CFP announcement: What is “Geist”? – Basel, September 2018

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Danilo Manca in CFA-CFP, suggerimenti eventi

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Geist, Gunnar Hindrichs, hegel, Marc Nicolas Sommer, Mario Schärli

We are glad to advertise the call for papers of the 2018 International Conference of the Swiss Philosophy Association, to be held on September 6-8, 2018 at the University of Basel.

The question „What is Geist [mind/spirit]?“ is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. It concerns our understanding of ourselves as conscious beings. We refer to our thoughts, our perceptions and our sensations as “mental states”. We wonder about the place of mind in the cosmos and in the evolution of nature. In the institutions that govern our actions we recognize the realization of a certain spirit: with Montesquieu we speak of the “spirit of laws”, with Hegel of the “objective spirit” of the state, with Max Weber of “protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism” – or we are disturbed by the “new spirit of capitalism” (Luc Boltanski/Éve Chiapello) of our age. With Kant, we say that a work of art does not merely follow a certain set of rules, but that it has “spirit”, or – in the wake of Kandinsky – we search for the “spiritual in art”. In religion we are confronted with the concept of a “Holy Spirit” and the “Spirit of the Creator”. But what is Geist? The conference explores possible answers to this question in 24 panels that range across six sections. Each panel contains three talks with subsequent discussions. In addition to the panel presentations there will be six keynotes by international speakers.

The conference languages are: German, French and English.

Sections:
1) Dimensions of Subjectivity
2) Mind and Nature
3) “Objective Spirit” – The Spirit or Demon of Society?
4) The Spirit of Laws
5) The Spiritual in Art
6) The Problem of Transcendence

If you are interested in giving a panel talk (20 minutes with 10 minutes for discussion), please send us an abstract of your talk in German, French or English.
The abstract should be susceptible for blind-review and contain:
1. The title of your talk
2. The section corresponding to your talk
3. An overview of the topic and the argument of your talk (2500 characters, including spaces) Send us the abstract as an E-Mail attachment (MS-Word file). The body of the E-Mail should contain: 1. Name and (work) address 2. E-Mail address 3. The title of your talk. The submission deadline is: April 1, 2018. Abstracts should be sent to: Marc.Sommer@unibas.ch

Conference Organizers: Gunnar Hindrichs (Universität Basel), Marc Nicolas Sommer (Universität Basel), Mario Schärli (Université de Fribourg)

You can download the following pdf versions of the call:
English version
German version
French version

Conference 2016: Dialectic and the ends of reason

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by Stella Ammaturo in convegni

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Alessandra Fussi, Alfredo Ferrarin, Alice Giuliani, alternative epistemologies, Andreas Arndt, biopolitics, conference 2016, contemporary philosophical debate, Danilo Manca, dialectic, ends of reason, Gianluca Garelli, Giovanna Luciano, Giovanni Zanotti, Guglielmo Califano, Guido Frilli, Gunnar Hindrichs, hermeneutical movement, Iacopo Chiaravalli, Knowledge, Luca Illetterati, Marc Nicolas Sommer, Massimiliano Biscuso, negativity, P. Masciarelli, Phenomenology, philosophy of difference, positivism, pragmatism, praxis, reality, rigid dualisms, Sofie Møller, Stefano Breda, theories of complexity

Pisa, 8-10 June 2016

Aula Savi Orto Botanico (via Porta Buozzi, 3)

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Dialectic seems to have disappeared from the contemporary philosophical debate. Indeed, the various aspects of its past fortune – the theory of becoming, the central role of negativity in thought and reality, the critique of abstract negation and of rigid dualisms in every field of knowledge and praxis, a dynamic and developmental view of reason – have all been replaced or transfigured by alternative epistemologies, from time to time: philosophy of difference, hermeneutical movement, positivism, pragmatism, theories of complexity, phenomenology, biopolitics.

At the same time, an instrumental view of reason seems to have emerged and to have imposed itself: reason is generally conceived as a tool on behalf of independent ends and judgments. Other faculties and needs – be they individual or social – impose their own legislation upon it. According to such an instrumental paradigm, reason is the mere spectator of an activity taking place in other dimensions: sensation, passion, revelation, tradition, political authority, as well as life, history or language. By being useful only to the purpose of a confirmation of the formal coherence of propositions and interpretations, reason lacks all autonomous vocation or grip on the world.

In light of such a scenario, the conference brings forward the hypothesis that the possibility of a different conception of reason is historically and theoretically bound to the possibility of dialectics. From a dialectical point of view, reason has indeed its own interests, needs and manifestation powers, revealing itself through its cognitive and self-structuring attitude. According to this view, reason is not just a calculating tool led by external forces but moves itself by its internal ways of being and realization: dialectical reason is active by itself, and its goals are expressions of its own living interests.

The conference aims at rethinking and bringing back to the agenda the bond between reason and dialectic, between a thought able to measure up to contradiction and reason as an autonomous and free reality.

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