The philosophy graduate students at Boston University are soliciting papers and abstract from graduate students in any area of philosophy for the Boston University Annual Graduate Student Conference on “Sustainability and Environmental Ethics.” The two-day in-person meeting will feature seven graduate student presentations and two keynote addresses, along with a small sustainable art exhibition and a roundtable on environmental philosophy and the role philosophers should play in public debate.
The event will confront issues of sustainability, climate responsibility, and environmental justice from a philosophical perspective. As a philosophical community, we recognize the urgency of addressing the climate and ecological crises and wish to provide a safe and diverse platform for philosophers to discuss the conceptual, ethical, political, aesthetic, and spiritual dimensions of climate change and sustainability as it is perceived today. Our chief motivation for organizing this conference is to show how the challenges we face in light of the climate and biodiversity crises are scientific, technological, and social, but also deeply and fundamentally philosophical
This conference is organized by the graduate students of the Department of Philosophy at Boston University. The conference is supported by the Boston University Department of Philosophy and MAP international.
The research on intergenerational justice has followed in the last decades three main directives: neo-contractualist models that aim to demonstrate that there can be mutual advantage in indirect cooperation or to find moral patches based on intra-familiar love; studies on the implications that utilitarianism, prioritarianism and sufficientarianism have with respect to future generations (e.g., the social discount rate, the repugnant conclusion, the hermit’s paradox, and so forth); analysis of how it is possible to conceive intergenerational harm in the face of the non-identity problem. There is, however, a third possible line of research, which, despite having received much less attention over the years, presents much less theoretical complications than the approaches set out above, and this is transgenerational communitarianism. Avner De Shalit outlined, more than twenty years ago, the concept of transgenerational community, that is, a community that despite the lack of face-to-face interactions between all its members (due to obvious temporal asymmetries) manages to ensure moral similarity between them through free and rational processes of collective reflection.
Although this idea is able to give normative foundation to intergenerational obligations without incurring the theoretical complications that meet the most known and discussed theories that are based on a strict methodological individualism, such as complications related to the identity of future people and population ethics, it has not been developed in the literature as due. At the same time, however, a consistent metaphysical research has gone ahead on the concepts of transgenerationality and of transgenerational actions, i.e., actions that can be realized only with the contribution of subjects other than those who initiated them – which is, in essence, the theoretical assumption of any transgenerational community.
Accordingly, the purpose of this special issue is to investigate the relationship between transgenerationality, on the one hand, and a community-based normative foundation of justice towards future generations, on the other. In particular, we are interested in addressing three theoretical issues:
– What are the metaphysical underpinnings of the concept of transgenerationality and under which circumstances one or more transgenerational actions can create duties of justice, positive or negative, towards future generations?
– What is a transgenerational community and what kind of obligations does it create among its members belonging to different generational cohorts? And what is the temporal extension of these obligations?
– What are the drawbacks of a communitarian approach to intergenerational justice? For example, can it give the right theoretical value to intergenerational problems, such as climate change, which have a clear cosmopolitan scope?
Invited authors
Avner de Shalit (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Luigi Bonatti (University of Trento, Italy) and Lorenza Alexandra Lorenzetti (Università Cattolica, Milan, Italy)
Janna Thompson (La Trobe University, Australia)
Jean Comaroff (Harvard University, USA) and John Comaroff (Harvard University, USA),
May Sim (College of the Holy Cross, MA, USA)
Ferdinando G. Menga (Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Italy)
Submission Information: All submissions should be prepared for anonymous review and sent to:
tiziana.andina@unito.it <mailto:tiziana.andina@unito.it> and fausto.corvino@unito.it <mailto:fausto.corvino@unito.it>
Word limit: 8000 words, including notes and references.
