From jenny.mcmahon at adelaide.edu.au Mon Jul 3 10:39:04 2017 From: jenny.mcmahon at adelaide.edu.au (Jennifer McMahon) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2017 00:39:04 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] public lecture by Cynthia Freeland at the AGNSW Message-ID: Dear Philosophers and Friends of Philosophy, Cynthia Freeland is giving a public lecture on "Do Portraits require posing?" on Wednesday July 12th at 6.00pm at the Art Gallery of NSW, in the lead up to the Archibald Prize. Details and registration here: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/calendar/do-portraits-require-posing/ Cynthia is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston. She publishes extensively on aesthetics, ancient philosophy and feminist philosophy. Cynthia's 2001 book Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction published by Oxford University Press has been translated into fourteen different languages. Of particular relevance to this lecture, her Portraits and Persons, was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Cynthia gave the National Portrait Gallery Annual Lecture in Canberra Australia in 2011. She is currently the President of the American Society of Aesthetics. All best Jenny Professor Jennifer A. McMahon Department of Philosophy The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Executive member, Australasian Association of Philosophy adelaide.edu.au/directory/jenny.mcmahon ARC Project ArtSENSE: Taste and Community: artsense.edu.au/ CRICOS Provider Number 00123M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arts.cave at mq.edu.au Sun Jul 9 14:05:54 2017 From: arts.cave at mq.edu.au (Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2017 04:05:54 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] CAVE Seminar: Reminder: Lucy Allais, "Evil and the Disunity of the Subject", Tuesday, Macquarie Message-ID: Hi all, A reminder that there is a seminar this week by Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics (CAVE). Our speaker is Lucy Allais (Wits, UCSD), who will be speaking about Kant and evil. Paul Formosa (Macquarie) will respond to her paper. All welcome, no registration required. Lucy Allais (Wits/UCSD), "Evil and the Disunity of the Subject" Date: Tuesday 11 July 2017 Time: 14:00 - 16:00 Venue: W6A 107, Macquarie University (P12 on campus map) Abstract: In the relatively late work, Religion within the boundaries of mere Reason (1793), Kant presents the claim that humans have an innate, universal yet imputable propensity to evil and that this propensity is present in all of us, ?even the best?. There is much that is puzzling in Kant?s account of evil, including his saying that we can be known to be evil as a species, that it is a propensity that is ineradicable, universal, rooted in and woven into human nature yet imputable and based in a ?deed of freedom? (6: 21; 27?30); that it is incomprehensible yet somehow based in reason, that it is innate but not attributable to nature (6: 21), that it is inextirpable yet possible to overcome, that we cannot overcome it through our own unaided efforts (needing something like God?s grace), and the corruption evil involves seems to make it impossible for us to start the process of becoming better but this is still something we ought to do?and Kant holds that everything we ought to do is possible for us to do. I want to argue that there is a way of reading Kant?s account on which it in fact fits naturally together with, and even follows from, central parts of his account of practical reason. Further, I argue that his account is plausible, and that although Kant provides an explanation of the biblical notion of original sin, this account is consistent with a secular account of humans as not simply finite and imperfect moral agents, but deeply and systematically flawed. I argue that the very structure of practical reason, as Kant understands it, will lead to systematically flawed, corrupt and systematically self-deceived agency under certain conditions?those of living in injustice. I do not argue that living in injustice is the only explanation of a propensity to evil in Kant; but that it is part of the picture. My suggestion is that the way Kant thinks about the relation between practical reason and our political obligations has implications for the moral psychology of finite, embodied, imperfectly rational creatures who come to agency and realise agency in corrupt conditions. I also present a suggestion for a secular reading of our need for external help in renewing our agency. About the speaker: Lucy Allais did her undergraduate degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and post-graduate degrees at Oxford. She has a number of publications on Kant?s theoretical philosophy, primarily on transcendental idealism and on the non-conceptualism of intuition, including her 2015 book, Manifest Reality: Kant?s Idealism and his Realism (OUP). She has also published on forgiveness, restorative and retributive justice, and other topics in ethics. She is currently working on human freedom in Kant. See you then! Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (CAVE) Department of Philosophy Macquarie University Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia CAVE website: mq.edu.au/cave www.facebook.com/MQCAVE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arts.cave at mq.edu.au Sun Jul 9 14:07:33 2017 From: arts.cave at mq.edu.au (Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2017 04:07:33 +0000 Subject: [SydPhil] CAVE Reading Group: Reminder: Kant and Racism, Wednesday, Macquarie Message-ID: Hi all, A reminder that this week, Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics (CAVE) will host a reading group, on Kant and Racism. This is a single meeting with CAVE Distinguished Visitor, Lucy Allais (Wits/UCSD), to discuss her paper on Kant's racism, and Adam Hochman's (Macquarie) paper on racialism and racism. All welcome, no registration required. Date: Wednesday 12 July 2017 Time: 12:00 - 14:00 Venue: W6B 357, Macquarie University (O12 on campus map) The papers: * Allias, Lucy. (2016). "Kant's Racism." Philosophical Papers 45 (1-2), 1-36. * Hochman, Adam. (2013). "Do We Need a Device to Acquire Ethnic Concepts?" Philosophy of Science. 80 (5):994-1005. Have a lovely day! Kelly Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (CAVE) Department of Philosophy Macquarie University Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia CAVE website: mq.edu.au/cave www.facebook.com/MQCAVE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: