Durham Castle Lecture – Professor Markus Gabriel

‘Are We Real? Consciousness and Fiction’

It is a widespread believe in our contemporary natural scientific culture that central features of our mind are fictions or illusions of sorts. The prominent philosopher Daniel Dennett even claims that illusionism about phenomenal consciousness (our qualitative experience of reality as rich with colors, sounds, tastes, smells, etc.) should be “the obvious default theory of consciousness.” Remarkably, illusionists about consciousness typically do not offer actual error theories that tell us in what precise sense consciousness counts as a fiction or an illusion. I will argue that this blind spot is not a coincidence, but rather a consequence of theoretical deficiencies in the hypothesis of illusionism itself.

In my talk, I will dismantle the assumptions motivating views about ourselves as minded agents that claim that we are subject to some kind of user-illusion created by the brain (or some better specified subsystem of our organism). In this context, I will distinguish various forms of illusion about ourselves and argue that illusionism and fictionalism about the mental lives of humans (and other minded animals) are themselves cases of a thoroughgoing ideological delusion. They serve the function of denying facts that would otherwise lead to an insight into the normative dimension of the human being.

Biography: Markus Gabriel is Chair in Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Bonn where he is also the director of the International Centre for Philosophy. He received his Dr. (2005) and his Habilitation (2008) from the University of Heidelberg. He has been a Visiting Scholar and (Visiting) Professor at many institutions (including NYU, the New School for Social Research, UC Berkeley, the University of Lisbon, the University of Palermo and the Catholic University in Rio de de Janeiro). He primarily works in epistemology, metaphysics/ontology and the history of philosophy (Ancient Philosophy, Post-Kantian Idealism). He is the author of more than 10 books, among which his recent Why the World does not Exist (Polity Press).

This lecture is free, and open to all.

No tickets or registration are required. Seats are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Doors open 7.30pm, lecture commences 8pm.

Contact castle.lectures@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.

Dear All,

An extra-mural event to which you’re warmly invited, by an exceptional philosopher, Markus Gabriel:

The 21st Century Brain

Markus Gabriel

24 April at 19:00–20:30

Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne

23 Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE

Professor Markus Gabriel from the University of Bonn will offer a critical perspective on the rise of the brain sciences in shaping who we think we are. What are the consequences, both individual and social, of recoding ourselves at a neuronal level? Gabriel became Germany’s youngest-ever professor of philosophy at the age of 29. He already has over 20 books to his name and his most recent one is /I Am Not a Brain/.

Admission is £4 for this event or £10 for all three talks in the season. Free for students of unwaged. No advance tickets being sold. Just turn up on the night!

http://isp-grado.com/

http://www.port.ac.uk/centre-for-studies-in-literature/literature-events/postgraduate-conference-2018/

If you’re in the Portsmouth area….

Dear All at Newcastle,
I hope you have a nice easter, restful and productive.
We have four weeks of vacation, and then we’ll be back in action, week beginning 16th April 2018.

An important event in London in case anyone is around. And a book launch for a book by Tina Chanter:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploring-the-performative-corps-corpus-gender-genre-race-tickets-42988810690?aff=eac2

DATE AND TIME

Sat 10 March 2018

09:30 – 18:00 GMT

Add to Calendar

LOCATION

Exploring the performative: Corps, Corpus, Gender, Genre, Race

DESCRIPTION

Shameful self-publicising:

https://blackwells.co.uk/…/The-Beautiful-Anim…/9781786607553

Durham University will be hosting two Royal Institute of Philosophy lectures later this term as detailed below.

