CFP: Gargnano Philosophy of Time Conference

Gargnano Philosophy of Time Conference

11–14 May 2014, Palazzo Feltrinelli, Gargnano, Lake Garda, Italy.

Organizers: Ulrich Meyer and Giuliano Torrengo

Sponsors: Philosophy of Time Society, Center for Philosophy of Time,  Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan

Call for Papers and Commentators

We invite submissions of high quality papers for a three-day conference to inaugurate the new Center for Philosophy of Time. Papers suitable for a thirty minute presentation should be sent by 30 November 2013 to Ulrich Meyer at umeyer@colgate.edu. If you are willing to serve as a commentator or chair, please email us by the same date with a brief description of your areas of interest. The conference programme will be assembled in December and we hope to contact participants by early January 2014. As with the regular meetings of the Philosophy of Time Society, there will be no invited speakers.

The conference registration fee of 210 Euro includes accommodation in the Palazzo Feltrinelli (3 days) and all meals. The conference will begin with a dinner on May 11th and conclude with lunch on May 14th. The registration fee will be waived for graduate students and under-employed philosophers. If you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact the organizers.

More details about the conference can be found at http://www.philtimesociety.com/gargnano-conference/.

--

Ulrich Meyer

http://www.ulrichmeyer.org

The Nature of Time (Oxford, 2013)

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199599332.do 

Gargnano Philosophy of Time Conference

http://www.philtimesociety.com/gargnano-conference/

CFP: Inland Northwest Pragmatism Network

Call for Abstracts, Papers and Works-in-progress

2014 Inland Northwest Pragmatist Network Meeting

Eastern Washington University—Cheney and Spokane, WA

January 2013 saw the inaugural meeting of the Inland Northwest Pragmatist Meeting at Gonzaga University, organized by Charlie Hobbes. The INPN will next meet on Saturday, April 12, 2014 at the Riverpoint Campus of Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Washington. Co-sponsors of the event are Drs. Terrance MacMullan, Christopher Kirby, and Kevin Decker

The INPN is a workshop format in which completed papers or works-in-progress on topics in pragmatism and American philosophy are read and discussed. There is no particular theme for the meeting. Submissions from graduate students are welcome. There will also be a critical examination of a published text, most likely selections from Philip Kitcher’s Preludes to Pragmatism.

Submission Guidelines: E-mail abstracts, descriptions of works-in-progress, or completed papers to kdecker@ewu.edu by January 25, 2014. Please limit paper presentations to 12-13 double spaced pages. If you decide to include your submission as an e-mail attachment, please send it in one of the following formats: .doc, .rtf, or .pdf file.

Further details about local arrangements will be available on the Facebook page for INPN, or can be obtained by emailing tmacmullan@ewu.edu.

Workshop: Idealism and Pragmatism

*Workshop theme:* Idealism and Pragmatism: A History

*Date:* 25th-26th October 2013

The objective of this workshop is to look in detail at how the classical
American pragmatists saw themselves in relation to idealism. We will also
trace the continuing development of this connection through into the
twentieth century, as reflected in the work of figures such as Sellars,
Apel, Habermas, Putnam, Rorty and Brandom.

Registration to attend the workshop is not required. There will be a buffet
lunch and refreshments provided on both days for £9.50 per person per day.
However, you are welcome to bring your own lunch and drink if you prefer.

To register for lunch and the workshop dinner at a local restaurant on the
Friday night (£13 a head) please visit our webpage:
http://idealismandpragmatism.org/workshop-2013. The deadline to register
for lunch and/or dinner is 14th October.

We also have a number of postgraduate travel grants available. Details of
these can be found on the webpage. To apply, please download and complete
the form and return to the network administrator Kim Redgrave <
k.redgrave@sheffield.ac.uk>.

