Verstehen Colloquium
Current Convenors: David Ewing, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia, Senthuran Bhuvanendra
Cave paintings from Lascaux in France, discussed in Fiona Hughes’ 2013 paper on passivity in Merleau-Ponty [Attribution: Lascaux / Public domain]
Upcoming meetings |
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During the summer vacation of 2023, we will meet online on Wednesdays, 12:30-2:00 to discuss Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free. The planned schedule is as follows: |
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| Wednesday 28 June |
Introduction, full chapter (pp. 3-36) |
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| Wednesday 5 July |
Chapter 1: Faith, full chapter (pp. 39-68) |
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| Wednesday 12 July |
Chapter 2: Love, sections I to III (pp. 69-90) |
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Wednesday 19 July |
Chapter 2: Love, sections IV to VI (pp. 90-123) |
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Wednesday 26 July |
Chapter 3: Responsibility, sections I to III (pp. 124-151) |
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Friday 2 August |
Chapter 3: Responsibility, sections IV to V (pp. 151-170) |
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Wednesday 9 August |
Chapter 4: Natural and Spiritual Freedom, sections I to III (pp. 173-196) |
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| Wednesday 16 August |
Chapter 4: Natural and Spiritual Freedom, sections IV to V (pp. 196-211) |
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| Wednesday 23 August |
Chapter 5: The Value of our Finite Time, sections I to II (pp. 212-237) |
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| Wednesday 30 August |
Chapter 5: The Value of our Finite Time, sections III to IV (pp. 237-269) |
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| Wednesday 6 September |
Chapter 6: Democratic Socialism, sections I to IV (pp. 270-301) |
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| Wednesday 13 September |
Chapter 6: Democratic Socialism, sections V to VI (pp. 301-332) |
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| Wednesday 20 September |
Conclusion, full chapter (pp. 333-389) |
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For access to the text, Zoom invitations and updates through our mailing list, please contact us@verstehencolloquium.org. |
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Previous meetings |
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Easter Term 2023 |
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| Wednesday 3 May |
Michael Rosen, “The History of Philosophy as Philosophy” (2007) |
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| Wednesday 10 May |
Rosen, On Voluntary Servitude: False Consciousness and The Theory of Ideology (1996). Chapter 8: The Theory of Ideology and Beyond “On Voluntary Servitude and the Theory of Ideology” (2000) |
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| Wednesday 17 May |
Rosen, “Must We Return to Moral Realism?” (1991) “Whatever Happened to the Ontic Logos? German Idealism and the Legitimacy of Modernity” (2020) |
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Wednesday 24 May |
Rosen, The Shadow of God, Chapter 8: Philosophy in History | |
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Wednesday 31 May |
The Shadow of God, Chapter 9: After Immortality | |
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Friday 2 June |
Graduate Seminar with Michael Rosen (Harvard) 4-6pm: Workshop on The Shadow of God, with speakers Rae Langton (Philosophy, Cambridge), Richard Bourke (History, Cambridge), Charles Turner (Sociology, Warwick) and Daniel Chernilo (Sociology, University Adolfo Ibañez) Organisers: Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Marijn Nohlmans |
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Wednesday 7 June |
Paper Discussion: Christopher J Watts (Department of Anthropology, Durham University), “Frame Problems in the Age of Attention Scarcity” |
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| Wednesday 14 June |
Paper Discussion: Apeike Umolu (Faculty of History), “On Black Consciousness” |
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Convenors: David Ewing, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Lent Term / Easter Vacation 2023 |
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| Wednesday 25 January |
Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy (1913), First Section (Essence and Eidetic Cognition), ch.1 (“Fact and essence”), §§1-8 |
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| Wednesday 1 February |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike |
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| Wednesday 8 February |
Ideas, First Section, ch.1, §§9-17 |
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| Wednesday 22 February |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike |
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| Wednesday 8 March |
Ideas, Second Section (The Fundamental Phenomenological Consideration), ch.1 (“The thesis of the natural attitude and its suspension”), §§27-32 |
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| Wednesday 22 March |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike |
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| Wednesday 29 March |
Ideas, Second Section, ch.2 (“Consciousness and natural actuality”), §§33-8 |
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| Wednesday 5 April |
Ideas, Third Section (On the Methods and Problems of Pure Phenomenology), ch.1 (“Methodological pre-considerations”), §§63-71 |
