). One could reinterpret their work as attempts to articulate the necessary work being done to construct an adequate ‘horizon of questions’ or relevant ‘data domains’: what type of questions should scientists ask? And related to what kind of data? To adequately understand and evaluate contemporary scientific disciplines their ‘regime of articulation’ should be taken into account as well.
25/4/18 – Tina Röck (University of Dundee)
Networks, Processes and Ereignisse (events)
A Metaphysics and Ontology for the age of dynamic entanglement
We live in an age of entanglement and connection; we can reach the four corners of the universe at the touch of a finger. We also just seem to realise that we are engulfed by constant creation and evolution, by connectivity and malleability, by networks and information – not only in the realm of technology but also in the field of biology. However, we seem to lack an ontology and a metaphysical system that can cope with these insights. Traditional hierarchical metaphysical systems and the conventional ontologies of substance - characterised by stability, and the simple location of well-defined and separate constitutive elements - seem quite incapable of accounting for the dynamic and entangled reality that we are uncovering. This state of affairs is not surprising since relationality and creative change pose various challenges for thought. The most fundamental challenge seems to be the following: How can we conceptualise, systematise or account for - in a word how can we think - that which is relational, changing and creative as well as novel, without either turning it into stable hierarchical structures or ending with relativism and epistemic chaos?
In today’s presentation, I will propose three concepts that I consider fundamental in order to come to terms with these challenges: dynamic networks, processes and the Ereignis. Adequately understood all three terms describe or imply the dynamic, correlated, evolving and multiple reality we live in, but each concept focuses on and accounts for different aspects of what there is. The aim of today’s presentation is to clarify the nature of these conceptual layers and their mutual inter-dependence
Autumn Term
Wednesday 4th October - Al Baker (University of Leeds)
‘The Case Against New Art’
We might expect that the philosophy of art should be able to tell us why we should create art, what kinds of new art should be created, and give us some hints as to whether we should use public money to subsidise the creation of new art. Upon examination, however, it looks like contemporary theories of artistic value have a hard time telling us why we should create new art at all.
Contemporary aesthetics is very concerned with what kinds of value we get from engaging with art. Many views have been advanced concerning the potential or limitations of various kinds of art to give us pleasure, knowledge of various kinds, and aesthetic experiences, each often said to be valuable for its own sake. Since deciding whether an end is valuable is a significant part of deciding whether or not to pursue it, it might be thought that plausible views concerning artistic value should translate neatly into plausible reasons for creating new art. I will argue that this is not the case, and that current theories of artistic value, troublingly, weigh far more heavily in favour of a view that hardly any new art should be created at all. To correct this problem, and allow us to form theories which make the creation of new art a valuable activity worth supporting, I argue that far more theoretical weight should be given to the transient social and political value of art, and that such things as the contingent popularity of media or genre should be considered important artistic values.
Wednesday 18th October - Charlie Masquelier (University of Exeter)
‘Resisting Together: Rethinking Critique and Resistance in a Neoliberal Age’
The aim of this paper consists in laying the conceptual groundwork for a coalition of struggles under the neoliberal age. In doing so, I demonstrate that, despite talk of fragmentation, divisions and conflicts, the present situation offers fresh opportunities for connecting diverse solidarities. I explore what connects individuals, not only between neoliberal conditions of economic, cultural and environmental domination but also in resistance. I also highlight the transformative power of human action, by grounding neoliberal processes in human action and demonstrating the relevance of, and opportunities for, emancipatory politics today.
Wednesday 1st November - Alexander Prescott-Couch (University of Oxford)
‘Nietzsche and the Significance of Genealogy’
This talk considers how Nietzsche’s history of morality in The Genealogy of Morals is relevant to his revaluation of values. I consider and reject two potential explanations: (1) the value of contemporary morality depends on historical facts and (2) history serves as evidence for the properties of contemporary morality. I then propose an alternative account. On this view, Nietzsche’s historical story helps us “structure our interpretation” of morality by indicating whether and where we should expect to find coherence in our current moral practice. Moreover, Nietzsche’s history contributes to a critique of contemporary morality because it reveals that morality is unlikely to have the kind of coherence required by many of its defenders.