Rivista di Estetica (1/2023)
Unpacking the social world: groups and solidarity
Submission deadline: 8 January 2022
Advisory editors:
Francesco Camboni (University of Eastern Piedmont),
Raul Hakli (University of Helsinki),
Valeria Martino (University of Genoa)
Description: “Sociality” is a fuzzy word that can be found in a wide range of scopes and debates, from antiquity to the contemporary age. Notwithstanding or rather just in virtue of its wide currency, however, there is no explicit consensus on the meaning “sociality” has. While biology and sociology have rather wide notions of sociality, the focus of social ontology is on the social world, that is, the ontological domain which is populated by social entities. While according to some sociality occurs as long as there is interaction among people, involving joint commitments and plural subjects, others refer to the social world as mostly made of institutional facts or social objects, or deal with social actions and practices.
This issue of Rivista di Estetica aims at shedding light on sociality by addressing two core classic subjects of social philosophy: groups and solidarity. Indeed, groups are the most obvious result of sociality as the tendency of grouping, depending on living and interacting with others. On the other hand, as another branch of sociality, solidarity has only recently attracted remarkable attention from social and political philosophers; while some propose to unpack it in terms of joint action, others explore the forms of mutual recognition that are combined in solidarity.
Topics and research questions include (but are not limited to):
- The nature and identity of social groups;
- Is sociality a constitutive feature of groups of people?
- The nature of solidarity, and – if any – its opposite;
- The kind of psychological mechanisms involved in dynamics of solidarity;
- Is solidarity related to some distinctive group kind?
- Is solidarity a necessary or sufficient condition for group formation?
Instructions: Submissions focusing on other aspects of social groups and solidarity, both from a theoretical and an ethical point of view are welcome. Articles must be written in English or in Italian and should not exceed 40.000 characters, notes and blank-spaces included.
In order to submit your paper, please register and login to: http://labont.it/estetica/index.php/rivistadiestetica/login
Please notice: when asked “What kind of file is this”, please select the relevant CFP.
Jolma
Greek and Contemporary Philosophies of Language Face to Face
Submission deadline: 28 February 2022
Guest editor:
Begoña Ramón Cámara
Description: In the last hundred years, language has been at the centre of interest in philosophy, so much so that we have come to speak, with reference above all to the philosophy that developed between the 1920s and the end of the century, of a “linguistic turn”. Nor should it be forgotten that this interest in language, which certainly distinguished analytic philosophy, also involved much “continental” philosophy (it is enough to mention Heidegger, philosophical hermeneutics, or Derrida). The same decades also saw a great development of the investigation of the conception of language in ancient Greek, Roman and late ancient philosophy. The works on the theme of language in the sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Hellenistic philosophies, Neo-Platonism, Augustine and the Patristic, etc., are increasingly numerous. In this panorama there are two points that deserve more attention than has been devoted to them so far. The first point concerns contemporary philosophy of language. With a few, albeit notable, exceptions, one feels the lack in contemporary philosophy of language of a systematic study of the previous history of philosophical reflection on language. This is true of the Modern Age (16th–18th centuries) and the Middle Ages; but it is perhaps more true of the Greek, Roman and Late Antiquity. Obviously, all this can be explained by the explicit theoretical orientation of contemporary philosophy of language, especially analytical philosophy; however, this does not exclude that a critical comparison with one’s own history could contribute to enriching and also making more perceptive the current philosophical research on language. The second point concerns research into ancient conceptions of language. Perhaps in order not to fall into anachronisms or an undue updating of ancient thought, many scholars have avoided using contemporary theoretical acquisitions on language in their approach to Greek, Roman or Late Antiquity conceptions. This is an entirely understandable caution. However, this does not exclude that, read in the light of the current philosophy of language, many ancient pages may reveal new aspects to us, and that the historical reconstruction may come out richer and more percipient. In this issue we would like to bring together (a) essays that, from the contemporary philosophy of language, want to reflect on the Greek past of language research, without renouncing the theoretical motivation of the research; (b) essays that, committed to the research on Greek conceptions of language, want to confront what has happened in the last century in the reflection on language. One of the aims of this issue is also to collect essays that investigate (c) the way in which some contemporary philosophers of language (Austin, Wittgenstein, Davidson, etc.) have confronted Greek thought; (d) the cases in which Greek texts on language have been read and interpreted in the light of this or that contemporary theory of language (for example, the Cratylus and contemporary theories of reference).