This will be the first workshop of the 'Idealism and Pragmatism:
Convergence or Contestation?' network. Details about the network, it's
activities and research can be found on our website
http://idealismandpragmatism.org/<http://idealismandpragmatism.org/workshop-2013>


Kim Redgrave
Network Facilitator
Idealism and Pragmatism Network
Department of Philosophy
University of Sheffield
45 Victoria Street, Sheffield
S3 7QB
United Kingdom
http://idealismandpragmatism.org/
Facebook Page<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Idealism-and-Pragmatism-Network-Convergence-or-Contestation/192710450853162?ref=ts&fref=ts>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/IdealismPragmat>

CFP: John Dewey Society on revisiting Experience and Education

Call for Papers by the John Dewey Society

Revisiting Experience and Education

The John Dewey Society calls for paper proposals for the Past Presidents’ Panel at its annual meeting, to be held in conjunction with the American Educational Research Association meeting in Philadelphia, April 3-7, 2014.

The Society invites submissions for a special panel of papers revisiting Dewey’s Experience and Education. In that work Dewey develops a set of criteria for educative experience. His presentation of his two criteria, Interaction and Continuity, draw upon and further develop some of the most enduring ideas in his philosophy. 

Dewey wrote Experience and Education primarily as a response to the excesses of progressive education. He protested that progressive educators had merely reacted negatively to traditional education; they had failed to develop an adequate theory of experience. In Experience and Education he drew upon the theory of experience central to his late masterworks Experience and Nature and Art as Experience as an instrument for further progress in educational innovation. 

The spread of experiential learning methods and computer-based learning – and the corresponding need of critical examination of these trends – are among the many reasons for revisiting Experience and Education and Dewey’s criteria for educative experience today. 

In the wake of Experience and Education new forms of experiential education appeared – outdoor and adventure education, workplace education, arts-based education, and service learning among them. Experiential educators have also generated pedagogical methods used in conventional topics in schools and colleges. It is hardly an exaggeration to claim that citation of Experience and Education is obligatory in discussions of experiential education.

Limitations of the kinds of experiences one can have in school are made crystal clear by the potentialities of virtual environments. Digital computers have now spread on a global scale. In developed industrial-post-industrial societies just about every school and college classroom has a computer with a broadband Internet connection. Computers and the Internet open up new avenues for educational experience by greatly enlarging access to information and human association. Reliance on computer-based learning, however, may also reduce opportunities for contact with live teachers, fellow learners, and members of the local community, as well as vital experiences in the natural world. 

Proposals may discuss or critique Experience and Education itself, or consider that book in relation to other works in the Dewey corpus, in relation to the broader field of philosophy, or in relation to any aspect of contemporary educational theory or practice. 

Submit all proposals (prepared per instructions below) for individual papers via email with an attachment as a Word document. All proposals should be received on or before Monday, November 15, 2013, via email to Leonard Waks (ljwaks@yahoo.com), President-Elect, John Dewey Society and Professor Emeritus, Department of Educational Leadership, Temple University, Philadelphia PA. 

Proposals accepted for presentation in this panel of the John Dewey Society will be notified by January 25, 2013.

Proposal guidelines

Part 1 (submit in the body of your email message):

(1.) Title of your paper 

(2.) Your name, title, institutional affiliation (if any) 

(3.) Your address, phone, email. 

(4.) An abstract of up to 100 words. 

Part 2 (in a Word document with all identifying information removed for “blind” review):

(1.) Title of your paper 

(2.) A brief descriptive summary of your paper (maximum length 750 words), explaining your paper and its significance. List several references to place your contribution in the broader scholarly conversation!

About The John Dewey Society

Founded in 1935, the purpose of the Society is to foster intelligent inquiry into problems pertaining to the place and function of education in social change, and to share, discuss, and disseminate the results of such inquiry.

Workshop: Emotion and Social Cognition

Registration is now open for the Emotion & Social Cognition Workshop,
13th September 2013, at the University of Manchester.


Speakers:

Brian Parkinson, Psychology, Oxford University
Stephen Butterfill, Philosophy, University of Warwick
Erin Heerey, Psychology, Bangor University
Will McNeill, Philosophy, The University of York
Julien Deonna, Philosophy, University of Geneva

Registration is free, with coffee and lunch provided, although there is a charge for the workshop dinner. There are only 30 places available for the workshop, so please register early to avoid disappointment.

