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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251106T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251106T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251020T202634Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251020T202634Z
UID:33899-1762441200-1762448400@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:History of Philosophy Research Group Talk (Tarek Dika\, Toronto)
DESCRIPTION:The History of Modern Philosophy Group is pleased to welcome as its guest speaker Tarek Dika\, an associate professor in the department who specializes in phenomenology\, especially Heidegger and contemporary French phenomenology. He also has research interests in early modern philosophy and science\, especially Descartes. He has recently completed a book on Descartes’ method\, and he is currently writing a book on Heidegger and the possibility of ontology. \nTalk Title\nTheory of Distinctions and Ontology in Descartes: Some Problems \nTalk Abstract\n\nTBD \n\nOne of six departmental Research Interest Groups\, the History of Philosophy Group explores topics in ancient and/or medieval philosophy\, the period from Descartes to Kant\, and Jewish philosophy from the medieval period to the 20th century.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/history-philosophy-group-talk-tarek-dika-toronto/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Tarek-Dika-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251107T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251107T150000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251001T220242Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251029T171041Z
UID:33816-1762520400-1762527600@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Language\, Epistemology\, Metaphysics\, and Mind Research Interest Group Talk (Melissa Fusco\, Columbia)
DESCRIPTION:The Language\, Epistemology\, Metaphysics\, and Mind Research Group welcomes as guest speaker Melissa Fusco\, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University and the director of graduate admissions there. Dr. Fusco works in philosophy of language—especially formal semantics—decision theory\, and philosophical logic. She also has interests in metaethics and metaphysics. Current projects include natural language theories of modality and the semantics of disjunctive questions. \nTalk Title\nImaging and the Diachronic Dutch Book \nTalk Abstract\nCausal decision theorists update by conditionalization on their own acts\, just like evidential decision theorists and rational pure observers do. But should they? Imaging (Lewis\, 1976; Gardenfors\, 1982) can be treated as a counterfactual-inspired recipe for belief revision. In a decision-theoretic context\, a longstanding\, though not popular\, gloss on imaging involves norms of update: conditioning is the correct response to learning that A is the case\, while imaging is the correct response to making A the case.  Here\, I aim to counter a major obstacle to the viability of that position: the diachronic Dutch Book (Teller\, 1973). \nAbout the Language\, Epistemology\, Metaphysics and Mind Research Group\nOne of six departmental research interest groups\, the Language\, Epistemology\, Metaphysics and Mind Group undertakes research in philosophy of mind\, philosophy of cognitive science\, traditional and formal epistemology\, metaphysics\, and philosophy of language.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/lemm-interest-group-talk-melissa-fusco-columbia/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Untitled-design-5-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251107T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251107T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251001T223426Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251028T174941Z
UID:33819-1762527600-1762534800@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Continental Philosophy Research Group Talk (William Ross\, Groupement de Recherche en Théorie Critique\, Reims)
DESCRIPTION:The Continental Philosophy Research Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker William Ross\, who forms part of the Groupement de Recherche en Théorie Critique at the University of Reims. He is the president of the Association for Adorno Studies\, and he works across topics in epistemology and critical theory. Dr. Ross is particularly interested in the concept of Darstellung in German philosophy from Kant to Adorno. He also works on the reconstruction of the Frankfurt School’s social theory. \nTalk Title\nThe Concept of Fantasy in Benjamin and Adorno \nTalk Abstract\nFor Critical Theory\, fantasy is neither an escape from reality nor an act of creation ex nihilo\, but the very site where totality can be conjured. In Adorno’s work\, Phantasie marks this fault line—running from his early reflections in “The Actuality of Philosophy” to later works such as Negative Dialectics and Aesthetic Theory. This talk traces the concept’s trajectory from Kant’s “lawless imagination” through Benjamin’s allegorical melancholy to Adorno’s notion of “exact fantasy.” Against readings that treat fantasy as a merely epistemic gesture or conflate it with imagination\, I argue that it designates a distinctive form of experience—one that interrupts the subject’s self-posited unity and transforms the very form of subjectivity. Finally\, fantasy will be situated within the constellation of Adorno’s materialism\, alongside the priority of the object and the concept of obstinacy. \nAbout the Continental Philosophy Group\nOne 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.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/continental-philosophy-research-group-talk-william-ross-reims/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Untitled-design-6-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251113T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251113T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251003T031446Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251006T174916Z
