World Philosophies

Throughout the Twentieth Century, Western Philosophy has been divided into two factions: Anglo-American analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy dominated by phenomenology and post-phenomenological philosophies. Anglo- American philosophy seems thus to have been cut off from the rest of the world, and seems to have evolved in relative isolation. The aim of this conference is to allow analytic philosophy to engage with other philosophies from around the world.

• In recent years, there has been a growing interest in phenomenology and what it can contribute to modern philosophy of mind. 
• An interest in Asian philosophy is beginning to appear, particularly in ethics and moral philosophy.
• Islamic philosophy, African philosophy and pre-Columbian American philosophies may also have much to contribute to many modern debates.
• Any other philosophical traditions which can have an input into analytic debates or any of the above traditions are also welcome.

Thursday 20th June, Wilberforce LT31


10.00 – 11.00 Arrival and registration


11.00 – 11.10 Introduction


11.10 – 12.00 First Keynote Speech: Dr. Katherine Morris (Mansfield College: Oxford), “Revisiting Royaumont: Tomorrow the World”

Abstract: The title refers to a famous meeting of the Royaumont philosophy society held in the early 1960s, devoted to the attempt to create a dialogue between ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental’ philosophers. The judgement of many who were present (and many who were not, but who read the transcripts of the lectures and discussion) was that this conference was a signal failure. And
one might think: if communication is so difficult between analytic and Continental philosophers, what hope is there for a fruitful conversation between philosophers from yet further-flung continents and traditions? More recently, however, Søren Overgaard (formerly of this parish), in his ‘Royaumont revisited’ (British Journal for the History of Philosophy 18:5, 899-924), sounds a more optimistic note, finding commonalities that, had they been explored at the time, could have generated genuine communication. I here express some optimism that we will find such common ground for ourselves.

12.00 – 12.50 Rocky Webb (Hull), “Expertise of the Hand and Mind: Perspectives Ancient and Modern”

Abstract: In this paper I examine differing conceptions of the nature of expertise.  I focus on intellectual and non-intellectual types of expertise. The examination I offer considers the perspective of four different philosophers: Goldman, Dreyfus, Plato and Aristotle.  This examination will therefore consider an analytic, phenomenological and ancient perspective on
the nature of expertise.  The examination will also pertain to the distinctions philosophers have occasionally made between know-that, know-how, and know-why.  The conclusion I draw is that Plato’s “account giving” or Aristotle’s “know-why” articulates a genuine distinction between intellectual and non-intellectual expertise.

12.50 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 14.50 Sara Barrera Rubio (Cork), “A Criticism of Peter Kreeft’s Interpretation of Zen in ‘Zen Buddhism and Christianity: an Experiment in Comparative Religion’”

Abstract: This presentation argues that Peter Kreeft’s “Zen Buddhism and Christianity: an Experiment in Comparative Religion” reads Zen Buddhism from a Christian "Western" perspective in finding a “hidden ego” in satori. Kreeft omits Zen’s premise that the common perception humans have of the world creates the illusion of the existence of things as separated from one another (difference between subject and object), but with the experience of satori one realizes that there is no self, or independent existence of anything.

14.50 – 15.40 Laszlo Kajtar (Budapest), “Ricoeur and Narrative Identity: Application to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Contrast to Psychological Approaches to Personal Identity”

Abstract: In this paper, my main goal is to demonstrate how Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology can contribute to the analytic discussion on personal identity, especially by establishing the notion of narrative identity. As a methodological choice, I focus not on thought experiments, but on the real-life case of post-traumatic stress disorder to demonstrate that traditional psychological accounts are insufficient for personal identity through time. Using Ricoeur’s notion and its modification by Marya Schechtman, I argue that narrative approaches to personal identity through time suggest a more attractive answer in the case of post-traumatic stress disorder than psychological ones.

15.40 – 16.00 Coffee

16.00 – 16.50 Josh Gray (Hull), “Therapy, Phenomenology and the Role of Philosophy”

Abstract: There are currently three main interpretations of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy. On the one hand, doctrinal interpretations view Wittgenstein as an analytic philosopher, constructing substantial theories. On the other hand, therapeutic interpretations conceive of Wittgenstein as giving a new methodology, which rejects theoretical constructs and dissolves
philosophical questions by showing how they are conceptually misguided. Though currently the dominant trend in Wittgenstein interpretation, this has the effect of not allowing Wittgenstein to say anything substantial. A third interpretation claims he does both, in a “two-task” philosophical mission. In this paper, I aim to show how the debate hinges on how one understands the word “theory”: rather than viewing it in the usual way, i. e. to mean “picture”, I suggest Wittgenstein uses it in the technical sense implying the positing of unknown hypotheses. Wittgenstein rejects developing the latter kind of theory, not the former. I further suggest phenomenology can help interpret Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy in order to make sense of his therapeutic claims and yet allow a substantial picture to be sketched out.

16.50 – 17.40 Daniel Vanello (Warwick), “A Sartrean Challenge to Humeanism about Motivation”

Abstract: A central question in the explanation of intentional human action asks what the nature of a motivating reason is. Motivating reasons are the reasons for which a subject performs an action. The dominant view, known as Humeanism about motivation, holds that the source of motivation is a desire of the subject where a desire is understood as a dispositional mental state. Humeans argue that this is the only position which can account for motivation being rational. In this paper I argue that Sartre’s theory of motivation offers a convincing argument against Humeanism. For Sartre, the source of motivation is not a mental state of the agent but a state of affairs about the world which affects the agent.