For more programme information, and to register, please go to:

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/philosophy/research/projects/kofe/events/sce/

Whitehead Critical Edition is Coming!

The press release.

CFP: Public Affairs Quarterly

Public Affairs Quarterly solicits proposals for a special issue in the 2014 volume. A special issue comprises 4-5 papers, of 6,000-9,000 words each. Papers will be reviewed by the special issue's editor, and also peer-reviewed by the journal. Proposals should be related to any area of the journals coverage, of which details can be found on its website:

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/paq.html

Proposals should include:

1. A description of the topic and its relationship to the journal (250-500 words);

2. A list of contributors and titles; and

3. Abstracts of the proposed papers (250 words each).

Preliminary inquiries may be submitted without abstracts, but the contributor list should not be merely speculative; some contact with those contributors--and reasonable expectation of their participation--should be established.

Submissions should be sent to paqjournal@gmail.com.

**

PAQ is very pragmatist-friendly. Go go gadget Dewey!

Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society LATEST ISSUE OUT!

Vol. 49. No. Winter 2013

Guest Edited by Lee McBride

WILLIAM JAMES SOCIETY YOUNG SCHOLAR PRIZE

WILLIAM JAMES SOCIETY YOUNG SCHOLAR PRIZE:

The prize includes the opportunity to read the paper during the WJS session at the annual meeting of the APA Eastern Division, $500 to subsidize travel to that meeting, and the eventual publication of the paper in WJStudies. Submissions should be sent to WJS Secretary Todd Lekan [tmlekan@yahoo.com] by July 31st. The winner will be announced in early September.

2013 Summer Institute in American Philosophy

The 2013 Summer Institute in American Philosophy

July 8-13 (Mon-Sat), 2013

University of Oregon

Sessions on:

1. Schusterman's Somaestehtics

2. William James and Feminism

3. William James and Energy (Energetic Metaphysics, etc.)

4. American Indian Philosophy

5. Philosophy and Music

CFP: American Association of Philosophy Teachers at the Central APA

The American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) invites proposals for our group session at the 2014 Central Division APA meeting in Chicago, IL Feb 26-Mar 1, 2014.

Proposals on any topic related to teaching philosophy will be considered. Submissions are encouraged from teachers at two-year as well as four-year colleges. Individual proposals and panel proposals are welcome. The AAPT encourages proposals that are interactive.

Format: The three hour session will be composed of three 45 minute presentations, so presenters should plan for no more than 30 minutes of "presentation" time, leaving at least 15 minutes for questions and discussion.

Submissions: Proposals should be prepared for blind review, and include an abstract of no longer than 300 words, along with relevant citations and submitted in either Word or PDF to Andrew Mills (andrewpmills@gmail.com).

Deadline for proposals: October 1, 2014.

Shaviro on Tom Sparrow's Levinas Unhinged

Steven Shaviro at The Pinnochio Theory discusses Tom Sparrow's latest book Levinas Unhinged. He also gives an intereresting Sellars--Merleau-Ponty comparison.

XVII CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE FILOSOFÍA: FILOSOFAR EN MÉXICO EN EL S.XXI

Convocatoria

INFORMACIÓN IMPORTANTE: La recepción de resúmenes se extiende hasta el 1o de Agosto del 2013.

El Consejo Directivo de la Asociación Filosófica de México, A.C. convoca al

XVII Congreso Internacional de Filosofía

Filosofar en México en el siglo XXI

Adversidad y novedad de la época.

que se realizará del 7 al 11 de abril de 2014, en la Ciudad de Morelia, Michoacán.

El año de 2014 puede ser un buen momento para reflexionar filosóficamente sobre los rasgos, las complejidades y los problemas de este nuevo siglo, para calibrar tanto la adversidad como la novedad de nuestra época en todos los ámbitos. Puede ser también un buen momento para evaluar el quehacer filosófico en nuestro país: sobre México, en y desde México.