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| Wednesday 12 April |
Ideas, Third Section, ch.1 and ch.2 (“Universal structures of pure consciousness”), §§73-7 |
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| Wednesday 19 April |
Ideas, Third Section, ch.2, §§78-80 |
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| Wednesday 26 April |
Ideas, Third Section, ch.2, §§81-6 |
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Convenors: David Ewing, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Michaelmas 2022 |
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| Wednesday 9 November |
Husserl, Logical Investigations (1900-1/1913) I (Expression and Meaning), ch.1 (“Essential distinctions”), §§1-14 |
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| Thursday 10 November |
Paper Discussion: Paul Joosse (Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong) and Dominik Zelinsky (University of Copenhagen) on “Sharing the Emperor’s New Clothes: Charisma and Imitation in the Case of Volodymyr Zelensky” |
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| Wednesday 16 November |
Husserl, Investigation V (On Intentional Experiences and their ‘Contents’), introduction and ch.1 (“Consciousness as the phenomenological subsistence of the ego and consciousness as inner perception”), §§1-8 |
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Wednesday 23 November |
Investigation V, ch.2 (“Consciousness as intentional experience”), §§9-15 | |
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Wednesday 30 November |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike | |
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Wednesday 7 December |
Investigation V, ch.2, §§16-21 | |
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Wednesday 14 December |
Investigation V, ch.3 (“The matter of the act and its underlying presentation”), §§22-31 | |
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Wednesday 10 January |
Investigation VI (Elements of a Phenomenological Elucidation of Knowledge), ch.1 (“Meaning-intention and meaning-fulfilment”), §§1-8 | |
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Convenors: David Ewing, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Late Summer 2022 |
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| Wednesday 14 September |
Iris Marion Young, “Throwing like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility and Spatiality” (1980) |
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| Wednesday 21 September |
Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” (1988) |
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Wednesday 28 September |
Butler, “Sexual Difference as a Question of Ethics: Alterities of the Flesh in Irigaray and Merleau-Ponty” (2006) | |
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Wednesday 5 October |
Sara Ahmed, “Introduction: Find Your Way” and “Sexual Orientation”, in Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others (2006) | |
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Wednesday 12 October |
Gayle Salamon, “The Sexual Schema: Transposing and Transgenderism in Phenomenology of Perception” in Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality (2010) | |
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Convenors: David Ewing and Orsolya Petocz |
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Summer 2022 |
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| Wednesday 13 July |
Claude Lefort, “Thinking Politics” (1963) |
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| Wednesday 20 July |
Lefort, “The Permanence of the Politico-Theological?” (1981) |
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| Wednesday 27 July |
Lefort, “The Death of Immortality?” (1982) |
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| Wednesday 3 August |
Lefort, “The Question of Democracy” (1983) and “The Logic of Totalitarianism” (1980) |
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| Wednesday 10 August |
Lefort, “Hannah Arendt and the Question of the Political” (1985) and “Reversibility: Political Freedom and the Freedom of the Individual” (1986 |
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Wednesday 17 August |
Lefort, “Rereading The Communist Manifesto” (1986) | |
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Wednesday 24 August |
Lefort, “Politics and Human Rights” (1980) and “Human Rights and the Welfare State” (1984) |
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Convenors: David Ewing, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Easter Term 2022 |
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| Wednesday 11 May |
Elías José Palti, ‘The “Theoretical Revolution” in Intellectual History’ (2014) & ‘From Ideas to Concepts to Metaphors: The German Intellectual Tradition and the Complex Fabric of Language’ (2010) |
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Wednesday 18 May |
Palti, “The Theological Genesis of the Political” in An Archaeology of the Political (2017) | |
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Wednesday 25 May |
Discussion with Elías José Palti (Universidad Nacional de Quilmes and Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires) | |
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Wednesday 1 June |
Palti, “Koselleck – Foucault: The Birth and Death of Philosophy of History” | |
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Wednesday 8 June |
Paper Discussion: Sebastian Raza-Mejia (Department of Sociology), “The Normative Turn in Sociological Theory: Sociology’s Garden of the Forking Paths” (co-authored with Daniel Chernilo) | |
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Wednesday 15 June |