Invited Contributors: Juan José Acero, James C. Klagge, Marcello La Matina, Lidia Palumbo, Luigi Perissinotto, Francesca Piazza, Mauro Serra.
Istructions: Papers will be subject to double-blind peer review by at least two referees, following international standard practices. Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 6,500 words. Submissions must be suitable for blind review. Each submission should also include a brief abstract of no more than 650 words and five keywords for indexing purposes. The instructions for authors can be consulted in the journal’s website: ‘Editorial Guidelines’. Notification of intent to submit, including both a title and a brief summary of the content, will be greatly appreciated, as it will assist with the coordination and planning of the issue. Please submit your proposals to the email jolma_editor@unive.it or using the section ‘Contacts’ of the ‘Journal info’ page.
Journal’s website
For any question, please use the following address: begonia.ramon@gmail.com
Rivista di Estetica
The Philosophy of Television Series
Submission deadline: 1 April 2022
Guest editors:
Mario Slugan (Queen Mary University of London) and
Enrico Terrone (Università di Genova)
Description: It is often said that television series are nowadays as good as films, or even better than them, but the philosophical inquiry into the former remains much less developed than the philosophy of film. A handful of recent books have tried to fill the gap, but there is much work still to be done. Significant contributions to the aesthetics of television series are coming from television studies and film studies, raising issues which philosophers are challenged to address. The special issue of Rivista di estetica looks for philosophical perspectives on television series with the aim of exploring this new fascinating area of research in which aesthetics and media studies can fruitfully interact. Topics for papers may include but are not limited to the following:
- Is TV series a self-standing form of art or is it to be traced back to the cinema?
- What is the relationship between television series and films?
- What is the relationship between television series and other forms of television (e.g. talk shows, reality shows, news)?
- What sets the Golden Age of Television (Peak Television) apart from the preceding era?
- Is there a narrative specificity of television series?
- What is the effect of seriality/seasonality on television series?
- How are television series related to other serial narratives such as comics?
- How do television series deal with the system of film genres?
- The fiction/nonfiction divide in television series.
- The antihero and the antiheroine as outstanding characters in television series
- Philosophical themes in television series
Istructions: Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 30.000 characters. In order to submit your paper, please register and login to: http://labont.it/estetica/index.php/rivistadiestetica/login When asked “What kind of file is this?”, please select the relevant CFP.
Journal of Transcendental Philosophy
Kant and the Role(s) of Doctrines of Method
Submission deadline: 1 April 2022
Guest editors:
Andrew Chignell (Princeton University),
Gabriele Gava (University of Turin)
Description: Each of Kant’s three Critiques includes a ‘doctrine of method’. There is a ‘Transcendental Doctrine of Method’ in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787), a ‘Doctrine of Method of Pure Practical Reason’ in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and a ‘Doctrine of Method of the Teleological Power of Judgment’ in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). Additionally, there is an ‘Ethical Doctrine of Method’ in the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the second book of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). These doctrines of method have been comparatively neglected by Kant scholars. In part this is no doubt because these chapters come at the end of very long and complicated books. In part, this is due to the false assumption that Kant only included these sections to adhere to a traditional architectonic division of philosophical works (see Kemp Smith 1918: 563).
