first 2009/10 Royal Institute of Philosophy invited lecture

The first of the 2009/10 Keele Royal Institute of Philosophy Invited Lecture Series took place last week, on Tuesday, 13 October. In a packed room, the speaker, Dr Paul Faulkner (Sheffield), talked about “Lies and the Problem of Trust”.

As introduced by Dr James Tartaglia (Keele), who chaired the Lecture, the speaker is a world authority on epistemological issue of testimony (acquiring knowledge from what somebody tells you). A related paper to the one presented is available to download:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/03/49/07/RationalResponse.pdf

Apart from the lecture and the subsequent discussion, members in the audience enjoyed free wine, which will be available for the other lectures in the series. (See the full list of lectures in the 2009/10  series)

2009 Annual Lecture: Keele Forum for Philosophical Research

Dr Miranda Fricker

Institutionalised Silencing: Group Prejudice and Testimonial Injustice

Tuesday, 2 November 2009

6.00 pm – 7.30 pm Conference Room

Claus Moser Building, Keele University

Abstract:

When someone speaks but is not heard because of their accent, or their sex, or the colour of their skin, they suffer a distinctive form of injustice called testimonial injustice. This is not only an ethical problem but also a political one; for citizens are not free unless they get a fair hearing when they try to contest wrongful treatment. I shall argue that not only individuals but also public institutions need to have the virtue of testimonial justice; and I shall suggest a general model for understanding institutional virtue. If our police, our juries, our complaints panels lack the virtue of testimonial justice, then some groups cannot contest. And if they can¹t contest, then they lack political freedom.

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Dr Miranda Fricker is Reader in the School of Philosophy at Birkbeck College. Her main areas of interest are in ethics, epistemology, and in those regions of feminist philosophy that concern social identity, power, and the authority of reason. Her book, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (OUP, 2007), explores how relations of social power and identity impinge in our epistemic practices to produce distinctively epistemic forms of injustice—injustices in which someone is undermined specifically in their capacity as a knower. She co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy (2000); and she is co-author of Reading Ethics (2008), an introductory textbook giving interactive commentaries on classic texts in moral philosophy. Most recently her work has focussed on the significance of situating our epistemic practices, including moral epistemic practices, in time – both real time, and the semi-fictional time of genealogical explanation.

Earlier this year, she gave the Simone Weil Lectures on Human Value, held in Sidney and Melbourne.

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Keele Forum for Philosophical Research is part of the Centre for International Studies, Politics and Philosophy in the Research Institute of Law, Politics and Justice. The Forum was officially launched in November 2008 with an opening lecture given by Dr Giuseppina D’Oro.

Apart from the Annual Lecture, the Forum organises the following events:

The Royal Institute of Philosophy Invited Lecture Series (2009/10 Convenors: Dr James Tartaglia and Dr Sorin Baiasu)

The Political Philosophy Seminar Series (2009/10 Convenor: Dr Monica Mookherjee)

The Philosophy Summer Seminar Series (2009/10 Convenor: Dr Sorin Baiasu)

Reading Groups and other events (Members of the Keele Forum)

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Two recent article by Glen Newey in the LRB

LRB Cover

While searching for a link to Glen Newey’s recent article in the London Review of Books (9 July 2009: “Ruck in the Carpet” – on Raymond Geuss’s book, Philosophy and Real Politics), I have found this:

“I’m on research leave in Finland, which, like any well-ordered social democracy, but unlike the UK, maintains an air of strenuously contained bedlam. Public notices in Finnish look as if they were produced by pogoing on a typewriter. Bank staff, waitresses, children, even the drunks, have the air of Marks & Spencer management trainees. Matti Vanhanen, Finland’s cyborg-like teetotal prime minister, survived in office after ditching his mistress via text message – it’s hard to imagine Gordon Brown getting away with that. But now and again, one hears a keening strain from the old country. On the Alexanderinkatu recently a dress shop was enticing passers-by with ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, the D:Ream chantalong which Labour ran as its theme tune in the 1997 general election campaign. Apparently, the ditty is still good for shifting frocks, at least at 60°N. It’s a fair bet that Labour won’t revive it for the next election.”

Not difficult to recognise Glen’s style – it is a new article, to be published in the next issue of the LRB (27 August 2009), with the title “More ‘out’ than ‘on’ “. Unfortunately, both “Ruck in the Carpet” and “More ‘out’ than ‘on’ ” are only available online in toto to subscribers; however, you can find links to other articles by him at:  http://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/newe01

I liked “Ruck in the Carpet” very much, but I found the comments on Kantian philosophy too far from Kant. Looking forward to the next issue of the LRB!

Last 2009 Forum for Philosophical Research summer seminar

The last seminar in the 2009 Keele Forum for Philosophical Research summer series is
Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 12:00 – 14:00

Claus Moser Building, CM0.12A

Professor Matthias Klaes (Management) will give a paper on: Rational choice and social framing: A view from economic philosophy

Social scientific thought is riddled by a basic dichotomy. Analysis of individual behavior has found itself caught between rational choice theory, and a perspective that lends more weight to cultural and institutional forces shaping the behavior of individuals. This second perspective accords collective entities such as class, status, norms and values explanatory and at times also ontological primacy. The recent emergence of a new behaviourism in economics has begun to blur the boundaries between these two views, by attending to the social framing of individual choice. In distinguishing between essential and inessential social framing  of such choice, it is possible to examine whether this new behaviourism leaves the intentional nature of economic explanation intact, or whether it commits behaviourists to collectivism or social holism.

All welcome!

next keele forum for philosophical research

The next Forum for Philosophical Research Seminar is

Wednesday

3 June 2009

12:00 – 14:00

Claus Moser Building, CM0.12A

Dr Monica Mookherjee (Politics) will give a paper on: Did a Human Being Die That Night? On Political Forgiveness

Debates about forgiveness and reconciliation abound in countries such as South Africa, Australia and Northern Ireland, which seek to overcome troubled histories of inter-group conflict. While few political philosophers doubt the value of reconciliation in these contexts, forgiveness is often treated with caution. Partly, the concern is that it always represents a strategic, interest-based negotiation and fails to evince true respect for victims of past wrongs. A different worry is that political forgiveness is paradoxical: it only seems necessary in respect of that which states cannot punish or in relation to which the discourse of justice is silent – namely the atrocious and unforgivable.  My paper responds to these issues by defending ‘political forgiveness as a process’. First, I explain the asymmetrical relation between forgiveness for historical wrongs and retributive or rectificatory justice (an ambiguous relationship which motivates the question in my paper-title). Then, drawing on Gutmann and Thompson’s writings on the moral foundations of Truth Commissions and Duff’s communicative theory of punishment, I argue that three conditions (i.e., further retributive punishment undermines shared inquiry; shared deliberative inquiry; and mediated responsibility for future moral repair) initiate a forward-looking process of forgiveness that appreciates the problems associated with a relentless effort to settle old scores. This process respects both the wrongdoer and wronged as responsible agents and promises to secure, even after an apparently unforgivable past, moral goods comparable to those lost through compromising on one’s pursuit of justice.

All welcome!

All correspondence and inquiries to Sorin Baiasu: s.baiasu@phil.keele.ac.uk /01782 733 364