Philosophy Seminar Organisers: Roger Fellows & Friedel Weinert
Email: r.fellows@bradford.ac.uk, f.weinert@bradford.ac.uk
Tel: (01274) 233992 / 235191
All Philosophy Seminars start at 4:00pm, in the Richmond Building on E-Floor. Most Lectures are to be held in E1, unless stated otherwise.
Everyone welcome!
| Date | Title | Philosophy Seminar Speaker | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08 October 2008 | "Why do colours look the way they do?" Synopsis: It is often thought that there is an ‘explanatory gap’ between the physical and the mental; in particular, that physical science is unable to explain why colours actually look the way they do. However, many (e.g. C.L. Hardin) think that colour vision science yields a more optimistic picture. This paper will develop some of these ideas, but will argue that what follows for colour phenomenology is not that it is reducible to brain activity, but rather that it is an acceptable object of scientific study in its own right. |
Nick Unwin (University of Lancaster) | E1 |
| 22 October 2008 | "Seven Days or Big Bang?" Synopsis: |
Rev. Dr. Rod Anderson (University of Bradford) | E1 |
| 05 November 2008 | "Hume and Kant: Two Faces of the Enlightenment"
Synopsis: It has become fashionable to pour scorn on the Enlightenment, but I propose to take a more careful look at its two deepest philosophers - David Hume of Scotland, 1711-1776, and Immanuel Kant of Prussia, 1724-1804. I will situate them in their historical contexts, with special attention to their treatment of human nature, morality and religion. I will suggest that although their philosophies represent the opposed tendencies of empirism and rationalism, they have more in common than is usually recognized. |
Leslie Stevenson (St. Andrews) | E1 |
| 19 November 2008 | "The Uncanniest of all Guests: On the Nature and Significance of Nihilism in Nietzsche's Thought
" Synopsis: The concern of this paper is to address the nature and significance of nihilism. Nihilism is of central concern to Nietzsche's philosophy, the force of its insight particularly bearing upon the direction of his later thought. My analysis will involve a consideration of how Nietzsche diagnoses its origins in Western history, its culmination in the fateful "death of God", as well as his identification of the most prominent forms in which it appears in the wake of this insight, namely active and passive nihilism. From here we will engage with Nietzsche's own attempts to overcome the problem posed by its devaluation, attempts that yield his seemingly paradoxical insight that he is at once the first consummate nihilist of Europe and the pioneer of its overcoming through the promotion of his own philosophy in the revaluation of values, the eternal return, and the will to power. Nietzsche describes nihilism as the result of the devaluation of the highest values. "Values" are directing viewpoints through which human beings orient themselves and that serve to distinguish their actions and thinking. The inner coherence of all social and cultural forms rests upon them. Nietzsche identifies Western history as a tradition that is weighted down in large measure by the values constituted by Platonism and Christianity, which are closely allied. The defining feature of this alliance lies in the displacement of its highest values into a fictional Beyond. This fiction has become increasingly untenable in the modern era, particularly in the wake of the progress of the natural sciences, something Nietzsche particularly detects in his consideration of the "will to truth", which have succeeded in hollowing out its authority. For Nietzsche, with the loss of those factors that provide a ground for meaning, the human being suffers a loss of the very ground beneath his feet. Once the earlier values have been evacuated of their previous integrity, there is no hope of returning back to previous certainties. Indeed, all attempts to escape nihilism by not drawing its consequences only serve to exacerbate the problem. Already in the "Words of consolation of a progress grown desperate", from Human, all too Human, Nietzsche insists that "we cannot return to the old, we have burned our boats; all that remains for us is to be brave, come what may" (HH I: 248). |
Scott Revers (Warwick) | E1 |
| 3 December 2008 | "Happiness and the Meaning of Life" Synopsis: The paper begins by discussing certain biological and other preconditions for happiness that can be objectively determined, and scientifically confirmed. But beyond that, in order to be happy a human life needs, in the first place, to be one of genuine achievement, one that allows for the successful development of our characteristic human talents and capacities. Second, it needs to be oriented towards the good; for a life cut off from moral sensibility cannot reach integrity and fulfilment. And thirdly, happiness requires a sense of meaning, the courage to endure, as inherently weak and dependent creatures, in the face of human fragility and apparent futility. The final section of the paper discusses the ‘radical contingency’ of which Bernard Williams spoke (the fact that our ethical outlook has a history, and could have evolved differently). It is argued that, pace Williams, if there is no foundation for our morality except an ultimately contingent one, then our sense of meaning is undermined, since human beings have transcendent aspirations which cannot be quieted or ignored. Only by recognizing the need for a spiritual dimension in our lives can we recover a sense of meaning, without which happiness will elude us. |
John Cottingham(University of Reading) | E1 |
| 04 February 2009 | "Liberalism and Globalisation" Synopsis: | Alan Haworth (University of London) | E1 |
| 18 February 2009 | "tba" Synopsis: tba |
David Miller (University of Oxford) | E1 |
| 4 March 2009 | " Could Institutions have Virtues?" Synopsis: We often talk as though groups and collectives of various kinds—teams, appointments panels, juries—can display virtues. We might, for instance, describe a jury as ‘fair-minded’, or a team as ‘dedicated’. But there is a philosophical controversy hanging over the question of exactly what we are doing when we say these things. Are groups and collectives virtuous only insofar as their individual members have the virtue; or is there some irreducibly collective way in which groups can possess virtues? I shall argue that the latter is the case, and that appreciating this is essential if we are to gain a clear picture of what we want our public institutions to achieve in terms of virtue. In this connection I will discuss a virtue of epistemic justice and its place in establishing the very legitimacy of our public institutions. |
Miranda Fricker (Birkbeck College) | E1 |
| 18 March 2009 | "On Postmodernism" Synopsis: tba |
Chris Morris (University of Cardiff) | E1 |
| 22 April 2009 | "'Blade Runner'" Synopsis: tba | Stephen Mulhall (University of Oxford) | E1 |