Co-Sponsored Events

April 28, 2021
Wednesday, 12:00 to 1:30pm ET

Nicolae Morar, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, and Associate Member of the Institute for Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon

Description: This is the century of the gene, as Evelyn Fox Keller has noted (2002). So, it comes with no surprise that gene editing has occupied the news and has sparked some of the most significant bioethical debates of our time. Among the most significant of ethical concerns are the social impacts of widely-adopted genetic technologies. In this presentation, "Recording Injustices Genetically? The Case of the Human Microbiome”, I intend to highlight how experiences of marginalization truly ‘edit’ parts of our biology and how social conditions literally ‘get under our skin’.

"Recording Injustices Genetically? The Case of the Human Microbiome” is co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute Science Studies Research Workshop; UB Departments of Sociology, Philosophy, Environment and Sustainability, and the Genome, Environment and Microbiome Community of Excellence Microbiome Center.

Registration: The event is free and open to the public with advance registration. Register here.

After you register, zoom details will be emailed to you the day before the event.

(All events subject to change.)

March 8, 2019, Christina Bicchieri
“Social Similarity and the Erosion of Social Norms.”
Friday, 12:30pm – 2:30pm
509 O’Brien Hall, UB North
Co-sponsored with the Baldy Center and the Center for Global Health Equity
 

April 4, 2019, Kwong-loi Shun (Berkeley)
Thursday, 4pm – 6pm
Co-sponsored with the UB Confucius Institute 
“Anger, Compassion, and the Idea of ‘No Self’"
The paper addresses three questions in Confucian ethics having to do with anger, compassion, and the idea of ‘no self’. First, in relation to anger, the Confucians distinguish between anger that “resides in oneself” (zai ji 在己) and anger that “resides in things” (zai wu 在物); what is the nature of the distinction between these two forms of anger? Second, in relation to compassion, the Confucians idealize a state in which one “forms one body” with all things (wan wu yi ti 萬物一體); what is it to be in this state of “one body”? Third, in presenting the process of ethical self-transformation, the Confucians describe it as a progression toward a state of “no self” (wu wo 無我); how should we understand this state of “no self”?  The answers to the first two questions help address the third question, and conversely, a discussion of the third question helps highlight a certain distinctive feature of Confucian thought that underlies the answers to the first two questions. This distinctive feature has to do with the way we conceptualize our relation to our environment. Namely, our responses to our environment are conceptualized primarily as responses to situations (or affairs – shi 事) that involve individuals, rather than to individuals as such. This leads to a perspective on our ethical life that cannot be adequately described in terms of contemporary philosophical conceptions, such as the distinction between first and third person perspectives or notions such as sympathy and empathy.
 

April 11, 2019, Richard Bett (Philosophy & Classics, Johns Hopkins University)
Thursday, 4 – 6pm, 141 Park Hall
Department Colloquium, Co-sponsored with UB Classics
“Humor as Philosophical Subversion, Especially in the Skeptics”
Abstract: Positive philosophical projects and humor do not generally go together. When humor is used, it is often to draw attention to where one might go wrong: someone or something is made fun of. This is first illustrated with cases in Aristotle. But if this is a major function of humor in philosophy, it offers special opportunities to those whose entire approach to philosophy is critical rather than constructive - those who are suspicious of the whole project of philosophy. This chapter examines a number of instances of this subversive form of humor in philosophy. For the reason just stated, it concentrates on the ancient Greek skeptics, both Academic and

September 14, 2018
Friday, 1:00 to 3pm, 141 Park Hall
Dedong Wei (Confucius Institute, Columbia)
“Humanism and Rationality: The Natures of Chinese Chan”
Abstract: The Chan School originated from the meditation practices of India and developed into an independent sect in China in the 7th century CE. The true founder of this school is the Chinese Buddhist monk Master Huineng (638-713 CE). Later the Chan School spread to the Korean peninsula, Japan and Vietnam. A Chan Culture grew from this school and became a symbol of the East Asian culture. After the 20th century, D. T. Suzuki of Japan, Master Thich Nhat Hanh of Vietnam, and other Asian Monks brought the Chan culture to Europe, the United States and all over the world. The core characteristics of the Chan School are twofold. First, humanism whereby the Chan School returns to a human-centered religion which is the heart of Buddhism. There, the contradictions between sects, tedious philosophical arguments, and the idolatry in Indian Mahayana Buddhism are completely discarded. Emphasis is placed on direct liberation during daily life. Second, rationality whereby the Chan School advocates "the Buddha Dharma is right here in the world, there is no awakening apart from this world". It opposes mechanical meditation, enlightenment through monastic life only, and blindly reciting sutras, among other things. It also advocates experiencing the truth of Buddhism and practicing how to become a Buddha through secular activities, such as walking, abiding, sitting, sleeping, along with daily labor activities such as collecting firewood and carrying water. The spirit of Chan today is a valuable resource inspiring humanity in the new millennium.
 

