[Usyd_Classics_Events] Critical Antiquities Workshop is back in Semester 2!

[Ben Brown]

Dear Friends,

The Critical Antiquities Workshop is back for the second half of the year. Please see the attached flyer for a schedule of events and abstracts for the talks.

In our first workshop, we are delighted to host Professor Dennis Schmidt (Western Sydney University) for his paper, ‘Thinking and Moral Considerations.’ The event will be held on Friday, August 13, 10-11:30am. That translates to the following times elsewhere:

Tokyo: Friday, 9am-10:30am
Singapore: Friday, 8am-9:30am
Los Angeles: Thursday, 5-6:30pm
Mexico City: Thursday, 7-8:30pm
New York City: Thursday, 8-9:30pm

To receive a Zoom link, please sign up for Critical Antiquities Network announcements here<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/zDWOCwV1vMfG9WQDkUVg-bK?domain=signup.e2ma.net>. Please note, if you have already subscribed to the mailing list, you will receive the Zoom link and need not sign up again.

Here is the abstract:

The title of these remarks repeats the title of an essay by Arendt that was published in 1971.  In that essay Arendt asks whether thinking – understood in the broadest sense and not merely as a matter of knowledge – provides some sort of “guarantee”, some sort of compelling attachment to a moral sense.  Here reflections are largely, but not exclusively, directed to Platonic texts.

My intention is to ask this question again by beginning with a closer look at Arendt’s text, but then moving to look at some key Platonic texts – including some that Arendt does not take up – that treat this issue.  My special concern will be to ask what, if anything, binds us to the good?  While the focus of my comments will be centered on Platonic texts and will take Arendt’s text as the guiding impulse for those comments, it will be necessary to refer to some issues in Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger, and Agamben in order to unfold some further possibilities.

Philosophy has tended to hold tight to the conviction that reason, thinking, truth, and the good matter.  Bloch took this conviction as evidence for the importance of the principle of hope.  Arendt echoes this in her essay, especially its final words: “The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge; it is the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly.  And this indeed may prevent catastrophes, at least for myself, in the rare moments when the chips are down.”  Since my own conviction in this matter has been badly shaken, this paper is an effort to understand more clearly how it might be renewed.

Best wishes,
Tristan and Ben


DR BEN BROWN
Classics and Ancient History
School Undergraduate Curriculum Coordinator (SOPHI)
Research Seminar Coordinator (CAH)
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI)
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY NSW 2006
Ph.: 9351 8983; Office: Main Quad J6.07
E benjamin.brown at sydney.edu.au<mailto:benjamin.brown at sydney.edu.au> | W https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/FqF8CxngwOf1w302DCvcy4g?domain=sydney.edu.au

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