15th February 2018

Professor David Cockburn (Wales, Trinity Saint David)

Title: Fatalism; thoughts about tomorrow’s sea battle

Abstract:

In recent discussions, ‘fatalism’ has been understood as the thesis that it is a logical or conceptual truth that no one is able to act other than she in fact does. But there is another view, which may have more right to the label, and that merits discussion: the view that nothing that we do will make any difference to how things turn out. It is this view that is central to Aristotle’s discussion of tomorrow’s sea battle, and, while it may face decisive objections, there are things to be learned from it. I will argue that philosophical ‘fatalism’ in both its forms characteristically rests on a picture of our situation that has deep roots in contemporary philosophy: a picture in which thought aimed at determining how things are has primacy over deliberation about what I should do; and, following from this, one in which our idea of ourselves as agents in the world stands in need of a metaphysical grounding. These roots are expressed in the place that the notion of a ‘proposition’ (or of a ‘thought’) has in much current philosophical thinking. It is a striking fact that the great majority of recent responses to the standard fatalist reasoning move within this same basic framework of ideas.

This lecture will be held in the Birley Room, Hatfield College, Durham. Refreshments will be available from 5pm with the lecture commencing at 5:30pm

21st February 2018

Professor Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham)

Title: Does optimism lead to success?

Abstract:

Does optimism lead to success? Although optimistic beliefs are said to contribute to fitness, good functioning, productivity, resilience, and even altruistic and caring behaviour, it is controversial whether they are conducive to success, intended as the fulfilment of the agent’s goals in a given domain. Sceptics argue that people who are optimistic can be unprepared for setbacks, fail to react constructively to negative feedback, feel disappointed when their performance does not match their expectations, disengage from their goals, and put themselves at risk due to underestimating threats.

So, when are optimistic beliefs linked to success? Here I rule out two influential views, that optimistic beliefs are linked to success when they accurately represent reality or when they boost the agent’s mood. Based on the results of psychological studies about attitudes towards romantic relationships and health prospects, I suggest that the optimistic beliefs linked to successful performance are not necessarily realistic and do not always boost the agent’s mood, but are instrumental to agents persevering in the pursuit of their goals at critical times. Beliefs supporting the sense that people are competent and efficacious agents and that their goals are both desirable and attainable sustain motivation and, indirectly, goal fulfilment.

This Lecture will be held in the Williams Library, St Chad’s College, Durham. Refreshments will be available from 11:30am with the lecture commencing at 12Noon.

A map to help you find either location can be found here: https://www.dur.ac.uk/map/

FNS 2018: Call for Abstracts

24^th International Conference of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society

“Nietzsche and the Politics of Difference”

Newcastle University, UK

20-21 September, 2018

Organizer

Andrea Rehberg, Newcastle University, UK

Plenary Speakers

Vanessa Lemm, University of New South Wales, Australia

Jill Marsden, University of Bolton, UK

Barış Parkan, Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Ashley Woodward, University of Dundee, UK

Call For Abstracts

Traditionally, difference is understood as that which pertains between given entities or identities but, starting with Nietzsche, the thought of an originary difference that is irreducible to identity and, moreover, constitutive of identity gains traction. At the same time the affirmation of difference as plurality or multiplicity goes hand in hand with difference as an ontological issue. The Nietzschean thought of difference thus marks the intersection of the ontological and the political.

Given that today we are faced with a host of political challenges of domination and resistance, the question we want to raise in this conference is how Nietzsche helps us to think through and to address some of the problems with which we are faced today but also how his writings complicate our desire for swift solutions to seemingly intractable problems: how to resist slavishness in thought and action, how to maintain hard-won civil liberties and rights in the face of encroaching hegemonic discourses, practices and forces, or how to counteract global environmental degradation, in short, how to oppose ‘totalitarian’ movements of homogenisation, universalisation, equalisation, and instead to affirm, both politically and ontologically, a culture of difference.

