CFP: Eidyn Early Career Forum

The Eidyn Early Career Forum

On November 27-28, 2013 the Eidyn research centre at the University of Edinburgh will host the Eidyn Early Career Forum, which brings outstanding junior philosophers from around the world to Edinburgh to present their research, meet faculty and students, and engage with members of the general public. The two-day event will feature both an advanced forum for research in philosophy and brief 'TED-style' public talks that demonstrate the continued relevance and interest of philosophy to thoughtful people everywhere. The research workshop on the first day will include presentations, commentary and open discussion. The public talks, held the evening of the second day, will be widely advertised throughout the university, the city of Edinburgh, and to schools in the region. Video podcasts of both events will be made freely available and hosted in perpetuity on the Eidyn website.

Submissions, which should include both a research paper and a proposal for a short-form public talk, are invited from early career philosophers. Research papers should be on any topic within the ambit of Eidyn (epistemology, ethics broadly construed, and philosophy of mind & cognition), and historical approaches to these subject areas are welcome. The public talk should be in the same general area as the research paper and aimed at people interested in philosophy but without any background in the subject.

One paper/proposal in each of epistemology, ethics and mind/cognition will be selected, and speakers will be invited to Edinburgh with all expenses paid.

Eligibility: Submissions are invited from anyone who is either a current PhD student or who received their PhD in or after 2008.

Submission Details: Both the research paper and the public talk proposal should be prepared for blind review with a detachable cover sheet that contains the author’s name, affiliation, contact information, and date of PhD (expected or actual). The research paper may be any length, but should be suitable for presentation in 45 minutes and accompanied by an abstract of about 200 words. The proposal for the public talk should be about 500 words. Submissions should be sent as pdf files to eidyn.early.career@gmail.com.

The Public Talk: This is conceived as a compact, riveting presentation to a large public audience. The content is yours to decide, but we assume that the best proposals will treat the task as a design problem – how do you present, in exactly 15 minutes, a philosophical issue, problem or insight that will engage and edify a diverse public audience? Think of it as Philosophy 101 meets the elevator pitch.

Deadline: September 15

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.

Allison Krauss: Whiskey Lullaby

Allison Krauss: Whiskey Lullaby

KO, Leon, KO.

Mazzy Star: Fade into You

Mazzy Star: Fade into You

Right jab!

Sneaker Pimps: 6 Underground

Sneaker Pimps: 6 Underground

Bring it,Leon!

Delerium: Lost and Found

Delerium--Lost and Found

Stickin it to Leon of After Nature. Music wars are on! (I'm going to lose, but I don't care.)

A Common Misunderstanding of Pragmatist Philosophy

One of the difficulties of explaining pragmatism and continental philosophy to a person versed only in the analytic tradition, and vice-versa I presume, is grasping the pervasive concepts that a tradition takes for granted. In fact, it is difficult to realize that a tradition has such concepts and what they are unless one studies multiple traditions or divergent subfields within a tradition. For instance, one must comprehend how modern formal logic structures how mainstream analytic philosophy argues in order to grasp many subtleties. Likewise, a person studying recent continental philosophy will be at a severe disadvantage without a solid grasp of phenomenology, hermeneutics, historical-thinking and the concepts of subjectivity, discourse, embodied, etc.

What about pragmatism? Recently, I presented a number of posts on process metaphysics, especially a book Beyond Mechanism, that reminded me of common barrier for understanding the subtleties of pragmatism. Much of classical and contemporary (neoclassical) pragmatism integrates processive and temporalist metaphysics in its thought, whereas analytic philosophy is over-whelmingly mechanistic. In large part, early pragmatism was a response to mechanistic metaphysics and the battle between mechanism and organicism (usually a proxy for idealism).

