Beyond Dualism

Matter – mind, soul – body, inner – outer, culture – nature, rationalism – empiricism, singularity – plurality, subject – object, the individual – the social: we can distinct a long tradition of dualisms in the history of western philosophy. Already from what many consider to be the cradle of this philosophical tradition, in ancient Greece, we see the famous Platonic dualism between body and soul. Similar dualist conceptions from ensuing ages can be traced historically: in the early modern era with Rene Descartes’ substance dualism and in the modern era we find Immanuel Kant’s unbridgeable gap between subjects and the things-in-themselves that surround them. Our contemporary philosophical landscape is still very much permeated with the traces of this dualistic lineage. But although the dualistic tradition may be the dominant tradition in Western philosophy, it is definitely not the only one. Western philosophy also carries a line of philosophers who have tried to think outside the dualist framework. From the early Stoa to Duns Scotus up to Spinoza and later on Nietzsche, we might discern, with Gilles Deleuze, a perhaps ‘hidden’ movement in the history of thought that forms an alternative for dualistic thinking. Instead of equivocity and analogical thinking this alternative strand of thought calls for a univocal expression of Being, in which Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said. From a different angle we can think of William James’ proposal for a pluralistic monism or Alfred North Whitehead, who tried to break with what he called the bifurcation of nature. Today the voice of these thinkers resonates in the work of a new generation of thinkers who try to break with dualist categories. An outstanding example is Bruno Latour, who refuses to view the world in terms of dualities and instead presents us a world as a complex network of multiple hybrid actors.

Furthermore, besides being tied to these substantive dilemmas, modern western philosophy seems to be condemned to a disciplinary antagonism, the tenacious split between continental and Anglo-Saxon philosophy. This academic dualism seems to be nourished by a desire to pinpoint what real philosophy is or should be; a desire driven by the essential dualism between true knowledge and illusion and by the wish to distinct the one from the other. Parallel to the attempts of overcoming the dualistic philosophical concept, there seems to emerge a new generation of philosophers who try to bridge the disciplinary chasms. People who come to mind are Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux.

Somewhat in line with the analytic-continental divide is the distinction between philosophy and science. While philosophy has for ages legitimately  acted as overarching discipline, bridging gaps between, sometimes newborn, sciences, that status is now often questioned: What relation does she maintains with other disciplines? What does she have to offer society or science, for it is clear for most scientists what makes their discipline ‘useful’? Philosophers are often pressed to defend themselves against science. This demand seems to unveil an oppositional tension between science and ‘non-science’, in which science presents it self as the sole freeholder of true knowledge, thereby downgrading those of all other trades to mere belief. Should philosophers partake in this dualistic framework, as we might encounter it in certain positivist philosophies regarding scientific method as the only road to truth and to which philosophical thinking should thus be servant? Or might we also transcend this dualism, moving beyond any oppositional thinking, but without losing sight of any productive differences immanent to the university of thought – as we might find, for instance, in Isabelle Stengers’  ‘ecology of practices’?

This conference aims for reflection on these various dualisms, substantive and disciplinary, internal and external. In thoroughgoing reflection on these dualisms a dialogue is to open up on the possibility and desirability of going beyond them. Only when one admits that a beyond necessarily refers to terra incognita, will an exploration of this beyond lead to a common ground.

Keynote speakers

Prof. Dr. Levi Bryant is professor of philosophy at Colin College in Frisco, Texas. Bryant is associated with ‘the speculative turn‘, a recent movement in continental philosophy that seeks to break with modern philosophy’s preoccupation with epistemological questions and that argues for a return to metaphysical questions concerning the world apart from all human access to it. His lecture is titled 'Machinic Objects: Between Objected-Oriented Philosophy and Onticology' and deals with the entities that Western metaphysics has traditionally not treated as such.

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth von Samsonow is a philosopher and an artist. She works as a Professor of Philosophical and Historical Anthropology at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. Her teachings and research focus on philosophy and the history of religions relating to a theory of a collective memory, the relationship between Art and Religion past and present, a theory and history of the perception of women as well as female identification, sacral androgyny and the modern dissolution of the self. Von Samsonow's lecture is called 'Confusion: Thinking the Third Millennium'.

Prof. Dr. Didier Debaise is a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and faculty member of the Faculté de Philosophie et lettres at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. His main interests are the questions of individuation and events in contemporary philosophy, the actuality of speculative philosophies, and the influence of evolutionist theories on the pragmatist movement. Debaise's lecture is titled 'Nature and Subjectivity: A Speculative Interpretation of Non-Humans', and deals with the question of whether it is possible to have an experience of human nature that does not follow, exclusively, the lines of a human perspective.

Prof. Dr. Roland Breeur is senior professor at the KU Leuven. He also works for the ‘Husserl Archives’, which manages the publication of the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl. His main interests are modern and contemporary philosophy, French phenomenology, (self-) consciousness, imagination, memory and free will. He has published several articles and books about, amongst other things, Sartre, Bergson, Malebranche and Descartes. His lecture is titled ‘From Duration to Stupidity’.

Student Speakers
From over 70 abstracts, which have been submitted from all over the globe, we have selected these undergraduate, graduate and PhD students to present their ideas at the Rally:

Adriano Jose Habed
Aetzel Griffioen
Anna de Bruyckere
Annelies Kleinherenbrink
Arjen Kleinherenbrink
Daan Oostveen
Gert Meyers
Ivo Gurschler
Julien Kloeg
Juul Gooren
Khafiz Kerimov
Krizia Nardini
Liesbeth Schoonheim
Piotrek Swiatkowski
Simon Gusman
Timon de Groot & Thomas Muntz
Fintan Neylan
Paulina Klos
Sadegh Mishekarian
Zakaria El Houbba

Workshops and Open Classes
In addition to the keynote-lectures and the student-speakers, there will be several workshops and open classes which may greatly interest the people who are new to philosophy, or, those who wish to get a taste of the education given at Erasmus University, perhaps with the idea of studying there in the future.

Workshops
Feminism by Nathanja van den Heuvel
Some of my best friends are objects by dr. Gijs van Oenen
Introduction to speculative metaphysics by dr. Rick Dolfijn and dr. Sjoerd van Tuinen
What is this thing called love by Jos Scheren/Factory of the Commons

Open Classes
Philosophy of cognition: Donald Davidson by dr. Tim de Mey
Leibniz & Confusion by prof. dr. Elisabeth von Samsonow and dr. Sjoerd van Tuinen
Metaphysics: Leibniz by dr. Fred Muller
Foucault by dr. Henk Oosterling