Although on the one hand Nietzsche was deeply critical of politics and politicians, on the other hand he advocated a ‘grand politics’ and frequently expressed his admiration for great statesmen such as Napoleon. Although, on the one hand, he questioned the value and implications of democracy and the ideal of equality it involves, on the other hand later thinkers, e.g., Jean-Luc Nancy, have recently extracted a Nietzschean sense of democracy from his writings. In fact, it has often been noted that Nietzsche’s thought contains – or at least implies – a complete political ontology, and this has been teased out by a host of twentieth-century post-structuralist thinkers, above all by Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Irigaray, Lyotard, Nancy and those who come after them. They, and we, are grappling with thorny questions of the possible intersections between political theory and political engagement, how to envisage forms of resistance without agency, what ateleological action looks like, and how to maintain a sense of the political without relapsing into the intellectual co-ordinates provided by a substance metaphysical framework and its purported grounds.

At the intersection of ontology and the political, Nietzsche’s thinking beyond subject, substance, telos or ground, and in terms of differentials of forces and impersonal events and processes, induces us to examine our traditional ways of thinking and our cherished anthropocentric investments. Given these strictures, the question is, in what ways does Nietzsche’s thought harbour the resources for a contemporary politics of difference and a thought of difference equal to it? These are some of the most intractable, yet at the same time most urgent questions facing anyone aiming to think with Nietzsche in these dark times. This is not to suggest that these are completely new questions – they have been asked in a variety of texts for many decades – but they have taken on a new urgency, given the perilous state the world is in at present. And since Nietzsche is arguably one of the most rigorously post-metaphysical thinker, if we pay close attention to what he says, we might be able to reinvigorate our political thinking beyond modes supported by the established consensus.

Some of these questions might be put as follows:

Can contemporary political phenomena be interpreted in terms of Nietzsche’s understanding of reactive and active forces? If so, how?

What is the role of slave morality in the constitution and operations of recent political movements and trends? Are there any pockets of nobility left in the political realm? If so, where?

What is a thought of the political beyond substance metaphysics?

Can the Nietzschean sense of agon serve as a viable model for contemporary political thought?

Beyond utility and calculative rationality, can Nietzsche’s thought mobilise a political activism?

We invite established academics, junior researchers, doctoral students and independent scholars in the fields of philosophy, politics, political theory, sociology, German studies, literary studies etc. to contribute to this conference.

Possible areas of investigation for a Nietzschean thought and politics of difference, although these are just suggestions:

·       Nietzschean nihilism and a politics of difference

·       Will to power and a politics of difference

·       The political dimensions of eternal recurrence as principle of selection and affirmation

·       Nietzsche’s perspectivism and a politics of difference

·       Identity and alterity in Nietzsche’s works

·       A Nietzschean democracy?

·       Political and ontological difference in Nietzsche’s works

·       Politics and the political in Nietzsche’s thought

·       An ethics and a politics of difference

·       Nietzsche’s critical theory of knowledge as a prelude to political theory

·       Foundationalism and anti-foundationalism in relation to Nietzschean difference

·       Nietzsche’s concepts of the herd, the slave, the last man and a politics of difference

·       Nietzsche’s idea of the ‘pathos of distance’ and a politics of difference

·       Nietzsche and feminism

·       Nietzsche in relation to the question of the animal

·       Nietzsche and Deleuze

·       Nietzsche and Derrida

·       Nietzsche and Foucault

·       Nietzsche and Irigaray

·       Nietzsche and Lyotard

·       Nietzsche and Jean-Luc Nancy

Applications for 30-minute papers with abstract are invited by 30 April 2018. Please send abstracts (max. 500 words) by email to: andrea.rehberg(at)ncl.ac.uk as a pdf attachment prepared for blind review. Please include a title in the body of the abstract. Please name the file with the following format when you save it FNS2018ABSTRACT_YOURLASTNAME

In the body of the email, please state:

·  the title of the paper

·  your name and institutional affiliation

·  your preferred email contact address

In the subject line of the email, please state only the following:
FNS2017ABSTRACT_YOURLASTNAME.

We aim to inform delegates of the outcome of their submission in early June 2018. If you have a particular pressing reason to request earlier notification of abstract acceptance, please contact andrea.rehberg(at)ncl.ac.uk