Bajo este pretexto, la A.F.M. convoca a la comunidad filosófica nacional e internacional y a colegas de disciplinas afines a reunirse en la Ciudad de Morelia, Michoacán, a continuar el diálogo del pensamiento y el desarrollo de la filosofía: la mejor manera de contribuir a su defensa y al reconocimiento y valoración de su pertinencia educativa, socio-cultural y política. 

Las actividades que conformarán el XVII Congreso Internacional de Filosofía son:

• Conferencias magistrales
• Mesas Plenarias
• Coloquios temáticos
• Presentaciones y venta de libros

La organización de las conferencias magistrales, las mesas plenarias y algunos coloquios temáticos estarán a cargo del Comité Organizador.

El Comité Organizador anunciará los coloquios disponibles para que, de acuerdo con cierta afinidad temática, los interesados elijan la mesa en la que decidan inscribir su propuesta.

IMPORTANTE – El periodo de recepción de propuestas de ponencia se extiende hasta el 1º de agosto del 2013.

El listado de coloquios y los formatos de inscripción se encuentran disponibles en el siguiente enlace (click aquí).

Los interesados en las presentaciones o venta de libros deberán inscribirse mediante los formatos correspondientes que pronto estarán disponibles en la página web de la AFM. Sólo se presentarán los libros publicados entre 2012 y 2013.

En el portal de la AFM aparecerá en su momento toda la información relevante como guía de hoteles, mapas de la ciudad, rutas para llegar a la sede, las cartas de aceptación, los formatos de inscripción, el anuncio de temas e invitados especiales programados, etc.

Atentamente,

Comité Organizador

> Descargue aquí una versión para web de la convocatoria (Documento PNG 270 KB)

> Descargue aquí una versión imprimible en tamaño cartel (Documento PDF 46.2 MB)

The Ultimate Insult

More Is Different: Nature's Unruly Complexity

Marcelo Gleiser at National Public Radio's Cosmos & Culture tells us about complexity and the deficiencies of reductive mechanism.

The Cultural Politics of Analytic Philosophy: Britishness and the Spectre of Europe

Recently brought to my attention....

When Professional Philosophers Talk to Non-Professionals

Reblogged from The Horizon and the Fringe

After writing a post on "The Hazards of Online Philosophizing," I now offer some additional tips for fellow professionals when talking to non-professional intellectuals. I hesitate to post this, because … it opens me to the charge of elitism and arrogance. I hope that people who know me well realize that I'm well-intentioned even if a bit foolish at times.

professionalized conversationnel étiquette

1. Fellows, we might have career hazards, or it might just be me. No, seriously, it might just be me. I run into a lot of "friends of philosophers" who love intellectual conversation, but do not have the argumentative social graces that professional philosophers develop. Since we argue for a living, either now or in the past, we have come to accept disagreement and requests for justification in stride. However, interested but non-professionalized interlocutors may not have this, and thus can be provoked very easily. Or maybe it is just me, but I suspect that enough of my fellows have had this happen to them: routine and banal arguments in professional circles become grenades in amateur contexts. Honestly, I try to avoid serious conversation with interested strangers--hard to do online--since neither professional training nor prior social relations will hold them back should they feel provoked.

professional vs. amateur levels of conversation

2. Fellows, we face another problem related to the one of professionalized etiquette. How many of you have started a professional-level or just specialist conversation with a colleague or friend, when an amateur or non-specialist arrives on the scene, enters the conversation, and then flounders in the previously high-level or esoteric talk? It happens often to me, and leaves me with a dilemma that I propose to you. Obviously, the conversation is going to change presuming that all participants will engage, but the noted dilemma occurs when the amateur or non-specialist asks about the prior conversation. I have lost count of the demands to translate or bridge conversations: do so and it kills your prior conversation while also opening you up to much misinterpretation. Do not do so and the person might be upset or resentful--since I'm omitting the non-problematic outcomes.