Wednesday 15th November - Graeme A. Forbes (University of Kent)
‘The Practical Rationality of Tralfamadorians: Intending and the existence of the future’
In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s novella Slaughterhouse Five, the alien civilisation the Tralfamadorians, perceive time as 'we perceive a panorama of the Rocky Mountains', so their attitude to different events in time is one of equanimity: 'So it goes'. I will argue that, on certain views of practical rationality, that the existence of the future can give rise to this sort of fatalistic equanimity, because it is irrational to intend anything.
Wednesday 29th November - Giuseppina D'Oro (Keele University)
‘No Entry by Entailment: Conceptual Dualism and the Autonomy of the Human Sciences’
The standard strategy for saving the manifest image from elimination is to show that it is entailed by the scientific image. If it can be shown that manifest properties piggy-back on metaphysically fundamental scientific properties, then they will have been legitimated and spared from the much crueller fate eliminativists have in store for them. This paper considers a very different way of saving the manifest image from the threat of elimination. It argues that the so-called “location problem” is the result of a layered view of the sciences which grants metaphysical or ontological priority to the explanations of physics. I suggest a different way of defending the manifest image: reject the metaphilosophical assumptions that give rise to the location problem by denying that explanations at the level of physics are ontologically basic. The location problem is the result of the endorsement of a pre-Kantian conception of metaphysics which fails to acknowledge that the presuppositions which govern natural science are domain specific. Once the metaphilosophical assumptions which give rise to the location problem are set aside one can get on with the proper task of philosophy: to elucidate the sui generis presuppositions which structure the manifest and the scientific image.
Spring term
TBC
Previous Years
2016 - 2017
Wednesday 29th March 2017 - Charlotte Alderwick (UWE Philosophy)
'Schelling's Virtues: Towards a Schellingian Ethics'
Wednesday 23rd March 2017 - Austin Smidt (University of Dundee)
'The Social Demand of Commodities'
Wednesday 15th March 2017 - William Large (University of Gloucestershire)
'Singing is not Seeing: Will Oldham and the Authenticity of the Voice'
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 - Joe Saunders (University of Leeds)
'Kant and Responsibility'
Wednesday 15th February 2017 - Madhu Krishnan (Bristol University)
'Introducing Franz Fanon'
Wednesday 18th January 2017 - Erin Plunkett (Royal Holloway)
'Possibility and Contingency in Kierkegaard '
Wednesday 30th November 2016 - Phil Cole (UWE Politics)
'Why there are no Climate Change Refugees - and why there Never Will be'
Wednesday 17th November 2016 - Thomas Lynch (University of Chichester)
'Materialism and Social Construction: Race and the Critique of Religion'
2015 - 2016
23 Sept 2015. Ekaterina Poliakov (Greifswald)
"Nietzsche's Critique of Kant: a great achievement or great futility?"
11 November 2015. Victoria Browne (Oxford Brookes)
"Teleology and Reproductive Failure in Aristotle's Philosophical Biology"
25 November 2015. Kirill Chepurin (HSE-Moscow and HU-Berlin)
"Utopia and Immanence in Kant and German Idealism"
2 December 2015. Sarah Flavel (Bath Spa)
"Approaching Nishitani through Nietzsche: Love of Fate and the Death's Head Contemplation"
Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lorenzo Chiesa, ‘Less than Less than Nothing: Lacanian Philosophies of Nature’ (postponed)
Wednesday 18th February UWE World Philosophy Day, 1pm, 3C01. Speakers include members of the Department.
