Continental Philosophy Research Group Talk (Joseph K. Schear, Oxford)

The Continental Philosophy Research Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker Joseph K. Schear, a regular faculty member in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Dr. Schear is interested in post-Kantian European philosophy, especially phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty); philosophy of mind (esp. the theory of intentionality); and some issues in metaphysics. Before moving to Oxford in 2008, he worked for two years as an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled “Horizons of Intentionality: From Husserl to Heidegger.”

Dr. Schear will give a lecture on September 27, as well as an all-day workshop on September 28. Please contact Tarek Dika to register and for more information.

Talk Title

Sartre and the Problem of Others

Talk Abstract

Jean-Paul Sartre claims in Being and Nothingness that “‘being-seen-by-the-Other’ is the truth of ‘seeing-the-Other’.” What does this claim mean? Is Sartre’s argument for it persuasive? I address the first question by juxtaposing Sartre’s approach to the problem of the other, centered on “the Look,” with Edith Stein’s approach, focusing in particular on the place of ‘reiterated empathy’ in her theory. After reconstructing Sartre’s argument, I offer an assessment. If Sartre is right that to understand an other as other is to understand her first and foremost as a free being, being seen by the other is plausibly understood as ‘the truth’ of seeing the other.

About the Continental Philosophy Group

One of six departmental research interest groups, the Continental Philosophy Group works in the traditions of textual interpretation of human consciousness, phenomenology, and post-structuralist critical theory, among other related traditions of thought.