[SydPhil] REMINDER: Next USyd Postgrad Colloquium May 5: Yarran Hominh on The ethical transfiguration of the 'metaphysical urge'

[Elena Walsh]

Dear everyone,

The next philosophy postgraduate colloquium will be held on Monday May 5 @
2pm in the Muniment room.

Talk details:

Speaker:  Yarran Hominh

The ethical transfiguration of the ‘metaphysical urge’: Coetzee’s*The
Childhood of Jesus* and Wittgenstein’s *Philosophical Investigations*

Abstract: Several passages from JM Coetzee’s latest novel *The Childhood of
Jesus* bear allegorical similarities to aphorisms from Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s*Philosophical
Investigations*. In this paper, I claim that this is not mere coincidence;
rather, *The Childhood of Jesus* can be usefully understood as an
adaptation or a re-reading of certain themes from the *Investigations*. I
argue in particular that what Coetzee can be understood as doing through
this re-reading is extending or adapting Wittgenstein’s critique of
metaphysics into a critique of ethical method. What comes out of this
critique is the problematisation of ethical authority: of the
perhaps-necessary assumption (implicit or explicit) of a ‘higher’ standpoint
in ethics where one is able to give unproblematic advice to another.

Time: 2pm, May 5
Location: Muniment room, Quadrangle building, University of Sydney

All most welcome!!
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