Friday 21st June, Wilberforce LT31

09.00 – 09.50 Second Keynote Speech: Søren Overgaard (Copenhagen), “What is Phenomenology?”

Abstract: The phenomenological movement is the cornerstone of so-called continental philosophy. Perhaps for this reason, many analytic philosophers have given phenomenology rather short shrift. Taking my point of departure in Daniel Dennett’s critique of phenomenology, I argue that the bulk of his critique is based on misunderstandings. Dennett may still have a point in suggesting that phenomenology may be vulnerable to naturalistic critique. But as I suggest towards the end of my talk, in this respect phenomenology is in exactly the same position as traditional analytic philosophy.

09.50 – 10.40 Andrew Lambert (Hawaii), “Analysing the Five Cardinal Relationships: A Confucian Account of Ethical Obligation?”

Abstract: In this paper, I explore a way of understanding the five relationships that avoids such objections, reading it as a kind of training device that cultivates a certain kind of personal sensibility. This is a sense of obligation to find a basis for familiarity with those people encountered in the subject’s local social world.  I argue this is a genuine ethical obligation, not mere etiquette or psychological conditioning.

10.40 – 11.00 Coffee

11.00 – 11.50 Sebastian Greve (Birkbeck), Heidegger and Wittgenstein: A Comparison of Language Games and Totalities of Relevance

Abstract: In this paper I attempt to uncover some interesting similarities between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of language games and Martin Heidegger’s concept of totalities of relevance. In so far as these represent respective methods and ways of thinking as employed in a central work of each of the philosophers, this comparison is supposed to serve as the ground
for possible further research in the direction of a better understanding of the relations between these two influential 20th century philosophers. Dealing with concrete difficulties in comparing the two will be seen to further the understanding of each one of them independently.

11.50 – 12.40 Shereen Shaw (Liverpool), “Existential Aspects in Al Hakim’s Equilibrium Doctrine: A Critical Perspective”

Abstract: In light of the political unrest in the Middle East and recent events after 25th of January 2012 Egyptian revolution, this paper proposes reviving a kind of philosophy that emerged during the 19th Century on the hands of Egyptian writer and philosopher, Tawfiq Al Hakim. The paper introduces, for the first time to the English speaking public, Al Hakim’s equilibrium doctrine which attempts to consolidate the ideas of the East and the West offering a new way of thinking about human status in relation to the universe and other beings. The paper makes a bold case for the author’s equilibrist arguments through an investigation of the impact of French existentialist writers and recurring themes present in his book, Equilibrium. The author put forward two main questions to attempt to answer in his book. Firstly, he asked: “are human beings alone in the universe?” and secondly, “are human beings free in the universe?” Al Hakim’s inquiries into these two areas have touched upon controversial issues that led the
book to be deemed socially, culturally and religiously inappropriate when it was published in Egypt in 1955. For this reason, I should like to provide here some- thing most discussions of Al Hakim’s work take for granted; a simple investigation of the existential characteristics present in his proposed philosophical doctrine.

12.40 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 14.50 Edward McDougall (Durham), “The Philosophy of the Shinto Shrine in Modernity – a Heideggerian Perspective”

Abstract: Shinto is the native religion of Japan. Even in comparison with other East Asian religions, Shinto has received little attention in western thought. This is in part due to a perception that Shinto is simply a series of folk customs and as such devoid of philosophical significance. Aspects of Shinto, often taken as denoting a lack of development, such as the omission of a fixed doctrine and the non-transcendental view of divinity, will be examined in this paper, presenting them in a positive philosophical light by demonstrating how they are congruent with the philosophical project of Martin Heidegger.

14.50 – 15.40 Silvia Panizza (UEA), “Iris Murdoch’s Imperfect Ethical Attention and the Example of Jiddu Krishnamurti”

Abstract: The concept of attention draws together the moral thinking of Iris Murdoch and Eastern philosophies. Attention, conceived as a discipline of looking at reality and search for truth, entails in both cases a withdrawal of the self or, in Murdoch’s words, an ‘unselfing’. However, the nature of such self-suppression and the path towards it are deeply problematic. In the dialogue between Murdoch and Krishnamurti, the difficulties of proper selfless attention are brought out through the tension between the two thinkers: seeing reality through attention as effort (Murdoch) or as grace (Krishnamurti), unselfing as reorientation and purification of the self (Murdoch) or as vanishing of the self (Krishnamurti). Assessing the relevance of the debate for moral attention, I will seek a solution of the tension between the two views.

15.40 – 16.00 Coffee

16.00 – 16.50 Thomas Feldges (Hull), “Edmund Husserl and Marc Richir: A Phenomenological Critique of the Phenomenological Reduction”

Abstract: With a newly emerging interest in Husserl’s phenomenology to aid scientific research to investigate consciousness, the question emerges as to whether Husserl’s proposed phenomenological methods are fit for purpose. First an account of how Husserl tries to solve a problem of the constitutive a priority revealing essences via the epoché is provided. A second step introduces the phenomenology of Marc Richir to develop a phenomenological critique of Husserl’s phenomenology. As a result is becomes apparent, that Husserl’s solution (direct noesis/noema relation) might not be able to provide a sufficient basis to solve the constitutive a priori with the proposed law-like necessity and universality as Husserl had hoped.

16.50 – 17.00 Conclusion

Registration is free but necessary.

For further information and to register, please contact Nicole Woodford: [email protected]