Recently, however, there has been a wave of studies thatshow that Kant’s doctrines of method contain materials that were important to Kant and relevant to debates among Kant scholars as well as to some contemporary discussions. For example, consider the distinction between the methods of philosophy and of mathematics that Kant discusses in the ‘Discipline of Pure Reason’ chapter in the Doctrine of Method of the first Critique. The past thirty years has witnessed a series of important interpretations that appreciate the relevance of this distinction (see Wolff-Metternich 1995; De Jong 1995; Carson 1999; Shabel 2003; Sutherland 2004; Dunlop 2014), especially in relation to Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. Another group of scholars have highlighted the significance of the ‘Architectonic of Pure Reason’ chapter (also in the first Critique) to understanding Kant’s effort to generate a scientific metaphysics (see La Rocca 2003; Manchester 2003 and 2006; Sturm 2009; Gava 2014; Ferrarin 2015). More recently, the ‘Canon of Pure Reason’ chapter has attracted the most attention -- in particular the last section, wherein Kant develops a sophisticated account of different types of ‘taking-to-be-true’ (Fürwahrhalten). Among these are ‘opinion’ (Meinung), ‘belief’ (Glaube), ‘conviction’ (Überzeugung), persuasion (Überredung), and ‘knowledge’ (Wissen) (see Stevenson 2003; Chignell 2007a, 2007b, forthcoming 2022; Pasternack 2011 and 2014; Höwing 2016; Willaschek 2016; Gava 2019). Still other works have investigated what is peculiar to the ‘practical’ doctrines of method contained in Kant’s practical works (see Bacin 2002 and 2010). Despite this recent and growing interest in Kant’s doctrines of method, there is much about them that remains unclear. For one thing, in addition to ongoing debates and remaining questions regarding the issues that have already attracted scholarly attention, large sections of Kant’s doctrines of method are comparatively neglected. We welcome contributions that seek to refine our understanding of the familiar issues as well as those that explore new territory. Second, there are outstanding questions about what a doctrine of method is exactly, and what unifies the various doctrines of method found in Kant’s works. While the first and third Critiques connect their doctrines of method to the issue of whether a body of cognition can be considered a science, Kant explicitly denies that the ‘practical’ doctrines of method play this role (see 5:151). Therefore, one question that urgently needs discussion is just: what do ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ doctrines of method’ have in common that justifies their sharing a name? But even focus just on the ‘theoretical’ doctrines of method: how do their different components belong to a common project and contribute to showing that a body of cognition is a science (Wissenschaft)? We welcome contributions that seek to answer these unifying questions, as well as those that connect Kant’s doctrines of method to previous or subsequent methodological discussions (e.g. in the German rationalist, German idealist or pragmatist traditions).
We will organize and fund a workshop with the authors of the accepted papers at Princeton University in October 2022. The workshop will give authors the opportunity to receive additional feedback from other authors and various distinguished auditors before they submit final versions of their contributions. Participation in the workshop is mandatory for inclusion in the volume.
Instructions: Papers should be submitted by April 1st 2022, using the journal’s submission
site. Upon submitting your manuscript, please specify in your cover letter that the manuscript is meant for this special issue, so that it can be assigned to the appropriate guest editors. Papers must be no longer than 10.000 words, including notes and references, and be prepared for blind review, removing all self-identifying references. The formatting of the submission is up to the author; accepted papers will be asked to adhere to journal style (see the journal’s website for further information:
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jtph/jtph- overview.xml). No more than one submission per author is accepted.
Bollettino Filosofico
Rethinking empathy between ethics and aesthetics
Submission deadline: 30th April 2022
Description: The concept of empathy was born in the field of aesthetics thanks to the historian and philosopher of art Robert Vischer: in 1873, he used the term Einfühlung for the first time, in order to indicate the tendency of an observer to project his own emotional states onto the observed object. The first author to transfer the concept of “empathy” to the level of intersubjective relationship was Theodor Lipps, who replaced the concept of projection with that of “emotional participation” made possible by a sort of “internal imitation” (innere Nachahmung) of the movements of the other. Among the first to grasp the ambiguity of the concept of empathy was Husserl, who, despite calling it “obscure, and a downright tormenting enigma”, paid great attention to it, as can be seen above all from the manuscripts of his work. Subsequently, the concept of empathy was extensively investigated in the phenomenological field, especially by Moritz Geiger, Edith Stein or Max Scheler. They always maintained the need of recognizing the radical otherness of the other in the relationship, avoiding the risks associated with the confusion of experiences, which can become indistinction or even “unipathy”. But Einfühlung, which has become a central concept in explaining the paradoxical relationship with the alter, still risks to remain suspended between the problems