CFP: Truth and Phenomenology

As a descriptive account of experience and the constitutive structures of consciousness, phenomenology expresses a vision of truth distinct from traditional theories. Yet the divergent phenomenological methods of different thinkers call the unity of this vision into question, with unclear consequences. This conference seeks to investigate truth in phenomenology. How is it distinct from and similar to other philosophical definitions of truth? How do different phenomenologists approach the question of truth and why? How do we confirm truths that are ascertained by phenomenological methods? What value can we derive from phenomenologically knowing truth? What are the implications of phenomenological truth for science, the arts, and philosophy? To understand what truth means for phenomenology is also to explore its relation to being, thought, and the world.

POTENTIAL TOPICS:

• The role of truth in phenomenology
• The relation of philosophy to phenomenology
• Phenomenology as rigorous science
• Heidegger’s concept of truth
• Phenomenology and logic
• Husserl’s mereology
• Alternative conceptions of truth
• Phenomenology and science
• Phenomenology and history
• Truth, method, and hermeneutics
• Phenomenology’s role in realist and antirealist debates
• Phenomenology’s relation to other schools of inquiry (Pragmatism, etc.)
• Phenomenology’s confrontation with other modes of truth (Tugendhat, Davidson, etc.)

An interdisciplinary conference to be held at the New School University, Friday and Saturday, March 8th and 9th, 2013, with keynote speaker Daniel Dahlstrom of Boston University.

Sponsored by the New York Phenomenology Research Group, the Department of Philosophy, the University Student Senate, the Office of Student Development and Activities, New School University.

Abstracts of up to 400 words will be accepted; finished papers are encouraged. Papers should be no more than 4,000 words or 30 minutes of reading time.

Please format papers for blind review and send with cover letter to the New York Phenomenology Research Group, [email protected]