Trying to explain seemingly unrelated ethical concepts to a person not familiar with an event ontology, phenomenology, or habit psychology challenges both. But the think the biggest problem, at least in my experience, is that when a person points out differences in tradition that are not merely superficial, most audiences react by presuming that the other person is doing something illegitimate or evasive. The odd thing is, the more alien the tradition, the more the person gets a pass: few philosophers in the U.S. complain about incomprehension of a Buddhist answer, yet they will complain about an analytic, continental, or Americanist answer. The presumption of familiarity seems to be a barrier to understanding.

Butler on Whitehead: On the Occassion

Thinking Judith Butler and A.N. Whitehead.

Contemporary Whitehead Studies: Beyond Mechanism

Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe have put out the edited collection Beyond Mechanism.

Contemporary Whitehead Studies: Foundations of Relational Realism

Michael Epperson and Elias Zafiris  have penned Foundations of Relational Realism: A Topological Approach to Quantum Mechanics and the Foundations of Nature.

Delerium: Chrysalis Heart

Delerium's newest single, Chrysalis Heart.

Leon of After Nature shares so much music that occasionally I try to compete.... Delerium has been my favorite group for almost 15 years.

Historical Perspectives on the Peirce Family

Jessica Cohen of the Pocono Record discusses a recent presentation on Peirce.

Spring Breakers and Dionysian Madness

The Pinnochio Theory has a brilliantly succinct analysis of the recent American film, Spring Breakers:

Spring Breakers

Audiovisually speaking, SPRING BREAKERS is utterly ravishing. It is so gorgeous as to negate or suspend the uneasiness one might legitimately feel about 1)the use of GIRL POWER as an alibi to empower a straight white dude’s jerk-off fantasy; & 2)the “wanna-be-black” fantasy by means of which straight white dudes compensate for (supplement, in the Derrida sense) their own feelings of impotent inferiority by adopting, with a vengeance, the most viciously racist stereotypes of “black masculinity” that our culture currently likes to circulate. I notice these things, but I am helplessly & successfully disarmed by Harmony Korine’s relentless audiovisual seduction: the sunsets, the colors, the slow-motion, the breasts, the throbbing but sublimated yearning of the electro score, the intellectual montage that layers Britney over thuggery, and gorgeous beaches over willful stupdity, the heartfeltspirituality of Selena Gomez’s voiceovers. with the mantra-like repetitions of her monologues and other fragments of dialogue… All this as an almost didactic demonstration of the way that, in our neoliberal culture, there is no distinction whatsoever between hedonism and self-help, or between transgression and hypernormativity.

I refused to watch it after seeing a few trailers, precisely because it is a self-conscious excuse to present pornography as film. The reflexive moment, had by thinkers, that the film intends to have that "you know that I know that you know" moment, doesn't mitigate the fact. In fact, I am tempted to think that the film might appeal because it demonstrates the chasm between the erudite who "get it" and the plebes who just skim across the surface. I have been on the lookout for such traps even since I was ... well ... Suckerpunched by a movie promising a feminist theme but was in fact yet another vehicle for "straight white dude" porn delivered in a manner that makes on feel righteous rather than regretful at breaking a taboo. Too many films operate on the grounds of giving us a pornographic or violent feast that we're not supposed to have because it's barbaric and potentially morally eroding, and then make it palatable with a hipster wink and execution by ironizing it.

This is decadence, a Dionysian madness whereas we'll shred our Apollonian strictures while still proclaiming their rightness. It is predation.

Dewey and Descola: philosophical ecology and environmental philosophy (DOWNLOAD)

Leon of After Nature is hooking us up with a link to Hugh McDonald's John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy.

CFP: The Charles S. Peirce 2014 International Centennial Congress

2nd Call for Papers, Short Contributions and Posters

The Charles S. Peirce 2014 International Centennial Congress

The Charles S. Peirce Society and the Peirce Foundation invite the submission of new papers, short contributions, and posters for the Charles S. Peirce International Centennial Congress, to be held at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (July 16-19, 2014). The theme of the Congress is Invigorating Philosophy for the 21st Century. The aim of this conference is to advance scholarship on all aspects of Peirce’s philosophy and biography, and on the influence and contemporary relevance of his thought. Interdisciplinary submissions, and contributions from researchers in disciplines other than philosophy, are welcome.