September 28, 2018 Co-Sponsored Talk
Friday, 2:30 pm, O'Brian 108
Paul Harris (Harvard)
"Asking Questions: Trusting what You’re Told."
Co-sponsored with the Early Childhood Research Center, the Graduate School of Education, and the Dept. of Psychology.
Notes: Harris is best known as being the leading scholar in the development of epistemological reasoning in children. More generally, he is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion, and imagination. He is currently studying how young children judge what they are told about the world—especially when the claims are hard to check because they pertain to the past, the future, hidden causal processes, or the existence of extraordinary beings. His most recent book, Trusting What You're Told: How Children Learn from Others, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2012. This book discusses how far children rely on their own firsthand observation or alternatively trust what other people tell them especially when they confront a domain of knowledge in which firsthand observation is difficult. For example, many aspects of history, science, and religion concern events that children cannot easily observe for themselves. How far do children believe what they are told about these domains? When and how do they become aware of the conflicting claims made by science as compared with religion?
 

October 4, 2018, Co-Sponsored Talk
Thurs., 5:00pm, 640 Clemens Hall
Sara Brill (Fairfield University), "Unlivable Life: Aristotle after Agamben."

October 11, 2018, Co-Sponsored Talk
Thursday, 2:00 pm, 200G Baldy Hall
Tamar Rudavsky (Ohio State, Philosophy)
“Atomistic Conceptions of Time: al- Ghazâlî, Maimonides and Husserl”
Co-sponsored with Department of Jewish Thought.
Abstract: Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al- Ghazâlî (1058ce-1111) was an Islamic theologian and philosopher, perhaps best known for his polemical work Tahâfut al-Falâsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), in which he castigated the Greek and Islamic philosophers for undermining and destroying religious belief. Each chapter of the work is devoted to refuting a particular philosophical position. In Tahâfut 20, which is devoted to upholding resurrection of the body, Ghazâlî takes on the philosophers who argued that the soul has an existence separate from the body, and hence that resurrection is improbable at best.  According to Ghazâlî, the philosophers used this argument to support their contention that personal identity is not predicated upon physical persistence of a body through time, but rather upon the existence and persistence of a self that is separate from the body. Ghazâlî responds to this argument by denying that all the bodily parts of a person have been replaced. But Ghazâlî’s position is exacerbated by the fact that in other locations he insists upon an atomistic, or occasionalist ontology. This atomism was best expressed and described by the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (Rambam, 1125-1204) in his celebrated work The Guide of the Perplexed. Maimonides lays out the assumptions of Ghazâlî’s occasionalist ontology in great detail, in order to refute it. In a similar vein, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), who was the founder of the school of phenomenology, appropriated atomistic themes in his phenomenological analysis of objects. I shall claim that Husserl’s phenomenological theory of temporality offers us a contemporary analogue to al-Ghazâlî’s atomistic view of time, stripped of its theological dressing. In this paper, I propose to analyze the concept of time as developed in the context of al-Ghazâlî’s atomism against the backdrop of Husserl’s noted phenomenology of internal time-consciousness. Unlike the staunch Aristotolean that Maimonides was, both al-Ghazâlî and Husserl reject Aristotle’s theory of time, and both are as a result confronted with the difficulty of accounting for the extendedness of beings in an ‘external reality.’ I will start with a very brief summary of the main features in Aristotle’s theory of time, as reflected in Maimonides’ work; we will then turn to a comparison of al-Ghazâlî and Husserl. I am not suggesting that al-Ghazâlî is a “proto-phenomenologist,” nor am I suggesting that Husserl was influenced directly or indirectly by occasionalist ontology. Reading the Tahâfut in the context of Husserl’s phenomenological program will, I hope, enable us to appreciate further the metaphysical implications of an atomist theory of time.

October 25, 2018 Masterclass and Co-Sponsored Lecture
*Masterclass: 10am-12pm, 141 Park Hall
Lecture: 4:00 pm, 120 Clemens Hall
Kate Manne (Cornell)
“On Misogyny and ‘Himpathy’”
Manne, author of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, works on moral philosophy (especially metaethics and moral psychology), feminist philosophy, and social philosophy.
Co-sponsored with UB Gender Institute and UB Dept. of Global Gender and Sexualities Studies.
*This Masterclass is open to UB graduate students and faculty. Space is limited. RSVP is required via email to Anne Marie Butler, abutler4@buffalo.edu. Participants should read Manne's book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (available soon at the UB bookstore) before the class.