Tampere

The Academy of Finland research project The Possibility of Metaphysics in Twentieth Century and Contemporary Philosophy organizes an international conference at the University of Tampere on

MONISM, PLURALISM, AND METAPHYSICS

25 – 27 August 2010

Program:
[updated 17.8.2010]

Wed 25 August [Pinni B1097]

10.00 - 10.15  Opening words, Leila Haaparanta

10.15 - 11.45  Dan Flage (James Madison University): On Lockean Ideas

11.45 - 13.00  Lunch

13.00 - 13.40  Tim De Mey (University of Ghent): About Nothing At All? Notes on the
Metaphysics of Fiction

13.40 - 14.20  Mirja Hartimo (University of Helsinki): Husserlian phenomenology and
contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics

14.20 - 15.00  Leila Haaparanta (University of Tampere): Judging, Judgment and Being: A Constructivist Point of View

15.00 - 16.00  Coffee

16.00 - 16.40  Valtteri Viljanen (University of Turku): Activity and Passivity in
Spinoza's Substance Monism and in Leibniz's Substance Pluralism

16.40 - 17.20  Omri Boehm (LMU Munich / New School for Social Research): Kant's
Regulative Monism

17.20 - 18.00  Jani Hakkarainen (University of Tampere): Hume's Argument for the
Ontological Independence of Properties


Thu 26 August [Paavo Koli Hall]

10.15 - 11.45  Michael Della Rocca (Yale University): Playing with Fire: Hume,
Rationalism, and a Little Bit of Spinoza

11.45 - 13.00  Lunch

13.00 - 13.40  Susanna Lindberg (University of Helsinki): The Remains of Romantic
Philosophy of Nature: Being as Life or the Plurality of Living Beings

13.40 - 14.20  Sami Pihlström (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies): William James's Pluralism

14.20 - 15.00  Anssi Korhonen (University of Helsinki): "The comfortable pluralism now so often taken for granted"

15.00 - 16.00  Coffee

16.00 - 16.40  Markku Keinänen (University of Turku): Against Determinable Universals

16.40 - 17.20  Antti Keskinen (University of Tampere): Quine's Critique of Modal Logic and his Conception of Objects

17.20 - 18.00  Jenni Tyynelä (University of Tampere): Fictional Metaphysics: On the De Re Modalities of Fictional Characters


Fri 27 August [Paavo Koli Hall]

10.15 - 11.45  Stephen Mumford (University of Nottingham): The Interrelatedness of Powers

11.45 - 13.00  Lunch

13.00 - 14.30  Rani Lill Anjum (University of Oslo & University of Nottingham):
Causation, Dispositions and Modality

14.30 - 15.30  Coffee

15.30 - 16.10  Heikki J. Koskinen (University of Tampere): Notes on Persons as Primitive Substances

16.10 - 16.50  Hanne Appelqvist (University of Helsinki): Apocalypse Now. Wittgenstein's Early Remarks on Immortality

16.50 - 17.00  Closing


For further information concerning the event, contact Heikki J. Koskinen, Department of History and Philosophy, 33014 University of Tampere, Finland (e-mail: heikki.j.koskinen(at)kolumbus.fi)
 

Call for papers (open until May 15., 2010):

Dynamics of Knowledge Creation in Wikis

A session in The 2nd International Power & Knowledge Conference,
Tampere, Finland. September 6-8, 2010
http://tinyurl.com/yfvgyh6

The collective knowledge creation on various wiki-sites, including the massively popular Wikipedia, is having a profound effect on the social and epistemological conditions of public information. Distributed collaboration, possible anonymity, radical equality and global reach of wikified information lead to a situation that at the same time democratizes knowledge production by leveling hierarchies of expertise and increases the postmodern condition of reflective uncertainty. Everybody knows that the Wikipedia can not be trusted in the same way as, say, the Encyclopedia Britannica, yet over 100 million people utilize the Wikipedia daily. The 'edit' and 'history' buttons ever present on wiki pages are already starting to exert pressure on information presented elsewhere. For instance, the negotiations on what information to include and how the information should be presented in various Wikipedia entries constitute a huge experiment in the use of public reason à la Kant. Consequently, the dynamics of collective collaboration also bring out questions on the nature of rationality and plurality of knowledge. Wikis provide ready made windows into the dialectical interplay between knowledge creation and issues of identity, social inclusion, authority, and the interface between information and politics. The session invites contributions discussing these themes through theoretical reflection and/or empirical case studies. Abstracts should be between 150-200 words of length.
Abstract submission: http://tinyurl.com/yk98dgk

Organizers & more information:
Tere Vadén, tere.vaden(at)uta.fi , Teemu Mikkonen, teemu.mikkonen(at)uta.fi,
Juha Suoranta juha.suoranta(at)uta.fi
 

Power & Knowledge
The 2nd International Conference, Tampere, September 6-8, 2010
Call for Papers

Inspired by the great success of the first conference (Power: Forms, Dynamics and Consequences, September 22-24, 2008), we carry on probing questions of power. This time the conference concentrates on the links between power and knowledge. As is well known, Michel Foucault argued that power and knowledge are like two sides of the same coin. There are however many other approaches and research traditions that tackle the role of knowledge production in affecting and constituting power relations. What are the roles of science, research and research-based knowledge production in promoting policy models? Does scientific research or evidence-based consultancy save the world and lead us to a better future? What effects does the key role of knowledge production in contemporary societies have on power and politics? How are the established databases and statistical classifications of the public and private organizations constructed and reproduced? What is the role of everyday knowledge in society? What is the relationship between knowledge and resistance? By bringing together scholars who approach these questions from different angles this conference will advance our understanding about power relations in social reality.