unfair cultural demands

3. Fellows, we face a problem that few other professionals feel so keenly. If you are an American in America, you know that intellectuals and education are often not respected, and few have it worse than philosophers. Unlike medical doctors, who have about the same duration and intensity of training as philosophers or sometimes even less, everyone on the street thinks that they have the right to challenge you on your specialty. No average Joe questions a doctor's medical decision casually, but many if not most will try to go toe-to-toe with a philosopher. I do not know how my fellows handle it, but I try to avoid conversations amateurs who are strangers at all costs. Once I embraced such conversations as being in line with being a public intellectual, but it requires the emotional constitution of an Abrams tank: impervious. I applaud those who can do it, because you need that armor since most everyone feels a right to take potshots and offer arguments without the slightest bit of forethought. As anyone with teaching experience well knows, most Americans think that everything is a matter of personal belief (until they change their mind), yet the cultural distaste for intellectuals emboldens people in ways that medical doctors do not face. (If your reaction is to note that "but doctors are useful," then you just quietly took a shot.)

The Hazards of Online Philosophizing

Reblogged from The Horizon and the Fringe

Recently, I have gone through a spate of unpleasant incidents with different individuals in diverse venues that all had something in common. Some disagreement turned into violations of social etiquette--or at best missing the point--that quickly devolved into hostility. My recent response is to block that discussion so that I can no longer see what is going on and thereby not be tempted to "Feed the Beast!" Hence, I offer the procedures that I try to follow to avoid accidentally antagonizing interlocutors when discussing philosophy online, which by its nature elicits argument and disagreement.

unintended meanings

1. Our words always have unintended meanings that others may grasp: some of these unintended meanings may be true without our awareness. I might be an unwitting jerk in conversation, for instance. The problem happens when someone calls that person out as a jerk, etc., which is very likely to produce the unwanted behavior whether it was previously true or not. In short, an accusation often produces the behavior: do not accuse. By the time you, or I, make an accusation,we must accept that we are picking a fight. Refuse to accept this, and you are in fact a jerk.

question rather than accuse

2. Ask questions and for clarification. I always try to do this, and I always think I could do it better. Rather than accuse or assert, ask the person if they intended to communicate what you are tempted to accuse them of. This may avoid a confrontation, although some interlocutors will treat a question as the same as an accusation. I suspect that I get in trouble on this point a lot, and the best advice I can give is to do it better than I do.

when to exit

3. If derogatory language starts flying, that's the sign to get out now! Nothing productive will occur after that.

pro-actively preventing conflict

4. Try not only to treat everyone in a friendly manner, but do your best to feel like a friend. Online media tend to elicit fast and strong emotional reactions, and one way to counter this is to pro-actively establish a positive emotional attitude towards your interlocutors.

be mindful of your audience

5. If you say anything negative about a group of people, presume that at least one member of that group is in the audience. This trick either keeps you in check from saying anything too harsh, or reminds you that you are intentionally provoking someone. Yeah, I say negative points all the time, but this tip is to avoid accidentally doing so. I don't know how many times I've heard someone disparage academics or philosophers in a conversation … and then don't seem to realize they have offered an insult. Likewise, I'm mindful when and where I work my hobby-horses. (I'm particularly harsh to mainstream analytic philosophy.)

an invitation

Of course, I would love to hear counter-points to any of these and other suggestions. Given my experience, I'm convinced that some conversational styles cause conflict that the interlocutors attribute to ill-will. I have run into plenty of people that, at least at first, appear to be a problematic conversant, whereas I later discover that two-thirds of the problem is how they approach conversations (see the previous point) and the last third is just bad conversational habits.

CFP: Society of Christian Philosophers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Eastern Regional Conference

"Theistic Metaphysics and Naturalism"

October 24-26, 2013

University of South Florida

Tampa, Florida

Conference Website:

http://philosophyconference.wordpress.com/

Keynote Speakers: 

Trenton Merricks (University of Virginia)

Christina Van Dyke (Calvin College)

The Eastern Regional Meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers (SCP) will be held October 24-26 at the University of South Florida. Submissions are welcome from all theological perspectives, and we welcome Christian and non-Christian presenters and participants. The theme this year will be "Theistic Metaphysics and Naturalism." Paper submissions on any topic of philosophical interest, however, will be given equal consideration. 