Confirmed plenary speakers include: Douglas Anderson, Vincent Colapietro, Susan Haack, Christopher Hookway, Nathan Houser, Ivo Ibri, Cheryl Misak, Nicholas Rescher, Claudine Tiercelin, and Fernando Zalamea.

Deadline for paper, short contribution, and poster submissions: September 1, 2013.

Complete submission guidelines: http://peirce-foundation.org/2014cfp.html

Get Your Intellectual Fix at The Horizon and the Fringe

Loaded with articles on philosophy, politics, education, gender, race, sex, and all those intellectual topics you  love! For now, Ed and I are holding down the fort until our fellow co-authors survive their doctoral examinations: more and more diverse content coming soon! This blog, Immanent Transcendence, will continue to host its usual content.

Inhuman Already? Zombies, Vampires, and the Accelerationist Moment

Joshua Ramey at An und fur sich has a brilliant post. Elements of it are must-read for anyone in higher education.

On Black Privilege

After a post "On White Privilege," I muse "On Black Privilege."

Heidegger's Question Concerning Technology

Ed Hacket thinks through Heidegger's famous essay and hints at a connection with contemporary economics over at The Horizon and the Fringe.

Roothan on James' Pluralistic Universe

Prof. Angela Roothan comments on William James' A Pluralistic Universe.

Laruelle "In-the-Last-Humanity: On the 'Speculative' Ecology of Man, Animal and Plant”

Laruelle "In-the-Last-Humanity: On the 'Speculative' Ecology of Man, Animal and Plant”

(MP3 DOWNLOAD)

Leon of After Nature is hooking us up.

From the LGS Seminars (info copied below).

Professor François Laruelle – In-the-Last-Humanity: On the “Speculative” Ecology of Man, Animal and Plant

This is the third in a series of lectures Professor François Laruelle is giving at the London Graduate School, London. This talk was presented with the support of the School of Art, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts.

Professor Laruelle has taught at both the University of Paris X and the Collège international de philosophie, and is a Visiting Professor at the London Graduate School, Kingston University, London. He is the author of over twenty books, including Philosophies of Difference (trans. 2010), Future Christ (trans. 2010), Principles of Non-Philosophy (trans. 2013), and, most recently, The Concept of Non-Photography (2011) and Anti-Badiou (2011, trans. 2013).

When Does Social Justice Become Another Form of Oppression?

I comment on a recent New York Times  article on this question at The Horizon and the Fringe.

Aikin and Talisse on Jamesian Ethics

I just saw the back-and-forth on this point in the just-published William James Studies. WOW. I cannot remember the last time I saw such fist-a-cuffs at that level of intensity. Ya know, I'm going to be honest and go with my gut rather than we weighed-down by the usual academic politically-correct talk. By default, I'm hesistant to accept the position of a person who jumps right into name-calling, especially after I recently published a response to that person's essay accusing them of doing the same thing on another topic. So, I will keep back-tracking the conversation, and you can follow along to see who's hurling the most mud. Hint: it's mostly one side.

William James Studies, Vol. 9 is OUT!

William James Studies

Table of Contents

The Religion of William James in Mind and Body: Papers Presented at the 33rd Annual Nineteenth Century Studies Association Conference (2012):

Editor's Preface
Robert D. Richardson

Split Mysticism: William James's Democratization of Religion
Paul J. Croce

The Head and the Heart: William James and Evelyn Underhill on Mysticism
Lynn Bridgers

William James and Swami Vivekananda: Religious Experience and Vedanta/Yoga in America
Norris Frederick

Jonathan Edwards & William James on Religion
Richard Hall

Reviewed Submissions
Chasing the Bear: William James on Sensations, Emotions and Instincts
Anna Stoklosa