UID:33836-1763046000-1763053200@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Logic and Philosophy of Science Group Talk (Miguel Ohnesorge\, Boston)
DESCRIPTION:The Logic and Philosophy of Science Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker Miguel Ohnesorge\, an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Boston University. Dr. Ohnesorge is a philosopher of science and a historian of science and philosophy. He is broadly interested in the concepts and methods that structure scientific inquiry (e.g.\, measurement\, quantity\, evidence)\, and much of his work uses history to study these concerns. He research also attends to the logic\, purpose\, and evidential support of quantitative measures\, especially when we apply them to very complex and socially consequential phenomena like earthquakes or human verbal ability. \nTalk Title\nQuantitative Science without Experiments \nTalk Abstract\nThere are longstanding debates about which sciences can quantify the attributes they study. While these debates are especially prominent in the human sciences – psychology\, medicine\, economics\, etc –\, they draw heavily from the history and practice of quantitative physics. If we understand the conditions under which we first quantified attributes like temperature or acceleration\, the basic intuition goes\, we can judge whether we will be able to achieve quantitative measurement elsewhere.\nWe identify a basic problem within these debates: All prominent exemplars of physical quantification are drawn from experimental physics. As a result\, researchers in measurement theory\, psychology\, and philosophy\, have (i) misidentified experimental control as a necessary condition for quantification and (ii) overlooked central methodological lessons on how quantification without experiment might succeed.\n\nTo remedy this situation\, we present novel historical research on how twentieth-century seismologists quantified “earthquake size” without being able to experimentally control earthquakes. The study serves to (i) refute the idea that experimental control is a necessary condition for quantification and (ii) provide a positive model on how quantitative measurement might be achieved without high degrees of experimental control. We then apply that model to cutting-edge measurements in psychology to illustrate its payoffs in understanding the potential and persistent problems of quantification in the human sciences.\nAbout the Logic and Philosophy of Science Group\nOne of six departmental Research Interest Groups\, the Logic and Philosophy of Science Group hosts talks on logic\, general philosophy of science\, and philosophy of the particular sciences\, as well as talks in allied areas such as formal epistemology\, decision theory\, and the metaphysics of science.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/logic-science-miguel-ohnesorge-boston/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Miguel-Ohnesorge-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251114T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251114T150000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251022T124836Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251110T185836Z
UID:33916-1763125200-1763132400@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Group Talk (David Suarez\, Toronto)
DESCRIPTION:The Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Research Interest Group is pleased to welcome as a speaker David Suarez\, a part-time assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at U of T. His research is focused on understanding subjectivity and its place in the natural world. His work draws on Kant\, and the history of post-Kantian philosophy\, so as to frame and address problems in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. One of Dr. Suarez’s central aims is to show that understanding the natural conditions that make the world available to us requires us to reconceive nature along the lines explored by phenomenologists. \nTalk Title\nAmphiboly in Sartrean Bad Faith \nTalk Abstract\nI offer a critical response to the recent suggestion by McNulty that Sartre is a dialetheist. My interpretive thesis is that Sartre’s paradoxical formulation in Being and Nothingness that human reality “is what it is not\, and that is not what it is” is a rhetorical flourish that elides the distinction between human reality’s different modes of being. This elision makes it seem that he is talking about being and not being in a univocal sense\, such that attributing being F and not being F to the same entity would result in a contradiction. Sartre’s actual view is that being is not a univocal concept: there are different senses of being\, namely being in-itself and being for-itself. Sartre allows being to be said in at least these two ways\, and explicitly flags the importance of distinguishing between them. The duplicity of bad faith is enabled by improper conceptualization of what are\, in fact\, two distinct modes of being through a single\, univocal concept of being that blends the features of both. Sartre describes this concept as ‘amphibolic’ [amphibolique]\, which suggests (on an analogy with Kant’s use of the term ‘amphiboly’)\, that bad faith depends on a confusion in the application of a concept — not on a true contradiction which obtains in reality. \nThe Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Research Group is a a subgroup of the History of Philosophy Research Group\, which focuses on European philosophy in Kant and post-Kantian traditions.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/kant-post-kantian-philosophy-group-dave-suarez-toronto-2/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Dave-Suarez-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Nick Stang":MAILTO:nick.stang@utoronto.ca
