Research Colloquium Philosophy
Autmn Semester 2022
Programm
Wednesday, November 9
Prof. Dr. Marcus Düwell
Hope as a Fundamental Beginning of Practical Philosophy
The question "What may I hope?" is the third great question of philosophy after Kant. In recent years, the fundamental importance of hope for human orientation and human practice has been pointed out on various occasions. Moreover, the question of how to shape the future has become an essential topic on the political agenda, i.e. the question: "What may we hope?". The lecture will first elaborate this philosophical significance of hope and then propose how the moral and political significance of hope can be appropriately conceived from the aesthetic.
Language of the lecutre: German
Wednesday, November 23
Prof. Dr. Marting Hartmann
Sympathy and Inequality: Against the Egalitarian Reading of Adam Smith (and David Hume)
Recently, influential interpreters such as Stephen Darwall, Charles Griswold and Samuel Fleischacker suggested what I call an egalitarian reading of Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy and his notion
of the impartical spectator. By adopting the point of view of the other through imagination-bound sympathy and by correcting first evaluations of the other’s response to morally charged situations through further
adopting the stance of the impartial spectator, we treat the other as morally equal and abstract from morally irrelevant differences. Similarly, Hume’s concept of sympathy it treated by many interpreters as the psychic force that aligns us with the perspective of others and thus manages to overcome given differences and distances. It is through sympathy that we become fully human and satisfy the ingrained desire to assess our various volitions and recognitional aspirations along the lines of more generally accepted standards and values. In my talk I want to challenge these egalitarian readings. The psychic mechanism of sympathy, or so I will claim, follows the path of given inequalites and corroborates these. As Hume says: "Nothing has a greater tendency to give us an esteem for any person than his power and riches; or a contempt, than his poverty and meanness.“ Detailed familiarity with Smith and Hume is not necessary to follow the talk, I will provide textual evidence for my interpretation.
Wednesday, December 7
PD Dr. Jessica Heesen
Freedom in digital worlds of action
Language of the lecture: German
Wednesday, December 21
Prof. Dr. Anna Goppel
The Most Unkindest Cut of All.
Normativity in Friendship and the Evaluative Status of Friends’ Behaviour
Venue: ETH Zurich, Clausiusstrasse 59, RZ F 21
Time: 18:15 - 19:45
The lectures are part of the Research Colloquium Philosophy.
Registration is not necessary.