Paper Discussion: Zach Freig (Faculty of History), “A Tale of Two Primacies: the Social, the Political, and Logical Methods in Twentieth-Century France” | |
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Convenors: David Ewing, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Lent Term / Easter Vacation 2022 |
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| Wednesday 26 January |
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Part One, Section III (“The Spatiality of One’s Own Body and Motricity”) and Part Two, Section II, Subsection A (“Up and Down”) |
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| Wednesday 2 February |
Phenomenology of Perception, Part One, Section IV (“The Synthesis of One’s Body”) and Section VI (“The Body as Expression, and Speech”) |
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| Wednesday 9 February |
Merleau-Ponty, “Cézanne’s Doubt” (1948) |
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| Wednesday 16 February |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike |
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| Wednesday 23 February |
Merleau-Ponty, “On the Phenomenology of Language” (1951) |
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Wednesday 2 March |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike | |
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Wednesday 9 March |
Merleau-Ponty, “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence” (1952) | |
| Wednesday 16 March |
“Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence” (1952) |
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Wednesday 23 March |
Alternative discussion due to UCU strike | |
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Wednesday 30 March |
Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind” (1960) | |
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Wednesday 6 April |
Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (1964), Chapter 1 (“Reflection and Interrogation”) | |
| Wednesday 13 April |
Paper Discussion: Cristina Lafont (Northwestern University), “The Politics of Imagination: Critical Theory and Realistic Utopias”. |
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| Wednesday 20 April |
The Visible and the Invisible, Chapter 1 |
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| Wednesday 27 April |
The Visible and the Invisible, Chapter 4 (“The Intertwining – The Chiasm”) |
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| Wednesday 4 May |
Institution and Passivity (1954-55), Part 1 (“Institution in Personal and Public History”) |
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Convenors: Daniele Garancini, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Michaelmas Term 2021 |
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| Thursday 14 October |
Derrida, “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (1966) |
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| Thursday 21 October |
Derrida, “Différance” (1968) |
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| Thursday 28 October |
Foucault, “The Human Sciences” from The Order of Things (1966) |
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| Thursday 4 November |
Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Value (1913-16), ch2, section A: “The A Priori and the Formal in General” |
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| Thursday 11 November |
Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, ch2, section B: “The Non-Formal A Priori in Ethics” |
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Thursday 18 November |
Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, ch6, section A (“On the Theoretical Conception of the Person in General”), subsections on reason, ego, transcendental apperception, act, object, consciousness, world and God |
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Thursday 25 November |
Scheler, Formalism in Ethics, ch6, section A, subsection on lived body, environment and ego | |
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Thursday 2 December |
No meeting due to UCU strike | |
| Thursday 9 December | Paper Discussion: Tingwen Li (Xiamen University), "Deception, Correction, and Affect Theory—On Edith Stein’s Pedagogical Empathic Acts" | |
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Thursday 16 December |
Scheler, “The Essence and Concept of a Sociology of Culture”, from Problems of the Sociology of Knowledge (1924) | |
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Convenors: Daniele Garancini, Orsolya Petocz, Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Summer 2021 |
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| Thursday 24 June |
Paul Ricœur, The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950), “General Introduction: Question of Method”, sections 1 and 2 |
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| Thursday 1 July |
The Voluntary and the Involuntary, Part I, ch1, intro and ss1-2 (on decision) |
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| Thursday 8 July |
The Voluntary and the Involuntary, Part I, ch 1, s3 and ch2, introduction and s1, subsection 1 (on motives, the body and the nature of need) |
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| Thursday 15 July |
The Voluntary and the Involuntary, Part II, ch1 (on acting and moving) |
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| Thursday 22 July |
The Voluntary and the Involuntary, Part III, ch2, s2 (on the unconscious) Background reading: Part III, ch1, s1 and s2, subsection 1 (on the problem and structure of consent), pp341-7 |
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| Thursday 29 July |