Wednesday 18th March Céline Surprenant (Sussex), 'The Obverse Side of Derrida’s Interest in Freud'
Wednesday 25th March Kant, Freedom, Evil: A Disputation Between Professor Alison Assiter and Dr. Seiriol Morgan
Wednesday 1st October Film: (Slavoj Žižek in:) The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (Sophie Fiennes, U.K., 2013)
Wednesday 8th October Havi Carel (Bristol), ‘The Philosophical Role of Illness’
Wednesday 15th October Film: Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta, Germany, 2012)
Wednesday 22nd October James DiFrisco (Leuven), ‘Levels of Processes: Dynamic Individuation in Nature’
Wednesday 29th October Film: Freud (John Huston, U.S.A, 1962)
Wednesday 5th November Henry Somers-Hall (Royal Holloway), ‘The Problem of Analogy in Hegel and Deleuze’
Wednesday 12th November Film: When Nietzsche Wept (Pinchas Perry, Israel, 2007)
Wednesday 19th November Daniel Whistler (Liverpool), 'Abstraction and Utopia in Early German Idealism'
(Debate)
Wednesday 26th November Film: Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, France,U.S.A., Japan, 2007)
Wednesday 3rd December Matt Lee (Independent), ‘Content, Constraint and Communities’
(Debate)
2013 - 2014
Wednesday 29th January 2014 – Chris Hose (UWE), 'Whitehead on Nature, Law, and Value'
Wednesday 12th February – Morwenna Griffiths (Edinburgh), ‘Educational Relationships: Rousseau, Wollstonecraft and Social Justice’
Wednesday 26th February – Francesco Tava (Milan/UWE), ‘The Subject of Laughter. Philosophy and the Comic’
Wednesday 5th March - 'What Has Marx Done for Me Lately: Reading Marx in the Age of the The Individual' - Francesco Tava (Milan/UWE) and Jamie Melrose (Bristol), Frenchay Campus, room 3E12
Wednesday 12th March – William Large (Glos.), ‘On Kierkegaard and Human Capital’
Wednesday 19th March - UWE World Philosophy Day (with Alison Assiter, Iain Grant, Andy Jones, Darian Meacham & Katrina Mitcheson), in M034, 3pm- 6pm
Wednesday 26th March – Simon Mills (UWE/De Montfort), 'Simondon and Powers'
Monday 7th October – Film Screening: Agora (Amenábar)
Wednesday, 16th October – Giuseppe Bianco (Warwick), ‘Verbose Dialectics’ and the Anthropological Circle: Michel Foucault and Jean Hyppolite.
Monday 21st October – Film Screening: Mirror (Tarkovsky)
Wednesday 30th October - Peter Wolfendale, ‘On Wilfred Sellars and Thomas Metzinger’
Monday 4th November – Film Screening: Melancholia (von Trier)
Wednesday 13th November – David Webb (Staffordshire), 'Nihilism, Technology and Neoliberalism'
Monday 18th November – Film Screening: A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg)
Wednesday 27th November – Paul Davies (Sussex), 'Theism and Moral Asymmetry: The Interweaving of Nietzsche,
Kant, and Levinas’
Monday 2nd December – Film Screening: The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
2012 - 2013
Wednesday 7th November 2012, Frank Ruda (Berlin), Indifference and Repetition. From the Human to the Animal (and Back). [The Philosophy of Nature and Naturalism]
Wednesday 12th December 2012, Tom Greaves (University of East Anglia), Plenitude, Saturation,Withdrawal and Mesh: Hyper-phenomenal and hypo-phenomenal philosophies of nature. [The Philosophy of Nature and Naturalism]
Wednesday 30th January 2013, Richard Gray (Cardiff), What do our Experiences of Heat
and Cold Represent?
Thursday 14th February 2013, Robert Stern (Sheffield), 'Determination is Negation':
The Adventures of a Doctrine from Spinoza to Hegel to the British
Idealists.
Wednesday 27th February 2013, Ray Brassier (AUB), Nominalism, Naturalism, and Materialism [The Philosophy of Nature and Naturalism]
Wednesday 6th March 2013, Christine Battersby (University of Warwick), Of Cyborgs,
Robots and Drone Warfare: Revisiting the Human–Machine
Interface
Wednesday 20th March 2013, Gita Sahgal, Double Bind: The Muslim Right, The
Anglo-American Left and Universal Human Rights
Wednesday 27th March 2013, Margherita Tonon, Kierkegaard's Dialectics of
Possibility
Friday 5th April 2013, Graduate Conference on Kant and the Domains of Judgement.
Keynote Speaker: Beth Lord (Dundee).
Thursday 2nd May 2013, Andy Jones (UWE), Plasticity and Neurotranscendentalism: What Can Kant Offer to Contemporary Neuroscientific Developments?
Thursday 9th May 2013, Rauli Nykanen (UWE), Kant and the Unknown = X. The Metaphysics of Space.
Recordings of previous talks and conferences may be found on the Royal Institute of Philosophy tab at the top of this page, and on the UWE YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/BristolUWE/videos?query=philosophy
All talks are open to the public.