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251114T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251114T180000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251023T160844Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251111T181525Z
UID:33924-1763132400-1763143200@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:In Celebration of Lloyd P. Gerson
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an afternoon celebrating the scholarship and teaching of Lloyd P. Gerson\, who\, after half a century in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto\, recently retired from teaching. \nProgram\nWelcome—Martin Pickavé (Toronto) \n“Lloyd Gerson’s Contribution to the Study of Ancient Philosophy” \nCarl Séan O’Brien (Irish Dominican House of Studies\, Dublin) \n“The Skopos of Platonic Principles: Essays in Honor of Lloyd Gerson and Giuseppe Blasotta’s Hen Kai Polla” \nSarah Klitenic Wear (Franciscan University\, Steubenville) \n“The Constitution of the Soul and of the Universe in Proclus’ Essay on the Myth of Er” \nJohn Finamore (Iowa) \nConcluding Remarks—Lloyd Gerson (Toronto)
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/in-celebration-of-lloyd-p-gerson/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 100 (Main Floor Lecture Hall)\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,Undergraduate,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Lloyd-Gerson-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251120T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251120T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251113T000724Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251113T000724Z
UID:33986-1763631000-1763658000@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Martin Buber & the Bible: Literary and Philosophical Perspectives
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for an all-day international workshop titled “Martin Buber & the Bible: Literary and Philosophical Perspectives\,” organized by Michael Rosenthal and co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy\, the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies\, and the Grafstein Chair in Jewish Philosophy. \nSchedule\n9:30-9:45 Greetings   \nMichael Rosenthal  \n9:45-10:45 Session 1  \nChair:   Sol Goldberg (University of Toronto)  \nSpeaker:   Leora Batnizky (Princeton University)  \nTitle:  “Buber and Winnicott: Rethinking Buber’s Biblical Theology through the Lens of ‘the Good Enough Mother’”  \n10:45-11:00 Break   \n11:00-12:00 Session 2  \nChair:   Robert Gibbs (University of Toronto)  \nSpeaker: Ilana Pardes (Hebrew University and University of Toronto)  \nTitle: “The David Story and Buber’s ‘Biblical Leadership’”  \n12-1:30 Lunch (kosher\, all attendees and participants invited)  \n1:30-2:30 Session 3  \nChair:  Willi Goetschel (University of Toronto)  \nSpeaker:   Michael Rosenthal (University of Toronto)  \nTitle: “The Idea of Faith and the Problem of Conscience in Buber’s Kingship of God and The Prophetic Faith“  \n2:30-2:45 Break   \n2:45-3:45 Session 4  \nChair: Oren Yirmiya (University of Toronto)  \nSpeaker: Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp and Hebrew University of Jerusalem)  \nTitle: “Woman as World in Buber’s Dialogic and Biblical Writings“ \n3:45-4:00 Break   \n4:00-5:00 Session 5 \nChair: Karen Weisman (University of Toronto)   \nSpeaker: Ynon Wygoda (Hebrew University)  \nTitle: “Buber’s Deuteronomy: Translating the Entrance into the Land”  \n7:00 Conference Dinner (by invitation only) 
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/martin-buber-the-bible-literary-and-philosophical-perspectives/
LOCATION:Goldring Student Centre\, Regents Room (206)\, 150 Charles Street West\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5S 1K5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Martin-Buber-5-x-7-in-325-x-225-px.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251120T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251120T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20250922T172019Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251118T194656Z
UID:33769-1763650800-1763658000@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:UNESCO World Philosophy Day (Paul Boghossian\, NYU)
DESCRIPTION:This year\, we welcome as the 2025 UNESCO World Philosophy Day Lecture speaker Paul Boghossian\, the Silver Professor of Philosophy at NYU.  Dr. Boghossian also serves as the director of the New York Institute of Philosophy and the director of NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study. His research interests are primarily in epistemology\, the philosophy of mind\, and the philosophy of language.  Dr. Boghossian has written on a variety of topics\, including color\, rule-following\, eliminativism\, naturalism\, self-knowledge\, a priori knowledge\, analytic truth\, realism\, relativism\, the aesthetics of music\, and the concept of genocide. \nTalk Title\nShould We Be Moral Relativists? \nZoom Link\nJoin Zoom Meeting\nhttps://utoronto.zoom.us/j/89003127683 \nMeeting ID: 890 0312 7683\nPasscode: 490827 \n 
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/unesco-world-philosophy-day-paul-boghossian-nyu/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 100 (Main Floor Lecture Hall)\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Alumni,Graduate,St. George,Undergraduate,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Paul-Boghossian-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251121T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251121T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251003T025818Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251118T230226Z
UID:33832-1763737200-1763744400@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Ethics and Political Philosophy Group Talk (Hallie Liberto\, Maryland)