Ricœur, Fallible Man (1960), Preface and ch1 (on method, the “pathétique” of misery and reflection) |
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| Thursday 5 August |
Fallible Man, ch2 (applying Kant’s transcendental synthesis), |
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| Thursday 12 August |
Fallible Man, ch3, intro and s1 (on “practical synthesis” and character), and conclusion (on the concept of fallibility) |
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| Thursday 19 August |
Ricœur, The Symbolism of Evil (1960), Part I, intro (on methodology for study of symbols) |
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| Thursday 26 August |
The Symbolism of Evil, Part I, ch1, ss1-3 (on symbols of defilement) and ch2, s5 (on the relation to symbols of sin) Background reading: Part I, conclusion (on relations between symbols), pp151-7 |
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| Thursday 2 September |
The Symbolism of Evil, Part II, intro (on symbolic function of myth) and conclusion (“The symbol gives rise to thought”) |
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| Thursday 9 September |
Talk: Barnaby Aspray (University of Oxford), "The Keystone of Ricœur’s Thought: Finitude and What Lies Beyond" |
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Thursday 16 September |
Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism" Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism |
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| Thursday 23 September |
Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (cont.) |
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| Thursday 30 September |
Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (cont.) |
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| Thursday 7 October |
Jacques Derrida, “The Ends of Man” |
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Convenors: Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Easter Term 2021 |
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| Thursday 29 April |
Hans Blumenberg, Introduction to Paradigms for a Metaphorology (1960) and “Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality” (1979) |
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| Thursday 6 May |
Blumenberg, “Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality" |
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| Thursday 13 May |
Blumenberg, “Theory of Nonconceptuality” (excerpt, c.1975) |
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| Thursday 20 May |
“Theory of Nonconceptuality" |
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| Thursday 27 May |
“Theory of Nonconceptuality" |
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| Thursday 3 June |
Blumenberg, Shipwreck with Spectator |
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| Thursday 10 June |
Paper Discussion: Samantha Matherne (Harvard), “The Status of Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture” (2021) |
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| Friday 11 June |
Talk: Samantha Matherne, “Cassirer on Art and Self-Knowledge |
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Convenors: Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Lent Term / Easter Vacation 2021 |
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| Thursday 4 February |
Ernst Cassirer, The Logic of the Humanities (Kulturwissenschaften), Ch.1, “The subject matter of the humanities”, part 1 |
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| Thursday 11 February |
Cassirer, Logic, Chapter 1, part 2 |
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| Thursday 18 February |
Cassirer, Logic, Chapter 2, “Perception of things and perception of expression” |
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| Thursday 25 February |
Cassirer, Logic, Chapter 2 |
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| Thursday 4 March |
Cassirer, Logic, Chapter 3, “Nature-concepts and culture-concepts”, part 1 |
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| Thursday 11 March |
Cassirer, Logic, Chapter 3, part 1 + part 2 |
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| Thursday 18 March |
Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, vol.3, ch.2 “The phenomenon of expression as the basic factor in the perceptive consciousness” |
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| Thursday 1 April |
Shaun Gallagher (2008) “Philosophical Antecedents of Situated Cognition” |
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| Thursday 15 April |
Paper Discussion: Daniele Garancini (Lingnan University, Hong Kong), “Cassirer's Naturalism, Precious yet Forgotten, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kantian Philosophy” |
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Convenors: Sebastian Raza-Mejia and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Michaelmas Term 2020 |
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| Thursday 8 October |
Friedrich Albert Lange, The History of Materialism, 2nd book, 2nd section, Ch.1: “Materialism and Exact Research" |
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| Thursday 22 October |
2nd book, 3rd section, Chapter 3: “Scientific Psychology” |
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| Thursday 5 November |
2nd book, 3rd section, Chapter 4: “The Physiology of the Sense Organs and the World as Representation" |
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| Thursday 19 November |
2nd book, 4th section, Chapter 1: “Political Economy and Dogmatic Egoism” |
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Convenors: Matt Bennett and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Summer 2020 |
