Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Spinoza’S Formal Essence, Christopher Martin

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Spinoza stipulates in E2def2, his definition of the essence of a thing, that the essence of each particular can neither exist nor, even, be conceived, except alongside its particular. Yet a mere eight propositions later states that God maintains an idea of the essence of nonactual particulars “in the same way as the formal essences of the singular things are contained in God’s attributes” (E2p8). While there are known interpretive controversies with each of these claims, I argue that according to E2def2, essences of particulars can only be and can only be conceived alongside the actual existence of their particular, …

Informal Discussion, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

“Do your students struggle with Spinoza’s geometric exposition, and if so, how do you get them past it?”

Malebranche’S Alleged Idealism, Fabio Malfara, Dylan Flint

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

Over the span of eleven years (1683-1694), Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld, two prominent sympathizers of the Cartesian tradition, engaged in a rigorous debate. In his initial set of criticisms, Arnauld objects that a natural consequence of Malebranche’s theory of ideas is idealism.1 This charge of idealism has puzzled scholars: why did Arnauld believe this? Han Adriaenssen2 has convincingly argued that Arnauld’s charge of idealism is founded on the representationality of Malebranchean ideas. According to Arnauld, ideas represent for Malebranche in much the same way that portraits do—by inciting a perceiver to form a conception of whatever they pertain to. …

Informal Discussion, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

“Why is it important that philosophers study the history of philosophy and why should we continue to teach it? Alt formulation: Why should programs continue to have history of philosophy courses as degree requirements?”

Descartes And The Monstrous Thesis, Evan Thomas, Zachary Agoff

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

Welcome And Introductory Remarks, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

Cancelled - The Ontological Status Of Cartesian Possibilia, Daniel Stermer, Marc Bobro, Liz Goodnick

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

In this paper I present a novel view of the ontological status of possible objects for Descartes. Specifically, I claim that possible objects just are innate ideas considered objectively. In the act of creation, God creates possibilities—in all its richness—in the form of innate ideas. Thus, in acts of thinking, one may clearly and distinctly perceive, via one’s innate ideas, that such and such is possible. To argue this, I first analyze and critique two competing views—one from Calvin Normore who claims that innate ideas represent an independent realm of possibilia, and another from David Cunning and Alan Nelson who …

Day 1 Schedule, Benjamin Hill

Western Ontario Early Modern Philosophy (WOEMP) Online Events

No abstract provided.

Walter Benjamin's Literary Aura: A Stylistic And Thematic Analysis Of One-Way Street, Stephanie Chapman

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

“Brevity” epitomizes Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street, an avant-garde text composed entirely of aphorisms. Benjamin's ideal of literary montage involves the utilization of ideas that he refers to as Abfall, or detritus, and rearranging them—preserved in the momentary spontaneity in which they were conceived—in order to create an entirely new meaning. Noteworthy about Benjamin's style is the manner in which the assembly of momentary thoughts and impressions creates, in a literary sense, the artistic aura of authenticity introduced in his seminal essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” By preserving the form, content, and style …

Feelings Sustaining Text: Aphorisms And Inspiration, Mikhail Pozdniakov

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

There are genres of reflection, one of which is constituted by the aphorism. These reflections are an art of ponderance, of pensiveness. Philosophy is not necessarily the best example, nor is it identical with the genre of reflection as such; it has had a hard time breaking with its derivative moments, and its history is of a catalogue of dogmas as well as progressive critiques. In logic, one of philosophy’s products, the continuous or infinite form of knowledge is condensed into the axiom or principle or formula, which carries the appearance of a statement of fact. Contrary to the latter, …

Rotman Institute Speaker: Feminist Neo-Materialism And The Future Of Phenomenology, Dorothea Olkowski

Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology

No abstract provided.

Infanticide And The Anxious Silence Of “Language As Such”, Kevin Godbout

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

No abstract provided.