Talks take place every two weeks during term time, are held in room 4B27 (UWE Frenchay Campus) and start at 16:00 unless otherwise indicated. Our visiting speaker series is kindly funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy
2017 - 2018
Spring term
24/1/18 – Jiri Priban (Cardiff University)
‘Solidarity of the Shaken: on the Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics’
In European and global society, even the solidarity of the shaken is shaken these days. A new politics of fear is spreading fast in old and new democracies and increases the appeal of authoritarianism. This presentation addresses Václav Havel’s concepts of the “power of the powerless” and “existential revolution,” and Jan Patočka’s concept of the solidarity of the shaken. It draws on the current crisis of the British and European society which, instead of an existential revolution, is paradoxically experiencing a counterrevolution, turning politics into an existential matter of decision-making related to bare living in which the lust for power is as strong as the hatred of modern individual and the notion of civil rights and democratic government. Resisting this form of political existentialism – which reduces politics to the problems of bare life, surviving in constant fear, and the hatred that grows out of it – dissent as a microphysics of power reminds us that every politics is existential only to the extent to which human beings look for and find the meaning of their existence in it. However, human existence is not exhausted by politics. No politics, therefore, must become the system of decision-making about the meaning of life and human existence.
14/2/18 – Natasha McKeever (University of Leeds)
‘Against the Hegemony of Monogamy'
In this paper, I argue that the hegemony of monogamy prevents people from constructing and negotiating intimate relationships on their own terms and creates misunderstandings about the purpose and meaning of monogamy. I argue that it is important that monogamy is not just taken for granted as a feature of a romantic relationship and that it is not equated with romantic love. Thus, I oppose the norm (though not the practice) of monogamy.
The paper will be structured as follows: Firstly I will oppose an argument put forward by Michael Wreen (1986) that romantic love is necessarily monogamous, and I will further argue that monogamous relationships are not necessarily more valuable than non-monogamous relationships.
Secondly, I argue that the hegemonic norm of monogamy is problematic in at least three ways:
1. It limits options for people who don’t want to be monogamous.
2. It increases the prevalence and pain of adultery.
3. It diminishes the value of monogamy for people who want to be monogamous.
Finally I suggest that we should work towards making polyamory more acceptable. More realistic options to be openly non-monogamous could lead to less infidelity and greater relationship and life satisfaction for many people.
28/2/18 – Unfortunately this week's talk has been cancelled
14/3/18– Orianne Peteni (Université de Liège/UWE)
‘Visuality and tactility in Hegel's Philosophy’
Drawing on Blumenberg’s claim that the concept has a certain relation to the absence of its object and that this relation can be compared to the one between sight and touch, this talk will try to unfold the antinomic presupositions underlying the two sense’s mode of operating and explain its signification for a philosophy of totality such as the Hegelian one claims to be. The focus on the problem of sight in relation to the production of the concept will lead us to question the antique cosmological reflex of turning one’s eyes to the sky in order to get an immediate image of the totality. Taking into account that Hegel’s inaugural dissertation was on cosmology and that one can notice in the Phenomenology of Spirit a change of his position regarding the subject, I will question the meaning of the sight’s change of focus in the evolution of the Hegelian project and its importance to build a concrete universal. The talk will end up by sketching the political implications of such a revision.
Easter break 26/3/18 – 6/4/18
11/4/18 – Arun Iyer (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
'Foucault and the Essence of the Photographic Image'
This paper attempts to go over the radical contrast Foucault draws between Manet’s Olympia and Titian’s Venus of Urbino, in order to resolve once and for all the apparent ambiguity in Foucault's claim that Manet’s paintings, even if they do nothing but represent the external world, usher in a new epoch in the history of visual art in which painting breaks away from representing the external world. The paper shows how the resolution of this ambiguity brings to the fore a significant, but overlooked implication in Foucault’s reading of Manet, concerning the art of photography. Despite appearances to the contrary, photography becomes in its essence a non-representational art, existing squarely in the shadow cast by Manet’s Olympia.
18/4/18 - Massimiliano Simons (KU Leuven)
‘What would aliens say if .. we asked them the right questions?'
Please note the talk this week will be at 2.00 in 2B065
An often recurring theme in science-fiction is first contact with alien species or objects. Most science-fiction, however, assume that such contact is quite unproblematic and that the real juicy stuff resides in speculating about its consequences. But a more interesting branch of science-fiction aims precisely to explore the problem of contact itself: what if first contact fails and we do not succeed to understand the other? Starting from a survey of the work of authors such as Gregory Benford, Stanislaw Lem, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and Jeff VanderMeer, this problem will be explored. Here the central problem is not that of finding answers to our questions, but of finding the right questions to ask in the first place.
