3-4 June 2013, Université de Paris – Sorbonne & Institut Catholique de Paris, “Thomas d’Aquin et ses sources arabes / Aquinas and ‘the Arabs'”. Call for papers on Aquinas and the Arabic Tradition. Initial deadline 15 February 2013.
Organizers: J.-B. Brenet, Isabelle Moulin & Richard C. Taylor
The Aquinas and ‘the Arabs’ International Working Group announces a conference on “Aquinas and Metaphysics in the Arabic Tradition” that will be held 7-8 June at Würzburg. The conference is organized by Profs. Jörn Müller, Dag Hasse and Richard C. Taylor.
Among the program presenters are Pasquale Porro, Deborah Black, Dag Hasse, R. E. Houser, Olga Lizzini, Luis López-Farjeat, Richard C. Taylor, and David B. Twetten.
There will be a workshop for Ph.D. students held on Friday 7 June before the evening plenary lecture opening the conference.
The Future for Philosophy of Religion? An exploration of recent ‘turns to the human’ in thinking about religion.
The past decade has been marked by significant shifts in the in the Philosophy of Religion. A discipline long characterised by close analysis of a limited number of topics, and focusing mainly on arguments for and against traditional theistic belief, has broken new ground, both in its subject matter and its methodology. Much work by contemporary philosophers of religion has taken on an increasingly ‘humanistic’ shape: to supplement abstract argument and analysis there has been an increasing interest in religion as a response to the problems of lived human experience. This interest has manifested itself in a focus on the relation between religious belief and moral and aesthetic experience; the role played by religion in the struggle for self-awareness and psychological maturity; the contributions to religious awareness made by the emotions, the body, and the disciplines of spiritual praxis; and the way in which a deeper engagement with poetic and literary resources may develop and deepen religious sensibility and also enhance our understanding of the religious outlook itself.
Among the possible themes to be addressed by the Conference are the following:
1. Criteria for evaluating a religious outlook. Is a religious outlook to be assessed in terms of the intellectual plausibility of the claims it purports to make about the origins or workings of the cosmos, or should it be understood instead as an attempt to articulate an appropriate emotional and moral response to the puzzle of the meaning of human life and the how it should be lived?
2. Methodology. What is the appropriate mode for religious philosophizing? Should the philosopher of religion aim at detached intellectual scrutiny of certain truth claims, in the manner of a scientist, or is religious truth a domain that is more fruitfully investigated from a standpoint of emotional and moral commitment?
3. Theoretical implications. Does the ‘humane turn’ in philosophy of religion lead to, or lend support to, so-called ‘noncognitivism’ about religious claims (the view that religious assertions are not really descriptions of states of affairs but express passionate commitments to a certain form of life); or does it need to preserve a cognitive core of essential truth-claims?
4. Theological and anthropological dimensions. Should theology operate primarily at the level of abstract metaphysical doctrine, or does it need to do more to accommodate the perspective of the human subject, and an examination of the nature of what the religious life means for those who are actually involved in the practice of religion, or belong to its institutions?
Speakers: John Cottingham (analytic philosophy); William Schweiker (theological ethics and hermeneutics); Mark Wynn (philosophy/theology and the emotions); Christopher Hamilton (philosophy and literature).
Please see website for additional details.
The APRA Conference, 2013: Religion and Science, Theism and Atheism
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Herman Philipse, University of Utrecht, Netherlands
Professor Michael Ruse, Florida State University, USA
Professor John Bishop, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Professor Peter Forrest, University of New England, Australia
Submission date 31 March 2013. Please see website for more information.
The APRA Conference has been convened annually since 2008, and is usually held mid-year at a different location within Australasia. The aim of the Conference is to bring together academics and graduate students working within the fields of philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies and allied disciplines to discuss and debate a wide range of topics in philosophy of religion and philosophical theology.
Keynote Speakers
Professor Herman Philipse (University of Utrecht, Netherlands)
Professor Michael Ruse (Florida State University, USA)
Professor John Bishop (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
Professor Peter Forrest (University of New England, Australia)
Other Speakers
Professor Purushottama Bilimoria (UC-Berkeley/Melbourne University)
Professor James Franklin (University of NSW)
Dr Bruce Langtry (University of Melbourne)
Professor David G. Santos (University of Beira Interior, Portugal)
Dr Jeremy Shearmur (Australian National University)
Dr Lloyd Strickland (Manchester Metropolitan University, Great Britain)
Virtue, Emotion and Practical Reason in Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition. @ Beaumier Conference Center, Raynor Library, Marquette University
This Conference is intended to provide a formal occasion and central location for philosophers and scholars of the Midwest region (and elsewhere) to present and discuss their current work on Aristotle’ and his interpreters in ancient, medieval and contemporary philosophy.
Please see website for more information.
The Aquinas and ‘the Arabs’ International Working Group presents:
A WORKSHOP ON AVERROES AND HIS PHILOSOPHY
This Workshop is intended to provide a formal occasion and central location for discussion of the thought of Ibn Rushd / Averroes, Topics to be considered include: philosophy in the Andalusian context; Ibn Rushd and his Greek and Arabic sources; method in philosophy and religion; the nature of human intellect; providence; creation; cosmology; prophecy; the afterlife; Ibn Rushd and issues of Latin Averroism; and more.
