CFP: Suffering and Attention

CFP: Suffering and Attention

A student conference and a workshop

Tübingen, 15-17 April 2025

Organised by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza and Eva-Maria Düringer

Funded by the DFG Research Grant Natural Badness: Suffering and Its Place in Contemporary Virtue Ethics

We welcome abstract submissions for the student conference on ‘Suffering and Attention’ which will take place at the University of Tübingen on 15 April 2025. Students at all stages, from BA and MA to PhD, are very welcome to apply. Come and share your ideas in an inclusive, constructive, and non-adversarial environment!

The conference will be followed by a workshop with invited speakers on 16 and 17 April 2025 (see below).

Description:

Suffering has always been topical. Where there is life, there is the capacity to suffer. The contemporary world is plagued by increasing wars, migration crises, and political extremism. Billions of animals suffer and die every day due to human consumption and climate change. Global mental health has been worsening for decades. But what precisely is suffering? It is more than pain, and it is more than things going badly. But what? And what, if anything, should we do about it? 

The nature of suffering has recently become a topic of lively debate in analytic philosophy. In Suffering and Virtue (2018), Michael Brady thinks of suffering as ‘displeasures that we mind’, while the volume The Philosophy of Suffering (2020), co-edited by Brady, David Bain and Jennifer Corns, collects a wide array of different views: suffering is conceived e.g. as negatively construing one’s situation, as a severe mental disruption, or as an emotion directed at pain. Different as these views are, they all agree that suffering is essentially experiential. But not even this seems to be a given. Corns (2022) has recently argued that suffering is significantly disrupted agency, hence not essentially marked by any experience at all – a view shared by some virtue ethical stances on suffering who take suffering to consist in prevention of flourishing, experienced or not. 

The account of suffering we accept has a bearing on the way we will answer the ethical questions that suffering gives rise to: How do we engage with suffering, in ourselves and others? Do we have a duty always to alleviate or minimise it? Should we ever welcome it? Is it acceptable to look away, or do we have a responsibility to pay attention to it? And how do we attend to it without being crushed? 

The aim of this conference is to raise questions about the nature and ethics of suffering by putting in conversation contemporary analytic approaches with historical, continental, and non-Western traditions, and by broadening the scope to include reflections on the suffering of both human and non-human animals, environmental perspectives, and questions of suffering in the philosophy of medicine and mental health. 

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Students with an interest in the topic should feel encouraged to apply, even if their work does not fit neatly into any of the approaches outlined. Questions to be addressed include, but are not limited to:

-       What is the nature of suffering?

-       Is suffering ever to be welcomed?

-       Simone Weil, attention and affliction

-       Suffering and attention in Buddhist philosophy

-       What does it mean to attend to suffering? Is it possible, and ought we to do it?

-       What kinds of moral responsibility, if any, does suffering give rise to?

-       How does suffering in oneself compare to our perception and response to suffering in others?

-       What is the proper way to respond to suffering?

-       How do different philosophical traditions understand suffering, and what are their main contributions and weaknesses?

Students are invited to submit a 200 word abstract (approximately), suitable for a 15-20 minute talk followed by a short Q&A, [email protected] 10 February 2025. Decisions will be sent within two weeks of that date. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at the email address above.

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Participants at the conference are welcome, but not required to, attend the workshop after the conference. The workshop speakers are: Elisa Aaltola (University of Turku), Michael Brady (University of Glasgow), Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (University of Tübingen), Dorothea Debus (University of Konstanz), Eva-Maria Düringer (University of Tübingen), Ian James Kidd (University of Nottingham), Kamila Pacovská (University of Pardubice), Christopher Thomas (Manchester Metropolitan University), Mariëtte Willemsen (Amsterdam University College)

Please note that the conference/workshop and refreshments are free for everyone, but unfortunately we are unable to offer travel bursaries for accepted participants.