Precisely this dichotomy can teach us something about science as well. In philosophy of science there is often too much focus on the production of answers, while forgetting the work being done on articulating the right questions. First steps towards exploring this aspect of science can, however, be found in traditions such as the ‘philosophers of experiment’ (Ian Hacking, Peter Galison) and in contemporary Francophone philosophy of science (Bruno Latour, Vinciane Despret). One could reinterpret their work as attempts to articulate the necessary work being done to construct an adequate ‘horizon of questions’ or relevant ‘data domains’: what type of questions should scientists ask? And related to what kind of data? To adequately understand and evaluate contemporary scientific disciplines their ‘regime of articulation’ should be taken into account as well.
25/4/18 – Tina Röck (University of Dundee)
Networks, Processes and Ereignisse (events)
A Metaphysics and Ontology for the age of dynamic entanglement
We live in an age of entanglement and connection; we can reach the four corners of the universe at the touch of a finger. We also just seem to realise that we are engulfed by constant creation and evolution, by connectivity and malleability, by networks and information – not only in the realm of technology but also in the field of biology. However, we seem to lack an ontology and a metaphysical system that can cope with these insights. Traditional hierarchical metaphysical systems and the conventional ontologies of substance - characterised by stability, and the simple location of well-defined and separate constitutive elements - seem quite incapable of accounting for the dynamic and entangled reality that we are uncovering. This state of affairs is not surprising since relationality and creative change pose various challenges for thought. The most fundamental challenge seems to be the following: How can we conceptualise, systematise or account for - in a word how can we think - that which is relational, changing and creative as well as novel, without either turning it into stable hierarchical structures or ending with relativism and epistemic chaos?
In today’s presentation, I will propose three concepts that I consider fundamental in order to come to terms with these challenges: dynamic networks, processes and the Ereignis. Adequately understood all three terms describe or imply the dynamic, correlated, evolving and multiple reality we live in, but each concept focuses on and accounts for different aspects of what there is. The aim of today’s presentation is to clarify the nature of these conceptual layers and their mutual inter-dependence
Autumn Term
Wednesday 4th October - Al Baker (University of Leeds)
‘The Case Against New Art’
We might expect that the philosophy of art should be able to tell us why we should create art, what kinds of new art should be created, and give us some hints as to whether we should use public money to subsidise the creation of new art. Upon examination, however, it looks like contemporary theories of artistic value have a hard time telling us why we should create new art at all.
Contemporary aesthetics is very concerned with what kinds of value we get from engaging with art. Many views have been advanced concerning the potential or limitations of various kinds of art to give us pleasure, knowledge of various kinds, and aesthetic experiences, each often said to be valuable for its own sake. Since deciding whether an end is valuable is a significant part of deciding whether or not to pursue it, it might be thought that plausible views concerning artistic value should translate neatly into plausible reasons for creating new art. I will argue that this is not the case, and that current theories of artistic value, troublingly, weigh far more heavily in favour of a view that hardly any new art should be created at all. To correct this problem, and allow us to form theories which make the creation of new art a valuable activity worth supporting, I argue that far more theoretical weight should be given to the transient social and political value of art, and that such things as the contingent popularity of media or genre should be considered important artistic values.
Wednesday 18th October - Charlie Masquelier (University of Exeter)
‘Resisting Together: Rethinking Critique and Resistance in a Neoliberal Age’
The aim of this paper consists in laying the conceptual groundwork for a coalition of struggles under the neoliberal age. In doing so, I demonstrate that, despite talk of fragmentation, divisions and conflicts, the present situation offers fresh opportunities for connecting diverse solidarities. I explore what connects individuals, not only between neoliberal conditions of economic, cultural and environmental domination but also in resistance. I also highlight the transformative power of human action, by grounding neoliberal processes in human action and demonstrating the relevance of, and opportunities for, emancipatory politics today.
Wednesday 1st November - Alexander Prescott-Couch (University of Oxford)
‘Nietzsche and the Significance of Genealogy’
This talk considers how Nietzsche’s history of morality in The Genealogy of Morals is relevant to his revaluation of values. I consider and reject two potential explanations: (1) the value of contemporary morality depends on historical facts and (2) history serves as evidence for the properties of contemporary morality. I then propose an alternative account. On this view, Nietzsche’s historical story helps us “structure our interpretation” of morality by indicating whether and where we should expect to find coherence in our current moral practice. Moreover, Nietzsche’s history contributes to a critique of contemporary morality because it reveals that morality is unlikely to have the kind of coherence required by many of its defenders.