Please see website for more information.
Presented by the Departments of Philosophy at the University of Denver and Marquette University and the University of Denver’s Center for Judaic Studies
July 10-12, 2013 at the University of Denver
Organizers: Prof. Sarah Pessin (University of Denver) & Prof. Richard C. Taylor (Marquette University)
This Conference is intended to provide a formal occasion and central location for philosophers and scholars of the Arabic / Islamic, Jewish and Latin Christian philosophical traditions of the Middle Ages to present and discuss their current work in medieval philosophy.
First held at Marquette University in 2008, this Summer Conference alternates between the University of Denver and Marquette University.
Please see website for more information.
Psychology and the Other Conference 2013
The Interhuman and Intersubjective: An Intersection of Discourses
Eric Fromm bemoaned the divorce of psychology from philosophical and religious traditions and, in many ways, this artificial separation from our historical and conceptual siblings has only increased. The purpose of this organization is to provide venues that enrich conversations at the intersections of philosophy, psychology, and theological/religious studies, particularly emphasizing scholarship around the notion of the “Other.” The term “Other” constitutes a shared space for continental thought, theology, and a variety of psychological discourses. This phenomenon bears significantly on ethical, epistemological, and phenomenological scholarship in each of these fields. As an interdisciplinary organization housed in and graciously supported by Lesley University’s Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, we are committed to developing conferences and publications that explore the rich discourses that have emerged around the concept of the “Other” in various intellectual traditions, ranging from phenomenological work like that of Emmanuel Levinas to the work of John Zizioulas in theology or that of Jessica Benjamin in psychoanalysis.
Plenaries
Lewis Aron (New York University)
Tina Chanter (DePaul University)
Simon Critchley (New School for Social Research)
Donna Orange (Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity)
Ann Pellegrini (New York University)
Malcolm Owen Slavin (Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis)
Other featured and invited speakers:
Jessica Benjamin (New York University)
Scott Churchill (University of Dallas)
Philip Cushman (Antioch University)
Ruella Frank (Center for Somatic Studies)
Mark Freeman (College of the Holy Cross)
Sue Grand (New York University)
Lynne Jacobs (Pacific Gestalt Institute/Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis)
Claire Katz (Texas A&M)
Dennis Klein (Kean University)
Richard Kearney (Boston College)
Lynne Layton (Harvard Medical School)
Ana-Maria Rizzuto (PINE Psychoanalytic Center)
Jean-Marie Robine (Institut Français de Gestalt-thérapie)
Donna San Antonio (Lesley University)
Gordon Wheeler (Esalen Institute)
Numerous pre-conference workshops, as well:
Donna Orange: The Suffering Stranger (October 3rd, $250)
In this pre-conference workshop, Donna Orange will bring a philosophical (and clinical) eye toward five major thinkers in psychoanalysis – Sándor Ferenczi, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, D. W. Winnicott, Heinz Kohut, and Bernard Brandchaft – investigating the hermeneutic approach of each, engaging these innovative thinkers precisely as interpreters, and as those who have seen the face and heard the voice of the other in the ethical sense.
Why the Other? A Philosophical Survey (October 3rd, $250)
How similar is the other to the self? How does her suffering rank alongside the suffering of the self? What assumptions can be made about the other person based on my own experiences? To what degree does the suffering of the other person render me responsible?
This workshop will contextualize the critical question of the other, with particular attention to the appearance of psychology in the trajectory of western thought about otherness. Psychology appears during the heyday of modern philosophy, at a point in time when alterity and debt were frequently subordinated to grand metaphysical systems. Philosophy has come to challenge these systems, which Emmanuel Levinas considers “totalizing” and “violent,” setting up an important conflict within the fields of psychology.
Tracking Emergent Experience: Gestalt Therapy at the Intersection of the Interhuman & the Intersubjective (October 2nd & 3rd, $300)
This pre-conference workshop introduces participants to contemporary gestalt therapy as an experiential practice at the intersection of the interhuman and intersubjective. Not only will participants learn the relevant concepts of contemporary gestalt therapy, but they will also experience them directly as the workshop develops. Participants will learn by doing how gestalt therapy tracks emergent experience. They will become familiar with how contemporary gestalt therapy focuses on various kinds of meetings of the self and other, which is called “contacting.” These meetings are the basis for gestalt therapy as an approach at the intersection of the interhuman and intersubjective. This workshop will offer a lasting support for the participants since they can take the relationships they form and the concepts they understand with them for the rest of the conference. Implications for psychotherapy, philosophy, and theology will be explored. Didactic, experiential exercise, and discussion will be employed.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Thomistic Studies and the John Paul II Forum, the First US conference of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Thomas Aquinas: Teacher of Humanity:
Explores the significance for the 21st century of Thomas Aquinas’ teaching on humanity. Is it still meaningful to talk about “humanity” or “inhumanity”? What challenges do evolution, eugenics and the trans-humanist movement present for a concept of “humanity”? Is the “human” a viable standard in a world with many cultures and traditions? Papers are solicited on these and related topics.
Deadline for receipt of papers: July 1, 2013
Please see the website for additional information.