James's Critiques of the Freudian Unconscious - 25 Years Earlier
Eric Thomas Weber

William James on the Humanities
Richard Hall


More Responses to Talisse and Aikin
A Reconstruction of James's Normative Ethics
Todd Lekan

A Reply to Aikin and Talisse
Mark Uffelman

Book Reviews:
A New Look at New Realism: The Psychology and Philosophy of E. B. Holt. By Eric P. Charles
Bruce Kuklick

Pragmatic Modernism. By Lisi Schoenbach
Stephanie Hawkins

Peirce, James, and a Pragmatic Philosophy of Religion. By John W. Woell
Rose Ann Christian

CFP: Josiah Royce Society at the 2014 SAAP

CFP: Royce Society at 2014 SAAP

The Josiah Royce Society Session at the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, to take place March 6-8, 2014, in Denver, CO.

This session will include two or three paper presentations and brief commentary on each presentation.

The word limit is 3000 words, and the abstract should be no shorter than 250 words.

Please prepare your paper or abstract for anonymous review. Attach a separate document with the paper title, author name, affiliation, and contact information (email and phone number).

Prospective presenters/commentators are asked to email Tanya Jeffcoat at tjeffcoat@ozarks.edu

Deadline: November 1, 2013

Notification regarding submission status will be made before December 15, 2013.

What Pragmatism Was

F. Thomas Burke's latest book is OUT!

What Pragmatism Was is published by Indiana University Press.

The Human Eros: Eco-Ontology and the Aesthetics of Existence

Tom is one of the leading thinkers in pragmatist aesthetics, and was one of my mentors in my own work. In fact, my dissertation and book manuscript is a direct inheritor of his work. Where we differ is that he's more interested in ecology and civilization in the widest scope, whereas my work in aesthetics focuses on moral aesthetics and the individual or community.

Master's and Doctoral Grants for Research in Normativity

*English below*

GROUPE DE RECHERCHE INTERUNIVERSITAIRE SUR LA NORMATIVITÉ (GRIN)

APPEL À CANDIDATURES

BOURSES DE MAÎTRISE ET DOCTORAT 2013-2014

Le groupe de recherche interuniversitaire sur la normativité (GRIN) offre 10 bourses de 5000$ pour les étudiants de 2ème et 3ème cycles.

Le GRIN rassemble 15 chercheurs intéressés par l’étude philosophique de la normativité. Il s’agit là d’une thématique qui se caractérise autant par sa variété que son importance. Les différentes questions ayant trait à la normativité se situent en effet au centre de plusieurs débats en philosophie contemporaine. Le GRIN rassemble ainsi des chercheurs en éthique, en philosophie de l’action, en philosophie de l’esprit et de la psychiatrie et en épistémologie.

Pour la bourse, le GRIN accueille les dossiers de candidats-es qui travaillent sous la supervision d’un membre du groupe de recherche* et dont le sujet de recherche s’inscrit dans un des champs de questions ciblés par le groupe dans l’articulation de son actuelle programmation de recherche :

1) Langage et nature de la normativité,

2) Connaissance et normativité,

3) Normativité et psychologie.

Admissibilité:

L’étudiant(e) doit être inscrit(e) aux études à temps plein dans son programme durant la période couverte par la bourse.

L’étudiant(e) doit réaliser ses recherches sous la supervision d’un membre régulier du GRIN.*

L’étudiant doit comprendre le français et l’anglais.

Objectif de la bourse :

Soutien aux études supérieures dans le domaine de la philosophie de la normativité.

Montant et durée de la bourse :

Chaque bourse attribuée par le GRIN est d’une valeur de 5000$, pour la période couvrant l’année universitaire 2013-2014. Cette bourse peut être cumulée avec des bourses provenant d’autres organismes.

Engagements du boursier ou de la boursière :

Mener un projet de recherche en conformité avec celui soumis lors de leur candidature.

Participer aux activités organisées par le GRIN (ateliers, séminaires, colloques).