Wednesday 15th November - Graeme A. Forbes (University of Kent)
‘The Practical Rationality of Tralfamadorians: Intending and the existence of the future’
In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s novella Slaughterhouse Five, the alien civilisation the Tralfamadorians, perceive time as 'we perceive a panorama of the Rocky Mountains', so their attitude to different events in time is one of equanimity: 'So it goes'. I will argue that, on certain views of practical rationality, that the existence of the future can give rise to this sort of fatalistic equanimity, because it is irrational to intend anything.
Wednesday 29th November - Giuseppina D'Oro (Keele University)
‘No Entry by Entailment: Conceptual Dualism and the Autonomy of the Human Sciences’
The standard strategy for saving the manifest image from elimination is to show that it is entailed by the scientific image. If it can be shown that manifest properties piggy-back on metaphysically fundamental scientific properties, then they will have been legitimated and spared from the much crueller fate eliminativists have in store for them. This paper considers a very different way of saving the manifest image from the threat of elimination. It argues that the so-called “location problem” is the result of a layered view of the sciences which grants metaphysical or ontological priority to the explanations of physics. I suggest a different way of defending the manifest image: reject the metaphilosophical assumptions that give rise to the location problem by denying that explanations at the level of physics are ontologically basic. The location problem is the result of the endorsement of a pre-Kantian conception of metaphysics which fails to acknowledge that the presuppositions which govern natural science are domain specific. Once the metaphilosophical assumptions which give rise to the location problem are set aside one can get on with the proper task of philosophy: to elucidate the sui generis presuppositions which structure the manifest and the scientific image.
Spring term
TBC
Previous Years
2016 - 2017
Wednesday 29th March 2017 - Charlotte Alderwick (UWE Philosophy)
'Schelling's Virtues: Towards a Schellingian Ethics'
Wednesday 23rd March 2017 - Austin Smidt (University of Dundee)
'The Social Demand of Commodities'
Wednesday 15th March 2017 - William Large (University of Gloucestershire)
'Singing is not Seeing: Will Oldham and the Authenticity of the Voice'
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 - Joe Saunders (University of Leeds)
'Kant and Responsibility'
Wednesday 15th February 2017 - Madhu Krishnan (Bristol University)
'Introducing Franz Fanon'
Wednesday 18th January 2017 - Erin Plunkett (Royal Holloway)
'Possibility and Contingency in Kierkegaard '
Wednesday 30th November 2016 - Phil Cole (UWE Politics)
'Why there are no Climate Change Refugees - and why there Never Will be'
Wednesday 17th November 2016 - Thomas Lynch (University of Chichester)
'Materialism and Social Construction: Race and the Critique of Religion'
2015 - 2016
23 Sept 2015. Ekaterina Poliakov (Greifswald)
"Nietzsche's Critique of Kant: a great achievement or great futility?"
11 November 2015. Victoria Browne (Oxford Brookes)
"Teleology and Reproductive Failure in Aristotle's Philosophical Biology"
25 November 2015. Kirill Chepurin (HSE-Moscow and HU-Berlin)
"Utopia and Immanence in Kant and German Idealism"
2 December 2015. Sarah Flavel (Bath Spa)
"Approaching Nishitani through Nietzsche: Love of Fate and the Death's Head Contemplation"
Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lorenzo Chiesa, ‘Less than Less than Nothing: Lacanian Philosophies of Nature’ (postponed)
Wednesday 18th February UWE World Philosophy Day, 1pm, 3C01. Speakers include members of the Department.