DESCRIPTION:The Ethics and Political Philosophy Research Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker Hallie Liberto\, an associate professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. Dr. Liberto is a moral philosopher who studies normative power. She writes about the power we have to change the moral\, legal\, and social world through speech acts and other expressions of our will. She also works on exploitation theory\, and much of her work relates to sexual ethics. \nThis is an in-person event\, but those not able to come to campus can join via Zoom. \n  \nTalk Title\nThreat\, Intentions\, and Illocutionary Force \nTalk Abstract\nThere are many traditional ways of distinguishing threats. Some threats are communicated\, while others are simply behaviors or speech through which a person intentionally evinces danger. Some threats are conditional and some are unconditional (or categorical). Some things that sound like threats might be mere warnings about one’s future behavior. Some threats are non-commital\, while others sound like a dark version of a promise. Finally\, some threats rely for their credibility on the threat-maker’s rational\, calculating presentation\, while others rely on the threat-maker’s wild or emotional presentation. In this project\, I examine these distinctions and I defend the view (against recent contestation) that there is a distinct illocutionary force involved in threat-making speech-acts\, and that the speech act in no way relies upon the intentions of the threat-maker. For instance\, it does not require that the threat-making act plays a special role in the generation of the intentions it communicates. In this way\, I position my view against at least two popular accounts in moral philosophy\, including one popular theory of coercion. \nAbout the Ethics and Political Philosophy Group\nThe Ethics and Political Philosophy Group meets periodically throughout the year to discuss topics in value theory and related fields\, including meta-ethics\, normative ethics\, applied ethics\, social and political philosophy\, philosophy of law\, moral psychology\, practical reason\, agency\, and identity.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/ethics-and-political-philosophy-hallie-liberto-maryland/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Hallie-Liberto-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251127T171500
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251127T183000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251112T230457Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251126T212008Z
UID:33983-1764263700-1764268200@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:b2B Philosophy Career Night - Careers in Bioethics
DESCRIPTION:Join us at the upcoming b2B Philosophy Career Night\, Careers in Bioethics. This is a great opportunity to discover the different career options available to you after graduation and what you can do now to prepare. This online session will also allow you to interact with alumni during a moderated Q&A session. \nPanelists\nNipa Chauhan\, Bioethics Associate\, Mount Sinai Hospital \nAndrew Franklin-Hall\, Associate Professor\, Department of Philosophy\, University of Toronto \nJennifer Gibson\, Director\, Joint Centre for Bioethics\, University of Toronto \nDate: Thursday\, November 27\, 2025\nTime: 5:15 pm – 6:30 pm \nZoom: \nJoin Zoom Meeting\nhttps://utoronto.zoom.us/j/88302074675 \nMeeting ID: 883 0207 4675\nPasscode: 446798 \nTo register\, please RSVP by email at Careers in Bioethics – Fill out form \nWe look forward to seeing you there!
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/b2b-philosophy-career-panel-careers-in-bioethics/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,Undergraduate
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Bioethics-325-x-225-px.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Eric Correia":MAILTO:eric.correia@utoronto.ca
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251128T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251128T150000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251028T010411Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251028T010552Z
UID:33931-1764334800-1764342000@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Continental Philosophy Research Group Talk (Alberto Toscano\, Goldsmiths\, London/Simon Fraser)
DESCRIPTION:The Continental Philosophy Research Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker Alberto Toscano\, professor emeritus of  Critical Theory at Goldsmiths\, University of London\, and the co-director of its Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought. He currently lives in Vancouver and teaches at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Dr. Toscano is the author of Communism in Philosophy: Essays on Alain Badiou and Toni Negri (2025)\, Late Fascism: Race\, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (2023)\, Terms of Disorder: Keywords for an Interregnum (2023) and Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (2017\, 2nd ed). He edits the series The Italian List and Seagull Essays for Seagull Books. \nTalk Title\nTragedy under Siege \nTalk Abstract\nIn his 1937 text\, “Nietzschean Chronicle\,” published in the wake of the aerial bombing of Guernica and during the siege of Madrid by Franco’s Nationalist forces\, Georges Bataille took the occasion of Jean-Louis Barrault’s staging of Cervantes’ The Siege of Numantia to deploy a critique of popular-frontist or humanist anti-fascism anchored in the tragic myth-image of the Spanish city that had sought to resist Roman invasion\, only to be destroyed in 133 BC. Up against the servile sovereignty imposed by modern state-forms (“German Caesarism” or “Soviet Caesarism”)\, the only alternative for Bataille was “the community without a leader\, bound together by the obsessive image of tragedy”. The talk will explore the nexus of anti-politics\, anti-fascism and tragedy in Bataille’s thinking of the 1930s\, its post-war attenuations and the broader resonances of the “siege” as a site through which to think political aesthetics. \nAbout the Continental Philosophy Group\nOne 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.
