The OU Philosophy’s Annual Research Conference took place at Chicheley Hall, Milton Keynes, on 4–5 May 2017. All academic staff members presented papers on their current research. The programme can be viewed here.
Top left to bottom right: Sean Cordell, Sophie-Grace Chappell, Manuel Dries, Derek Matravers, Alex Barber, Carolyn Price, Cristina Chimisso, and Jon Pike.
Cristina Chimisso has published a book chapter, entitled ‘Gaston Bachelard’s Places of the Imagination and Images of Space’, in Bruce Janz (ed.), Place, Space and Hermeneutics, Springer 2017 (Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol. 5).
In it, she looks at Bachelard’s hermeneutics of place, or ‘topoanalysis’, in the context of his philosophy of the imagination, and of his wider philosophical project. By going beyond the relatively narrow focus on his The Poetics of Space, she argues, we can achieve a better understanding of Bachelard’s approach to the analysis of space.
Congratulations to PhD candidate Christopher Yorke for the appearance of a publication in Journal for the Philosophy of Sport, the foremost journal in its field.
He considers a thought experiment due to Bernard Suits. Suits imagines a technological utopia, in which all our instrumental needs are satisfied (it’s only a matter of time!) and claims that in this world we would need to play games – which he famously defines as the ‘voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles’. This fact, says Suits, tells us something important: that game playing is the ‘ideal of human existence’. Chris, in ‘Endless summer: What kinds of games will Suits’ utopians play?’, is sceptical.
Carolyn Price has recently become co-editor of Emotion Researcher, the newsletter of the International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE). Carolyn will be working with Eric Walle, Assistant Professor in Psychological Sciences at the University of California, Merced. As well as featuring ISRE news, Emotion Researcher has developed as an online sourcebook for research on emotion and affect. Contributions so far have spanned a wide range of disciplines, including (among others) psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, political science, sociology, ethnomusicology, law and business studies. Under the guidance of its founding editor Andrea Scarantino each issue has included a ‘spotlight’ article, written by a new researcher alongside an interview with a well-known figure in emotion research: interviewees have included Paul Ekman, Joe Ledoux, Nico Frijda and Martha Nussbaum. In addition, each issue has included a cross-disciplinary symposium on a key issue in emotion research: topics have included specific emotions, such as love and guilt, as well as more general issues, such as the emotional brain, emotional intelligence’ and, most recently emotion and politics. Carolyn and Eric intend to build on this excellent legacy: their first issue, planned for this summer, will focus on empathy.
Carolyn Price will be speaking at two upcoming events. The first is a conference titled Negative Emotions’ The Good the Bad and the Ugly at the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences in Geneva on May 30th and 31st. Carolyn will give a talk on regret. She will be speaking again at a workshop on regret at University College Dublin on June 8th and 9th.
Derek Matravers is one of the organisers of the 2017 Music and Philosophy Conference (he is also organising a session on music in videogames). It has a great programme, including papers by people such as Roger Scruton and Jean-Luc Nancy. All the information can be found here: http://musicandphilosophy.ac.uk/mpsg2017/
The documentary, ‘Simon’s Choice’, which followed a man who chose to end his life in a Swiss clinic, has been nominated for a BAFTA in the ‘Single Documentary’ category. It was an OU/BBC co-production. The academic consultants were Sam Murphy, from the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, and Language Studies, and Derek Matravers from the department.
Further details can be found here: http://www.bafta.org/television/tv-2017#single-documentary
Dr Manuel Dries is currently a Visiting Professor at Tongji University, Shanghai. The Shanghai Nietzsche Colloquium at Tongji University will devote two sessions to his paper ‘Memento Mori, Memento Vivere: Nietzsche on History, Embodiment, and Value in his Untimely Mediation II.’
Access the announcement in English and Chinese is available here. Download as PDF here: 尼采讨论班·Shanghai Nietzsche Colloquium.
Venue:
School of Humanities
Department of Philosophy & Academy of European Cultures
Tongji University
1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092
China
Date and time:
Session 1: 30 March 2017, 4-6 pm
Session 2: 06 April 2017, 4-6 pm
Room:
Yuntong Lou 221
The event is hosted by Professor Sun Zhouxing, Professor Zhao Qianfan, and Dr Helmut Heit.
On March 24th 2017, we held a Research Day on the theme of perception. In the morning, our own Derek Matravers spoke on ‘Visualising Representations’…
Summary: When we visualise a tree, do we imagine seeing a tree, or just imagine the visual appearance of a tree? This esoteric question (the ‘dependency thesis’) has been much debated to the neglect of another possibility: that sometimes, although certainly not all the time, when we visualise a tree we imagine (or imagine seeing) a visual representation of a tree. This paper considers the motivation for making this suggestion, and its plausibility.
…and in the afternoon, Louise Richardson (University of York) gave a talk on ‘Smelling Sweetness’…
Summary: There are a number of obstacles to thinking that we can smell – olfactorily perceive – properties such as sweetness and saltiness. The most serious of these is the role of learning in their aetiology, which has suggested to some that what we might think of as ‘smelling sweetness’ is in fact a form of smell-taste synaesthesia. I argue that the claim that sweetness can be smelled is defensible, and that accepting it does not require taking on any controversial assumptions.
All are welcome to the following Philosophy Research Seminar.
Neil Sinhababu, National University of Singapore
‘A Reliable Route from Is to Ought’
Time: 5th April, 2.00pm to 4.00pm
Place: Meeting Room 5, Wilson A, Open University (Walton Hall Campus)
Contact: Derek Matravers
Abstract: I present a strategy by which moral knowledge can be derived from non-moral knowledge, using insights from reliabilist epistemology. The strategy begins by discovering which cognitive processes generate which moral and nonmoral beliefs. We can then assess the reliability of these cognitive processes for moral belief formation by considering to what extent they produce true belief on non-moral issues, and by checking whether they produce contradictory moral beliefs in different people. By retaining reliably caused beliefs and abandoning unreliably caused ones, we can move closer to moral truth. No normative ethical assumptions are required.
David Roden (Associate Lecturer and Honorary Associate) is giving a number of talks in the UK and beyond this spring. As well as talks delivered to the Dundee Philosophy Department on 17 Feb 2017 and the Sonic Acts festival in Amsterdam on 25 Feb 2017, he gave a public lecture and masterclass in Aarhus, Denmark, 9-10 March 2017.
It’s not too late to see him if you are anywhere near Stockholm in 1-2 April 2017, where he is participating at “The Other Thing” arts event organised by the choreographer Siegmar Zacaharias.