associated with emotional contagion and those of a cognitive and intellectual process, such as that required by the analogy theories. It is, therefore, a long tour that, passing through analogical inference, reduces the impact with otherness, resulting in an introspective thrust, only to be bent subsequently outwardly. This also opens up a further problematic area concerning the constellation of concepts of empathic experience, along the theoretical axis that goes from the proto-phenomenological analyses of the young Jaspers to the existential anthropoanalysis of Ludwig Binswanger. During the twentieth century, philosophical thought has variously taken up and modulated Lipps’ fruitful intuition and the debate on empathy has developed to produce a real “empathic turn” which, also thanks to the discovery of “mirror neurons”, has largely influenced contemporary aesthetic reflection. The concept of “embodied simulation”, one of the cornerstones of these researches, radicalizing Lipps’ intuition, in fact, presents itself as a further critique of analogical inference, in favor of immediate involvement. Today, the debate on empathy and on the relationship between empathy and aesthetic experience, on the one hand, and between empathy and ethics, on the other, is one of the most heated, also thanks to its involving different but contiguous areas of reflection (cf. for example the relation identity- diversity, individual-community, subjectivation-otherness, art-emotion, reality and fiction, aesthetic creation and enjoyment, expressiveness and technique). Thus, two theoretical lines can be identified. The first, which we could define as “naturalistic-reductionist”, believes that the totality of empathic experience can be explained through neurological mechanisms, which would thus become the foundation of both aesthetic and ethical experience. The second, on the other hand, more exquisitely “philosophical”, while recognizing the importance of a scientific investigation that allows us to understand our immediate relationship with the object (also understood as the other self), claims the role of philosophical reflection in understanding of the pathic, cognitive and reflexive processes that allow us to enter into a relationship with the other.
“Bollettino Filosofico” indicates as possible themes:
• History of the concept of empathy
• Empathy and the world of aisthesis
• Empathy and emotional contagion
• Naturalistic approach and transcendental approach to empathy • Empathy and phenomenology
• Empathy, psychoanalysis and neurosciences
• Affective and cognitive paths of empathy
• Empathy and theory of arts
• Empathy and anthropoanalysis of existence
• Empathy in the face of ethics
Istructions: The journal publishes articles in several languages – Italian, English, Spanish, German and French – and submits them to a procedure of peer review. The papers must be no longer than 50.000 characters, including spaces and notes, they must include a list of 5 keywords and an abstract in English (no longer than 900 characters, including spaces), and they must respect the following Authors’ Guidelines: http://www.bollettinofilosofico.unina.it/index.php/bolfilos/about/submissions
The submissions must be addressed to the Director (pio.colonnello@unical.it) and to the Editorial staff (bollettinofilosofico@gmail.com).
Since all articles will be double-blind peer reviewed, they must be submitted in two copies, one of which must be anonymous, with no personal references, followed by a separate file containing the personal data of the authors, a short bio-bibliographical note and the affiliation.
The deadline for the submission is 30th April 2022. The issue XXXVII/2022 of the journal will be published by December 2022.
For further information, please consult the internet page: www.bollettinofilosofico.unina.it
Discipline Filosofiche
The Forms of Pseudos, XXXII, 2, 2022
Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2022
Editor: Venanzio Raspa (Università degli Studi di Urbino)
Description: In Truth and Politics Hannah Arendt observes that pseudos means, according to the context, “fiction”, “error” or “lie”. These three terms are not synonymous – giving a wrong answer during an exam does not mean lying, just as anyone telling a joke does not lie – and yet they have similarities. They are forms of pseudos. And forms of the pseudos are, along with falsehood, fiction and the lie, also illusion, hallucination, semblance, and dreaming. In recent times, there has been a lot of talk about post-truth and fake news, two concepts that seem to enrich the ways in which to decline pseudos analytically. Why examine the forms of pseudos? We do so not only because they are part of our world, but because, when we look at them, we are forced to revise or refine our conceptions of the world. Even the word “false” itself does not have a unique meaning. A false friend is false in a way that differs from a fake Modigliani or a fake diamond, and even more so from a false proposition, which continues to be a proposition, unlike the fake diamond, which is not a diamond. The same holds for the word “fictional”. Are all fictions mere semblance? Semblance is also something, but are all fictions ontologically the same? Is Leopold Bloom a man, or does he pretend to be? Is Afghanistan described in The Kite Runner the real Afghanistan or just a semblance of it? If it can be said of Leopold Bloom that he is not a real man, the same cannot be said of the Afghanistan recounted by Khaled Hosseini, for the Western reader of The Kite Runner learns many things about Afghanistan, and learns them through a fiction tale. A betrayal – as Arthur Schnitzler and Stanley Kubrik taught us – can also be committed in a dream.