Wednesday 18th March Céline Surprenant (Sussex), 'The Obverse Side of Derrida’s Interest in Freud'
Wednesday 25th March Kant, Freedom, Evil: A Disputation Between Professor Alison Assiter and Dr. Seiriol Morgan
Wednesday 1st October Film: (Slavoj Žižek in:) The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (Sophie Fiennes, U.K., 2013)
Wednesday 8th October Havi Carel (Bristol), ‘The Philosophical Role of Illness’
Wednesday 15th October Film: Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta, Germany, 2012)
Wednesday 22nd October James DiFrisco (Leuven), ‘Levels of Processes: Dynamic Individuation in Nature’
Wednesday 29th October Film: Freud (John Huston, U.S.A, 1962)
Wednesday 5th November Henry Somers-Hall (Royal Holloway), ‘The Problem of Analogy in Hegel and Deleuze’
Wednesday 12th November Film: When Nietzsche Wept (Pinchas Perry, Israel, 2007)
Wednesday 19th November Daniel Whistler (Liverpool), 'Abstraction and Utopia in Early German Idealism'
(Debate)
Wednesday 26th November Film: Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, France,U.S.A., Japan, 2007)
Wednesday 3rd December Matt Lee (Independent), ‘Content, Constraint and Communities’
(Debate)
2013 - 2014
Wednesday 29th January 2014 – Chris Hose (UWE), 'Whitehead on Nature, Law, and Value'
Wednesday 12th February – Morwenna Griffiths (Edinburgh), ‘Educational Relationships: Rousseau, Wollstonecraft and Social Justice’
Wednesday 26th February – Francesco Tava (Milan/UWE), ‘The Subject of Laughter. Philosophy and the Comic’
Wednesday 5th March - 'What Has Marx Done for Me Lately: Reading Marx in the Age of the The Individual' - Francesco Tava (Milan/UWE) and Jamie Melrose (Bristol), Frenchay Campus, room 3E12
Wednesday 12th March – William Large (Glos.), ‘On Kierkegaard and Human Capital’
Wednesday 19th March - UWE World Philosophy Day (with Alison Assiter, Iain Grant, Andy Jones, Darian Meacham & Katrina Mitcheson), in M034, 3pm- 6pm
Wednesday 26th March – Simon Mills (UWE/De Montfort), 'Simondon and Powers'
Monday 7th October – Film Screening: Agora (Amenábar)
Wednesday, 16th October – Giuseppe Bianco (Warwick), ‘Verbose Dialectics’ and the Anthropological Circle: Michel Foucault and Jean Hyppolite.
Monday 21st October – Film Screening: Mirror (Tarkovsky)
Wednesday 30th October - Peter Wolfendale, ‘On Wilfred Sellars and Thomas Metzinger’
Monday 4th November – Film Screening: Melancholia (von Trier)
Wednesday 13th November – David Webb (Staffordshire), 'Nihilism, Technology and Neoliberalism'
Monday 18th November – Film Screening: A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg)
Wednesday 27th November – Paul Davies (Sussex), 'Theism and Moral Asymmetry: The Interweaving of Nietzsche,
Kant, and Levinas’
Monday 2nd December – Film Screening: The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
2012 - 2013
Wednesday 7th November 2012, Frank Ruda (Berlin), Indifference and Repetition. From the Human to the Animal (and Back). [The Philosophy of Nature and Naturalism]
Wednesday 12th December 2012, Tom Greaves (University of East Anglia), Plenitude, Saturation,Withdrawal and Mesh: Hyper-phenomenal and hypo-phenomenal philosophies of nature. [The Philosophy of Nature and Naturalism]
Wednesday 30th January 2013, Richard Gray (Cardiff), What do our Experiences of Heat
and Cold Represent?
Thursday 14th February 2013, Robert Stern (Sheffield), 'Determination is Negation':
The Adventures of a Doctrine from Spinoza to Hegel to the British
Idealists.
Wednesday 27th February 2013, Ray Brassier (AUB), Nominalism, Naturalism, and Materialism [The Philosophy of Nature and Naturalism]
Wednesday 6th March 2013, Christine Battersby (University of Warwick), Of Cyborgs,
Robots and Drone Warfare: Revisiting the Human–Machine
Interface
Wednesday 20th March 2013, Gita Sahgal, Double Bind: The Muslim Right, The
Anglo-American Left and Universal Human Rights
Wednesday 27th March 2013, Margherita Tonon, Kierkegaard's Dialectics of
Possibility
Friday 5th April 2013, Graduate Conference on Kant and the Domains of Judgement.
Keynote Speaker: Beth Lord (Dundee).
Thursday 2nd May 2013, Andy Jones (UWE), Plasticity and Neurotranscendentalism: What Can Kant Offer to Contemporary Neuroscientific Developments?
Thursday 9th May 2013, Rauli Nykanen (UWE), Kant and the Unknown = X. The Metaphysics of Space.
Recordings of previous talks and conferences may be found on the Royal Institute of Philosophy tab at the top of this page, and on the UWE YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/BristolUWE/videos?query=philosophy