Dossier de candidature :

une lettre de motivation précisant les intérêts de recherche et leur lien avec la question de la normativité.

un projet de recherche (1-2 pages), approuvé par son directeur ou sa directrice de recherche.

un curriculum vitae.

Critères de sélection :

qualité de la lettre de motivation du candidat ou de la candidate;

qualité du dossier universitaire;

intérêt du projet de recherche eu égard aux questions de recherche du GRIN.

Les dossiers doivent être envoyés par courriel à : bruno.guindon@mail.mcgill.ca

Pour tout renseignement : patrick.turmel.2@ulaval.ca

Date limite de dépôt des dossiers de candidature : vendredi le 16 août 2013, 16h.

Seuls les dossiers complets à la date de clôture de cette offre seront considérés.

http://creum.umontreal.ca/grin/

* Liste des membres réguliers du GRIN pouvant superviser une recherche de maîtrise ou de doctorat : Renée Bilodeau (Université Laval), Michael Blome-Tillmann (McGill), Yves Bouchard (Université de Sherbrooke), Murray Clarke (Concordia), Luc Faucher (UQAM), Ian Gold (McGill), Iwao Hirose (McGill), Daniel Laurier (Université de Montréal), Andrew Reisner (McGill), Mauro Rossi (UQAM), Sarah Stroud (McGill), Christine Tappolet (Université de Montréal), Patrick Turmel (Université Laval)

GROUPE DE RECHERCHE INTERUNIVERSITAIRE SUR LA NORMATIVITÉ (GRIN)

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

MASTER’S AND DOCTORAL GRANTS

The Interuniversity Research Group on Normativity (GRIN) is offering 10 grants of $5000 for master’s and doctoral students.

The GRIN is composed of 15 researchers interested in the philosophical study of normativity; a study characterized by its variety as well as its importance. In effect, various questions about normativity take center stage in numerous debates in contemporary philosophy. The GRIN therefore gathers researchers in ethics, philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, as well as philosophy of psychiatry and epistemology.

The GRIN is accepting applications from candidates who work under the supervision of any member of the research group*, and whose area of research addresses the sorts of questions articulated in the GRIN’s current program of research:

1) Language and nature of normativity

2) Knowledge and normativity

3) Normativity and psychology

Admissibility:

The applicant must be enrolled in full-time studies in their program during the period covered by the grant.

The applicant must be working under the supervision of a regular member of the GRIN.*

The applicant must have a working knowledge of French and English.

Grant goal:

Provide support for graduate studies in the philosophy of normativity.

Grant amount and duration:

Each grant is for $5000 and covers the 2013-14 academic year. It may be conjoined with grants or scholarships from other granting institutions.

Recipient commitments:

Develop the research project outlined in the research proposal.

Participate in the activities organized by the GRIN (workshops, seminars, colloquia).

Application package:

Letter of intent stating the applicant’s research interests and their relation to the philosophy of normativity.

Research proposal (1-2 pages), approved by the applicant’s research supervisor.

C.V.

Selection criteria:

Quality of applicant’s letter of intent

Academic record

Relevance of applicant’s research project to the GRIN’s research goals.

Please send applications by email to: bruno.guindon@mail.mcgill.ca.

For additional information: patrick.turmel.2@ulaval.ca.

Application deadline: Friday, August 16, 2013, 16:00.

Only completed applications submitted by this date and time will be considered.

http://creum.umontreal.ca/grin/

CFP: European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy

*CALL FOR PAPERS: *

*“Language or Experience: Charting Pragmatism’s Course for the 21st Century”*

*European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy

<http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/>

* Volume 6, No. 2, 2014

Guest editor: David Hildebrand (Associate Professor and Chair, Department
of Philosophy, University of Colorado Denver, USA)

DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE: *
http://www.davidhildebrand.org/media/uploads/files/2013/06/19/CFP_Call_for_Papers_EJPAP_Issue_on_Experience_and_Language.pdf
*
*DESCRIPTION*

Thirty-plus years ago, Richard Rorty published *Consequences of Pragmatism*.
One consequence of that book—along with other subsequent work by Rorty—has
been to challenge the centrality of “experience” for pragmatism’s
conceptions of truth, morality, and reality. Rorty denigrated “experience”
argued that the notion should be eliminated from pragmatism. He criticized
pragmatists like Dewey and James for either lapsing into bad faith
(offering experience as a substitute for “substance,” or “mind,” etc.) or
for simply lacking the linguistic tools (devised later by analytic
philosophy) to escape philosophical dead ends.