Pasolini's Laugh: Joyful Ignorance In The Decameron, Andrea Privitera

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

In this paper, I discuss Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron and its 1971 film adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasolini. To be more precise, I focus on the fifth novella of the sixth day, the one about Giotto and Forese, and its audiovisual re-elaboration, which can be seen as a very brief and at the same time very vivid example of Pasolini’s ideas on society, language and communication.

Georges Bataille, Philosopher Of Laughter, Troy M. Bordun

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

Why is it that when we laugh – not at jokes or to patronize – but when we laugh ecstatically and drift away from the self that seemed to constitute the majority of waking life, we feel free, at ease? And why is it, asked Georges Bataille, that after this ecstatic moment we come back to the mundane everyday with the feeling of a new and ineffable knowledge about human existence?

In this paper I present Bataille on laughter and its merits as a philosophical project. Laughter is an experience to be theorized and a praxis aiding in our pursuit …

The Mechanistic Roots Of Occasionalism: Stage One, Benjamin Hill, Henrik Lagerlund, Todd Ryan, Elliot Rossiter

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

What is Occasionalism?

Occasionalism is the doctrine about causal efficacy that exploits the non-observational nature of causation. We observe a prior and a posterior state of the universe, and discern the difference between them. But we cannot observe the force or power causally necessitating the change.

Misunderstanding & Misdirecting The Liberal Arts, John Thorp

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

No abstract provided.

Endorsement, Worth And Well-Being: What Is It For A Life To Go Well?, Michel Hébert

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

Theories of well-being give an account of what it is for persons to fare well. They state the general features that make a life good for the person who lives it.

Aristotle On The Foundations Of Science: A Postmodern Moment, John Thorp

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

No abstract provided.

The Mechanization Of Philosophy Between 1300-1700, Henrik Lagerlund, Benjamin Hill, Helen Hattab, Dennis Des Chene, Calvin Normore

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

Standard histories of the development of modern science and philosophy has it that the mechanical philosophy was driven by changes in physics that then required a re-conceptualization of the metaphysics of substance. We contest that this view is backwards. The revisions of the metaphysics of substance occurred in the 14th century and it underlined the well-known changes in physics in the 15th and 16th centuries, which gave rise to mechanical philosophy in the 17th century.

Women's Perception Of Science: Theory And Practice, Rashida A. Khanum

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Science and Values: Global Perspectives track.

Science is very much recognized as giving new life to mankind and this new life means advancement or progress. Science is utilitarian because its discoveries and inventions satisfy human needs. Feminists perceive these impacts of science and technology though there exists a negative side of science and technology about which feminists are critical. Sal Restivo blames science as responsible for generating new social problems, which Sandra Harding accounted positively. Harding evaluates science and technology as both progressive and regressive.1 I shall analyze Harding’s feminist views of science and …

The Looping Effects Of Objectivity, Jill Fellows

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Objectivity and Impartiality track.

“We Are Not Disposable“: “Psychiatric”/Psycho-Social Disabilities, Survivor Knowledge, And Audre Lorde’S Critique Of Market Fundamentalism, Carol J. Moeller

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Disability and Dependence track.

Audre Lorde: “In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus, to occupy the position of the dehumanized inferior.”

People with disabilities, including “psychiatric”/psycho-social diversities, may live in ways that reject hegemonic standards of personhood, societal membership, and contribution. Such dominant norms tend to value people for how “productive” they are, framing disabled and other marginalized people as a drain on public …

Knowledge, Value Neutrality And Impartiality, Alessandra Tanesini

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Objectivity and Impartiality track.

Feminist epistemologists have long been concerned with clarifying the legitimate roles that social and ethical values might play in the acceptance or justification of empirical theories and beliefs. Their concern stems, at least in part, from what Louise Antony has defined as the ‘bias paradox’ (1993). Since to be a feminist is, at least, to be committed to a cluster of political and ethical values about the injustice of discrimination against women, feminists cannot claim value neutrality for their inquiries. But, if knowledge requires value-neutrality, then feminist values cannot play …

El Sexismo En La Ética De Emmanuel Levinas. Perpetuación Filosófica De Una Dialéctica Ininterrumpida, Marta Palacio

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Sexism, Eroticism, and Gender Identity in the Continental Tradition track.

