Postponed guest speaker: Wednsday 26th January; 2-4pm in GE089

Hello All

Please see below for details of the postponed guest speaker session, now taking place on the coming Wednesday. I hope to see some of you there!

Cheers

Ruth

You are warmly invited to our Philosophy and Everyday Life visiting speaker session under the auspices of the BA Philosophy joint honours programme in the School of Arts and Humanities:

Is there anything that could not count as a moral issue?

NOW ON: Wednesday 26^th January from 2-4pm

George Eliot GEE089 (LT3 Clifton Campus)

Trevor Curnow, University of Cumbria

In this lecture, Trevor will consider why he became interested in ancient philosophy, his experiences of moral philosophy before he did, and why he thinks ancient philosophy is in many ways superior to modern philosophy in its approach to life.

Enquiries may be directed to: Dr Ruth Griffin

All welcome.

Agon and Antagonism

I have been thinking today about a distinction made by Chantal Mouffe, the distinction between 'an enemy' and 'an adversary', between agonism and antagonism. How, exactly, are we to make this distinction? Is it the result of a differing attitudes on the part of the people involved, or simply the context in which a relationship takes place?

What ethical and political consequences follow from this distinction? Can we have a society without 'adversaries'?


Thoughts?

Neil

Staff-Student Seminar: Mad Philosophers?

This Weds Jan 19th Neil Turnbull will present a paper as part of this year's staff-student seminar series. The title of the paper is:

Philosophers and Players: Narcissism and the Philosophical Life

This paper will discuss the role of 'madness' in western philosophy and whether 'the madness of philosophers' poses critical questions for the development of western philosophy as a whole.


The seminar will take place in room 215, 1-3pm (as last time).

Hopefully there will be quite a few undergraduate students attending this one.

Neil

What is Life?

Radical Orthodoxy: A Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Politics is an internationally peer reviewed journal dedicated to the exploration of academic and policy debates that interface between theology, philosophy and the social sciences. The editorial policy of the journal is radically non-partisan and the journal welcomes submissions from scholars and intellectuals with interesting and relevant things to say about the nature and trajectory of the times in which we live. The journal intends to publish papers on all branches of philosophy, aesthetics - including literary, art and music criticism - as well as pieces on ethical, political, social, economic and cultural theory.
The journal will be published four times a year; each volume comprising of standard, special, review and current affairs issues. The journal will also attempt to pursue an innovative editorial policy by publishing pieces both longer and shorter than those typically published in mainstream academic journals (along with those of standard length).
The first issue of the journal will appear on-line in autumn 2011: a double special issue on the theology, philosophy and politics of ‘life’. In recent years, a new vitalist metaphysical discourse has attempted to rearticulate classical philosophical and theological problems in terms of a metaphysical language of process. However, some important questions need to be asked of new vitalist philosophies. For example, what is the relationship between new vitalism and orthodox naturalism and biologism? What, exactly, is the precise nature of the relationship between ‘new’ and ‘old’ vitalisms? Is new vitalism simply a reworking of the positivist dream of ‘a unified science’, or does it represent something of break with scientific metaphysics? What other vitalisms, either social or theological, can contest the wider intellectual legitimacy of new vitalist discourses? This inaugural issue will explore such questions through an assessment of the nature and significance of ‘life’ for contemporary philosophical, theological and social scientific debates. In particular, the journal will welcome submissions on the following subjects:

Life and creativity
Everyday life
Life and the gift
Grace and nature
Thomism and vitalism
Life and phenomenology
Michel Henry
The historical significance of ‘Deleuzianism’
Nihilism and eliminative materialism
Bio-politics
The philosophy of biology
The theology, philosophy, politics of the neurosciences
Life and cybernetics

Deadline for submissions is Aug 31st 2011. Please send all submissions to the either the editor, Neil Turnbull, or the managing editor, Eric Lee at editor@radicalorthodoxy.org.

Kojeve Reading Group

This term Fred Aspbury will be leading a staff-student reading group.

We will be reading Alexandre Kojeve's seminal text 'An Introduction to the Reading of Hegel'.

This is a very important text in the history of 20th century western philosophy - Satre, Merleua-Ponty and Lacan - amongst others - all being significantly influenced by it. It was also used in the latter part of the last century to justify the western triumphalism the followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

These sesssions should appeal to all those who are thinking of continuing with philosophy in some form after graduation.

The first session will take place on Weds Feb 16th, 1-2.30 pm, in 215.

Hopefully we will see quite a few of your there.

Neil

Hair Today?

I have been thinking about the political significance of the rise of image culture and its effects on politics.

And it struck me, is a politician disadvantaged for being 'bald'? There is a famous anecdote about the British politican Micheal Heseltine that claims that a 'signifcant percentage' of his constituents voted for him because he had 'a great head of hair'!!

Add this to the fact that Blair, with a full head of hair, beat three bald Tory leaders and you can see that Cameron might be in trouble. At the moment Cameron is as visually strong as Miliband (and sounds much better, as he is intonationally and rhetorically superior to Miliband). But he may be in trouble on the hair front - and here Miliband clearly has the advantage.

Might baldness decide the next election?

Neil

Philosophy and Popular Culture

The last post made me think about the relationship between philosophy and popular political culture today.

Clearly, most western societies are societies implicitly goverened by what might be termed 'market populism'. This is a populism based around the values of consumption and the habits associated with 'materialist acquisition'.

To date, philosophical discourse has been rather bad at challenging the hegemony of these values and habits. The question for me here is twofold. Firstly, should philosophy adapt to this cultural reality or should it attempt to challenge it? Given the outcome of this choice, how should philosophy achieve its ends?

Cheers

Neil