Rorty’s challenge, one may safely assert, created both space and motivation
for the development of a more language-centered pragmatism, sometimes
called “neopragmatism” or “new pragmatism.” This language-centered strategy
has become important in the work of figures such as Robert Brandom, Huw
Price, Cheryl Misak, Michael Williams, and Bjørn Ramberg.

However, while Rorty was trying to eliminate experience from pragmatism,
contemporaries of Rorty (e.g., John J. McDermott and Richard Bernstein)
were elucidating the notion and arguing for its *indispensability* to
pragmatism. In a recent book (2010) Bernstein argued that a pragmatic
conception of inquiry requires experience: “Redescription,” Bernstein
writes, “no matter how imaginative, is not enough.” Bernstein traces this
lesson to Charles S. Peirce’s view that “experience involves bruteness,
constraint, ‘over-and-againstness’. Experience is our great teacher. And
experience takes place by a series of surprises.” Without this element,
Bernstein argues, experimental inquiries lack friction. This
experience-centered approach informs the work of a variety of recent
contemporary pragmatists such as Thomas Alexander, Richard Shusterman,
Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Gregory Pappas, Douglas Anderson, and many
others.

This issue of the *European Journal of Pragmatism and American
Philosophy* seeks
to provoke debate about the motives and stakes behind these two approaches
to pragmatism. We welcome any contribution that (i) takes a stand defending
“experience” or “language” as central for (neo/new)pragmatism in the 21st
century or (ii) explains the importance of “experience” or “language” for
pragmatist applications in other disciplines— aesthetics, political theory,
literary criticism, environmental ethics, medical ethics, public
administration, etc. or (iii) proposes (neo/new)pragmatist formulations
that resolve or dissolve familiar tensions between language and experience
(possibly by showing them in innovative relations or by re-interpreting
their derivation from classical or neopragmatist works).

*FORMAT AND DEADLINES*: Papers must

- be written in English
- be limited to 12,000 words
- include an abstract of 200-400 words
- include a list of works cited

*Papers should be sent as an email attachment to David Hildebrand <<
hilde123@gmail.com >> before December 1, 2013 with “EJPAP Submission” in
the subject header. *Acceptance of papers will be determined before
February 15, 2014. Papers will be selected on the basis of a process of
blind review and published in the December 2014 issue of EJPAP. Please
address any questions to David Hildebrand, Associate Professor of
Philosophy, University of Colorado Denver << hilde123@gmail.com >>
DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE:
http://www.davidhildebrand.org/research/cfp_ejpap_hildebrand/

Robert Brandom: Reason Genealogy and the Hermeneutics of Magnanimity

Leon of After Nature has a nice video of the talk. Check it.

CFP: Philosophy of Science in the 21st Century – Challenges and Tasks

Philosophy of Science in the 21st Century – Challenges and Tasks

International Conference

4-6 December, 2013 | Lisbon, Portugal

The Centre for Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon

(CFCUL) is organizing the Second Lisbon International Conference

Philosophy of Science in the 21st Century – Challenges and Tasks. This

conference will be held in December 4th to 6th 2013, at the Faculty of

Sciences of the University of Lisbon.

Important dates:

Deadline for abstract/proposal submission: 15 September 2013

Notification of acceptance/rejection: 30 September 2013

Deadline for registration: 30 October 2013

http://philo-sci21.fc.ul.pt/