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/continental-philosophy-research-group-talk-alberto-toscano-goldsmiths-london-simon-fraser/
LOCATION:Centre for Ethics\, 200 Larkin\, 15 Devonshire Place\, Toronto\, ON\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,UTM,UTSC
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Alberto-Toscano-utoronto-philosophy-guest.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251128T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251128T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T141303
CREATED:20251028T181538Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251121T221933Z
UID:33910-1764342000-1764349200@philosophy.utoronto.ca
SUMMARY:Global Philosophy Research Interest Group Talk (Marcus Schmücker\, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
DESCRIPTION:The Global Philosophy Research Interest Group is delighted to welcome as guest speaker Marcus Schmücker\, a senior researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Schmücker has been a research fellow at the IKGA since 1996. In addition to interdisciplinary work in the fields of theology and philosophy\, his research interests focus on the traditions of Ad­vaita Ve­dānta and Viśiṣṭādvaita Ve­dān­ta. \nThis is an in-person event\, but those who cannot come to campus may join the talk on Zoom. \nMeeting ID: 827 5076 5002\nPasscode: 637917\nIn addition to this lecture\, Dr. Schmücker will be holding a workshop Friday\, November 28\, 9 AM-3 PM\, and Saturday\, November 29\, 9 AM-5 PM. \nTalk Title\nWorld-\, Self-\, and God-Relation according to the Indian Tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta \nTalk Abstract\n\nThe question of how we relate to the world\, how we relate to ourselves\, and how God relates to us—are philosophical themes that the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta has developed extensively from its beginnings up to its most renowned exponent\, Veṅkaṭanātha. It is primarily in light of his teachings that we aim to uncover the structure and the underlying presupposition common to these three forms of relation\, which I would like to examine from an epistemological perspective.  \nWe begin with Veṅkaṭanātha’s analysis of our everyday relation to the world. How is this relation expressed when our cognition is directed toward something? For Veṅkaṭanātha\, such a relation is bound to a linguistic judgment that irreducibly takes the form: “This is in such-and-such a way.” With the word “this\,” we refer to something worldly\, objective\, and self-subsistent—a substratum to which we could not refer unless we already perceived it as something determinate (for instance\, through its properties). Between “this” and “such-and-such\,” a prior unity of reference and determination underlies the very act of cognition.  \nVeṅkaṭanātha thus presupposes an underlying unity (aikya) that we must take for granted if the external world is to be intelligible to us through our linguistic judgment. This structure of unity\, however\, is not limited to our relation to the external world; it also concerns the structure of cognition itself. Cognition does not merely happen to have an object or not by chance—it consists essentially in a prior unity with its determinable object of reference. Otherwise\, cognition of anything at all would be impossible.  \nAgain\, this prior unity underlies not only object-directed cognition but also self-directed cognition\, since our reference to our self always occurs in a determinate way—we never encounter a pure\, undetermined self. If this unity always constitutes a necessarily determined ground\, then the question finally arises as to its ultimate ground\, which\, for Veṅkaṭanātha and his tradition\, is God. How\, then\, does he characterize God’s knowledge of the world? 
URL:https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/global-philosophy-research-interest-group-talk-marcus-schmuecker-austrian-academy-of-sciences/
LOCATION:Jackman Humanities Building\, Room 418\, 170 St. George Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 2M8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Graduate,St. George,UTM,UTSC
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