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| Monday 20 July |
Edith Stein, The Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, First Treatise, Ch. I: "Causality in the Realm of Pure Experiences" |
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| Monday 27 July |
Stein, First Treatise, Ch. V: "The Intermeshing of Causality and Motivation", sections 1-4 |
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| Monday 3 August |
Stein, Second Treatise, Ch. I ("The Experiential Current of the Community"), s3: "The joining of experiences in the current" |
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| Monday 10 August |
Stein, Second Treatise, Ch. II, s2, "The community's life-power and its sources" |
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Convenors: Matt Bennett, Rosie Worsdale and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Easter Term/Summer 2020 |
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Tuesday 12 May |
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part I, Chapter 1, section 1 |
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Monday 18 May |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part I, Chapter 1, sections 2 and 3 (selections) |
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Monday 25 May |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part I, Chapter 2, section 1, subsections A and B |
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Monday 1 June |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part II, Chapter 3 (selections) |
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Monday 8 June |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part II, Chapter 4, section 1 |
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Monday 15 June |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part II, Chapter 4, section 3 |
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Monday 22 June |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part III, Chapter 5, section 1 |
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Monday 29 June |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part III, Chapter 5, section 2 |
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Monday 6 July |
Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part III, Chapter 5, section 3 |
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Convenors: Matt Bennett, Rosie Worsdale and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Easter Vacation/Spring 2020 |
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| Monday 23 March |
Fiona Hughes "A Passivity Prior to Passive and Active: Merleau-Ponty’s Re-reading of the Freudian Unconscious and Looking at Lascaux": |
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| Monday 30 March |
Continuation of Hughes’ paper |
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| Monday 6 April |
Edmund Husserl The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, sections 33-41 |
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| Tuesday 14 April |
Husserl, Crisis sections 42-55 |
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| Tuesday 21 April |
Husserl, Crisis sections 47-55 |
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| Monday 27 April |
Husserl, Crisis sections 57-64 |
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| Monday 4 May |
Husserl, Crisis sections 59-64 |
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Convenors: Matt Bennett, Rosie Worsdale and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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Summer 2019 |
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Wilhelm Dilthey, “General Theses about the System of the Human Sciences” from The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences |
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| Tues 9 July |
Introduction and Section One, Makkreel and Rodi translation, pp142-51 (Gesammelte Schriften 7:120-9) on objective |
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| Tues 16 July |
Section One to Section Two, pp145-55 (7:123-33), on objective apprehension, life and the human sciences |
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| Thurs 25 July |
Section One, part 2 and Section Two, chapter 1, pp149-57 (7:127-35) |
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| Tues 30 July |
Section Two, chapter 1, pp152-60 (7:130-8), on life-experience |
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| Tues 6 August |
Section Two, chapter I, pp155-62 (7:133-40), on life-attitudes, life-experience and lived experience |
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| Tues 13 August |
Section Two, chapters 1 and 2, pp158-66 (7:137-45) |
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| Tues 27 August |
Section Two, chapter 2, pp160-8 (7:139-46) on structural nexus of consciousness, reflection on lived experience, time, mutual understanding, and generality/universality |
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| Tues 3 September |
Section Two, chapters 2 and 3, pp163-70 (7:141-8) on understanding, generality and universality |
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| Tues 10 September |
Section Two, chapters 2 and 3, pp167-74 (7:145-52) |
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Thurs 19 September |
Section Two, chapters 3 and 4, pp169-75 (7:147-53) on objectivity |
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| Thurs 26 September |
Section Two, chapter 4, part 1, pp170-8 (7:148-56) |
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Convenors: Rosie Worsdale and Senthuran Bhuvanendra |
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