In addition, a false friend behaves as if he were a true friend, a fake diamond is sold as if it were genuine, and a fake banknote used as if it were authentic. In daily life, “fake” objects can be used by subjects as if they were authentic, but, from an ontological point of view, they are something else: the fake Modigliani was not painted by Modigliani, the fake banknote was not printed by the state mint, the fake diamond was not extracted from any diamond mine. Fake objects are something, they are part of our world, but they are not what they appear to be.
Everyone is aware of the fact that today we are surrounded by the productions of the media, film, and television industries. Entire legions of experts work on the manufacturing of fictions. Exercising power requires exercising control over the collective imagination through fiction. However, a glance at history leads us to recognize that the production of fakes is not a characteristic feature peculiar to modernity: each epoch has produced them and has elaborated reflections on the topic. In the philosophical tradition, from the Greeks onwards, reflections on the pseudos developed in parallel to those on truth and on telling the truth.
This volume of “Discipline filosofiche” aims at taking the forms of pseudos as its primary focus in order to elicit, through both historical and systematic contributions, connections between not only logical-semantic, ontological, aesthetic, ethical, political elements, but also to engage with the theme in terms of its reflexes in literary, psychological and pedagogical works/contexts.
Suitable topics for submission of manuscripts include but are not limited to:
1) art as fiction and deception, as producer of semblances;
2) self-deception;
3) the role of stories in education;
4) the use of lies in politics;
5) false speech;
6) boasting, dissimulation and imposture; 7) “fake” objects;
8) fictions and mass media.
Istructions: Submissions should not exceed 9,000 words including abstract, references and footnotes. Manuscripts may be submitted in Italian, English, French, German, or Spanish. They must be sent as an email attachment in .doc or .docx format, along with a .pdf version, toVenanzio Raspa (venanzio.raspa@uniurb.it). Submitted manuscripts will be sent to two independent reviewers, following a double-blind peer review process. The reviewers may ask authors to make changes or improvements to their contributions in view of publication. Authors are kindly requested to attach both an anonymous version of their contribution entitled “Manuscript” and a separate “Cover Page” stating their name, academic affiliation and contact details. Manuscripts must include an English abstract of less than 150 words and 5 keywords. Any property of the file that might identify the author must be removed to ensure anonymity during the review process. A notification of receipt will be issued for each submission. In drafting their text, authors can adopt any clear and coherent style, but should the text be accepted for publication, they will be required to send a final version in keeping with the style guidelines of the journal (please refer to the style guidelines at http://www.disciplinefilosofiche.it/en/norme-redazionali/). Submission of a manuscript is understood to imply that the paper has not been published before and that it is not being considered for publication by any other journal.Should the manuscript be accepted for publication, the author will be required to transfer copyrights to the University of Bologna. Requests to republish the article may be made to the Editorial Board of the Journal.
Deadline for the submission of manuscripts: June 30, 2022
Notification of acceptance, conditional acceptance, or rejection: August 31, 2022
Deadline for the submission of the final draft: October 15, 2022
Argumenta is the official journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy (SIFA). It is published in English twice a year only in electronic version, and has already benefitted from the cooperation of some of the most distinguished Italian and non-Italian scholars in all areas of analytic philosophy.
All the contributions will undergo a standard double-blind refereeing procedure.
Webpage
Book Launch: Mark Coeckelbergh, Alberto Romele and Wessel Reijers (eds.) Interpreting Technolog. Ricoeur on Questions Concerning Ethics and Philosophy of Technology
