CFP: Subjectivity, Selfhood and Agency in the Arabic and Latin Traditions
Submission deadline: January 31, 2012
Conference date(s):
August 15, 2012 - August 18, 2012
Conference Venue:
Department of philosophy, University of Jyväskylä
Uppsala,
Sweden
Details
CALL FOR PAPERS
Subjectivity, selfhood and agency in the Arabic and Latin Traditions
An international conference on the history of philosophical psychology and moral psychology
August 15-18, 2012, Uppsala, Sweden
Subjectivity,
consciousness, self-awareness, and the intentional aspects of
perception and apprehension are popular topics in the contemporary
philosophy of mind. A common thread amongst the
various approaches to them has been dissatisfaction with the Cartesian
paradigm of a self-constituted subject that is perfectly free in its
volitions and epistemically transparent to itself, typically presented
as standard for the modern age. Working from
the opposite end, historians of philosophy and ethicists have noted
that ancient and medieval ethics operated in a strikingly different
understanding of self. Far from subscribing to the Cartesian notion,
pre-modern moral philosophy generally took its cue
from the assumption that human selfhood is socially construed. Our
instinctive apprehension and evaluation of reality has as much to do
with our upbringing as it does with our conscious acts of cognition and
evaluation.
It
is in the Middle Ages that these two lines of thought converge.
Historians of philosophy have noted that Descartes’ understanding of
subjectivity did not develop in a vacuum; rather, it represents
the culmination of medieval debates, which in turn build on ancient
precedents. At the same time, the virtue ethics tradition underwent
significant transformations, thanks in part to pressures arising from
religious and legal considerations. These include
a preoccupation with the freedom of choice and one’s culpability for
the character one acquires.
The
present conference invites abstracts for submissions relating to these
issues in Antiquity, the Latin and Arabic Middle Ages, and the Early
Modern period. Relevant questions to consider are,
for example: descriptions and explanations of consciousness and
self-consciousness; degrees of self-consciousness; the conceptual shift
from soul as the form of the human body to human self; human selves and
the divine self; techniques of the self, constructability
of the self; social conditioning of human selfhood; and the dual
concept of microcosm and macrocosm.
The submissions
will be allotted 30 minutes for presentation and discussion. An abstract
of max. 300 words should be sent for evaluation by January 31st, 2012, to [email protected].
At present, confirmed keynote speakers include Calvin Normore and Udo Thiel.
Uppsala is located
about 70km north of Stockholm (20-30 minutes from Arlanda airport). The
fourth largest city in Sweden, Uppsala is an historical treasure with
beautifully preserved monuments from both the pre-Christian
and the Christian era. Uppsala University is the oldest in Scandinavia
and presently a leading international centre of higher learning and
research.
The conference
is jointly financed by the University of Jyväskylä and Uppsala
University, and organized by two research groups, SSALT (Subjectivity
and Selfhood in the Arabic and Latin Traditions) in Jyväskylä
and Understanding Agency in Uppsala.
For all further enquiries, please consult [email protected].