Submissions should be 3,000 words or less and prepared for blind review (please send a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file with no identifying 'marks'). Submissions should also include a cover letter with your name, institutional affiliation, email address, paper title, and an abstract of 150 words or less. 

Deadline for submissions: August 3rd, 2013. Submissions should be sent to eastern.scp.usf@gmail.com.

There is a $500 SCP-funded award for the best graduate student paper. If you would like to be considered for the award, please indicate this in your cover letter. 

For additional information, please contact Daniel Collette (dpcollet@mail.usf.edu) or Jeffery Steele (jwsteele@mail.usf.edu).

The Uncaring Gaze

Why do people discriminate? I am not just asking about race, class, gender, ethnicity, etc…, but of exclusive group behavior in general. I believe that there is a common core to discrimination that does not explain its entirety or the intricacies of its various forms, but does explain much of its proliferation in these so-called pluralistic times. The idea can be explicated in various ways, but they are all equivalent.

People do no understand themselves to be discriminatory unless they are conscious of intending to be so. The emphasis is on intention, not consciousness of or attention. That is, the person can be conscious of the act and even paying a lot of attention, but only intention counts for them. Let me clarify what I mean: if you were to challenge the person about the act or awareness of the act, it would not be denied. What would be denied is intending to discriminate, and since only intention matters, the fact of bias does not matter since the fact does not lead to understanding oneself to be discriminatory.

For example, Paula Deen's recent protestations that she is not racist appear to fit this pattern: her words and acts are slathered in racism, particularly cultural and social subordination of people of color, but she insists that she did not intend to be racist. This is closely related to the "beautiful soul" phenomenon, which I would define as a person who commits bad acts, yet insists that they cannot truly be bad because "I am a person who would never do such things!" Read: I have a beautiful, pure, untarnished soul that no one can see that excuses whatever acts I appear to do. Of course, the problem with this cases is that self-understanding should not be the sole indicator of discrimination. In the case of the "beautiful soul," that person never attributes anything negative to self-understanding.

Drawing upon my research, I propose a thesis explaining why these individuals do not understand themselves as prejudiced. The issue is one of phenomenological semantics or hermeneutics: the ray of conscious intention renders the object of attention consciously meaningful. Without intention yet with attention, the object remains meaningful in a subconscious way. For instance, the door and doorknob are meaningful insomuch as one encounters them when opening a door, yet this meaning is subconscious: we attend to them without intending them. The distinction between intention and attention, given the operative definition that I am using, is one of degree and not kind. Moreover, I am treating intention as a conscious, noetic, or cognitive act, while attention is first a pre- or sub-conscious, anoretic, non-cognitive act. Continental phenomenologists should note that I am using intention in a recognizable yet unfamiliar way; it is motivated by pragmatist phenomenology.

There is a practical reason for the distinction between intention and attention. A nominally discriminatory person has habits of separating intention and attention. In plain speech, this means that the person is practiced at acting upon bias without understanding it as bias, and gains the title "discriminatory" because the individual resists that self-understanding regardless of the facts.

Returning to a theoretical explanation, we must attend to something for it to be capable of being experienced as meaningful. Yet we must intend it for us to grasp that object with the intended meaning. Hence, prejudice grasps the object but only with the intended meaning. Likewise, the person is shocked at being called a "misogynistic pig" because he didn't intend misogyny.

Returning to the practical reason for making the distinction, the inveterate bigot treats meaning as a private personal domain: only what I intend matters. Hence, I and my bigoted fellows will do what we always will but attribute ill-will, laziness, stupidity, and much else to those people. We, my fellows, are not bigoted: we have friends who look like that! … and thus bigotry gains the imprimatur of social acceptance, is strengthened, and becomes the America that we live in today. Systematic discrimination and oppression that does not know itself as such.

The Pragmatic Maxim: Essays on Peirce and Pragmatism

Christopher Hookaway's The Pragmatic Maxim: Essays on Peirce and Pragmatism is lurking in the wild....

DMF has been hooking us up.