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) es considerado uno de los filósofos más importantes de nuestra época. Su «ética de la alteridad» tiene la capacidad de generar diversas búsquedas intelectuales.

En sus planteos de una alteridad absoluta, es llamativo que el joven Levinas defina en las obras de 1947-1948 a lo femenino o la mujer como “el otro por excelencia” desde una posición discursiva sexuada. Es un varón que escribe y habla del otro desde la diferencia sexual. Lo radicalmente otro(a) del sujeto es la mujer quien …

Erotismo E Identidad De Género En G. Bataille, Paloma Nunez Tomás

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Sexism, Eroticism, and Gender Identity in the Continental Tradition track.

Bataille es un autor poco conocido, heterodoxo y plural, cuya lectura al tiempo que despierta un gran interés, produce una profunda inquietud. En opinión de alguno de sus analistas la novedad del pensamiento de G. Bataille reside en haber introducido el erotismo en la reflexión filosófica. En efecto, el erotismo constituye una de las nociones claves en la obra de G. Bataille, que lo describe como “experiencia interior”, como el lugar donde el ser humano vive la experiencia del límite y del exceso, como …

Bodily Experience And Suppressed Female Values: A Pathway Through Works Of Literature, Art And The Labyrinth, Bettina Schmitz

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Value and the Body track.

In my paper I will question the relation between bodily experience and female values. The debate on gender and gender equality has made it quite difficult to use the word ‘female’ or to refer to the female body. Is it possible to presuppose an analogy of body and values similar to the one Immanuel Kant probably had in mind, when in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) he admired “the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”? Even if my paper will not primarily be about …

Crítica Feminista Del Sujeto Autónomo Desde La Conciencia Condicionada De José Ortega Y Gasset Y John Dewey, Marta Vaamonde Gamo

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Conceptions of Autonomy track.

1. Introducción

En su artículo “Kant y el método filosófico” John Dewey realiza una crítica de la consideración kantiana de la conciencia que se sitúa en la línea de la crítica a la razón idealista que presenta José Ortega y Gasset en ¿Qué es filosofía? Ambos manifiestan la contradicción que entraña definir la conciencia como una identidad desde la que determinar al sujeto moral. El dualismo entre el método experimental de la ciencia y la consideración formal de la ética, sería consecuencia de esa visión reducida del sujeto que Kohlberg …

Pragmatic Epistemology And The Importance Of Descriptive Representation, Mallorie Malone

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Communities and Institutions: Negotiating Differences track.

Martha Nussbaum: Feminism Between Universalism And Pluralism, Louise Derksen

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Communities and Institutions: Negotiating Differences track.

Martha Nussbaum describes the project of her book Women and Human Development as the ‘practical pursuit of gender justice’. Despite the emphasis on the practical, she believes that the feminist theory which underlies emancipation in the practical sense must have a firm philosophical basis. Philosophy, according to Nussbaum, is the best possible area in which to develop theories to think through issues having to do with gender justice. In sciences such as political science, legal theory or economics, theories are developed which have an impact on the lives …

Normative Approaches To Values In Science, Kristina Rolin

XIV IAPh Symposium 2010

This presentation is part of the Reconsidering Values in Feminist Philosophy of Science track.

During the last three decades feminist philosophers of science have argued that the traditional ideal of value-free science should be replaced because either it is not feasible – or even if it is feasible, it is not a desirable epistemic goal. The traditional ideal of value-free science is the normative claim that social and moral values are not allowed to play a role in the reasoning and decision-making processes that scientists are engaged in when they decide to accept something as scientific knowledge, either individually or …