Keynote speakers will include:
- Patrick Carroll (University of California, Davis, US)
- Gili S. Drori (Stanford University, US)
- Susan Haack (University of Miami, US)
- Sandra Harding (University of California, Los Angeles, US)
- Sakari Hänninen (National Institute for Health and Welfare, THL, FI)
- Michael Mann (University of California, Los Angeles, US)
- Yuval Millo (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)
- Soile Veijola (University of Lapland, FI)

Sessions

• Authority, Experience & Power
• Bourdieuan Elaborations of Power, Knowledge, Body and Emotions
• Capitalizing Culture. Articulations of Culture, Knowledge and Economy
• Dynamics of Knowledge Creation in Wikis
• Knowledge About the Economy
• Knowledge Production and the Power of the Academic Profession
• Knowledge, Power and the Environment
• Language and Power
• Leadership for Change in Sub-National Governments
• Meaning and the Power/Knowledge of the Social Sciences
• Motives and Powerbases in Group Relations, Strategies and International Economic Relations
• Post-Colonial Theory, Power and the Uses of Knowledge
• Power in Social Work
• Power of Attraction
• The Fall and Rise of Efficiency as a (Restored) Politics of Truth
• The Local-Global Interfaces and Domestification of Transnational Models
• The Politics of Higher Education and Research
• The Power of/over the past: re-politicizing the classics
• The Power of Visual Discourse

If you would like to present a paper, please send an abstract (150-200 words) by May 15, 2010. To send an abstract and to get more information about the conference and session details, please visit our web pages at http://www.uta.fi/power2010 or contact the organisers by email: power2010(at)uta.fi.
 

Lecturer Michael Halewood (University of Essex, UK) vierailee huhtikuun lopulla Turun yliopistossa (sosiologian oppiaine) sekä Tampereen yliopistossa (UTACAS). Dr.

Halewood pitää Turun yliopistossa kaksi luentoa (Publicum --rakennus, Assistentinkatu 7):

*What is Sociology?  What does A. N Whitehead offer Sociology today?*
Publicum ls. 3, klo 12 -- 14, tiistai 27. 4. 2010

*'A Culture of Thought':  A. N. Whitehead's challenge to modernity.*
Publicum ls. 3, klo 14 -- 16, torstai 29. 4. 2010

Tampereen yliopistossa Lecturer Halewood pitää luennon:

*'A Culture of Thought':  A. N. Whitehead's challenge to modernity.*
UTACAS (Pinni B -rakennus, Kanslerinrinne 1)
klo 16 -- 18, keskiviikko 28. 4. 2010


Allekirjoittaneelta voi tiedustella kaikesta mahdollisesta Dr. Halewoodin vierailuun liittyvästä.

Seppo Poutanen
Dr.Soc.Sc., Docent
Department of Social Research, Sociology
University of Turku
Assistentinkatu 7
FIN-20014 University of Turku
Finland
email: seppou(at)utu.fi


Lisätietoja luennoista:

Lecturer, Dr. Michael Halewood
University of Essex, UK

see http://www.essex.ac.uk/sociology/staff/profile.aspx?ID=132

Lectures in Turku and Tampere, 27. 4. – 29. 4. 2010

What is Sociology?  What does A. N Whitehead offer Sociology today?

The introductory chapter of most sociology textbooks start with the question ‘What is Sociology?’  By the time we get to university such questions are usually forgotten or dismissed as too simplistic.  In this lecture I will suggest that the occasional return to such basic questions can be very provocative and yet helpful. Looking at such a question can make us stop and think as to what exactly it is we are doing, how we are doing it, and why.

In this lecture I will start by introducing some of the common assumptions that would seem to define sociology (study of the social, interactions between humans, etc.).  I will locate these within a specific version of modernity and will point up some of the problems inherent in such accounts (as discussed by Latour, for example) for example, the distinction between the natural and the social, and the difficulty that sociology has in accounting for or describing material objects.  I will then introduce the work of the philosopher A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947) as a way of moving beyond some of the limitations identified.  In doing so, the lecture will try to introduce notions of process, becoming, and the extension of relations to non-humans so as to produce a novel yet more effective version of sociology. 

‘A Culture of Thought’:  A. N. Whitehead’s challenge to modernity.

Social science and social theory is a creature of modernity and is deeply implicated in the process of its development and its modes of thought.  This lecture will use the work of A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947) to investigate the extent to which social research today relies upon certain problematic assumptions and concepts which are a legacy of out-dated view of the world.  In doing so, it will outline what might be termed modernity’s ‘culture of thought’.  Whitehead argues that one major element of the conceptual apparatus of modernity is what he terms the ‘Bifurcation of Nature’ which splits the world into the really real realm of inert matter which science studies and the realm of human experience and life which social science studies.  This, he argues, produces various logical inconsistencies and limits the development of critical thought and research.  

In this lecture I will outline Whitehead’s critique and also the manner in which he attempts to develop a new ‘culture of thought’ which enables a more inclusive and robust approach to social theory.  The main element of his philosophy will be introduced in terms of the social character of all existence and the reconfiguration of subjectivity.  This lecture will also explain the importance of the role of the body within Whitehead’s thought and will relate this to contemporary discussions of gender and sexual difference.  In this way, the lecture will outline some of the opportunities that Whitehead’s work offers social research. 
 
 

LITERARY TRANSCENDENCES
7-8 October 2010, University of Tampere, Finland

Abstract submission dead line: 2 April 2010

Keynote speakers of the conference include: *Kevin Hart* (Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies, University of Virginia) and *Shira Wolosky* (Professor of American Studies and English Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

CALL FOR PAPERS
The conference *Literary Transcendences* welcomes contributions on the contemporary notions and significance of transcendence, be they reinterpretations of literary, philosophical or theological texts and traditions, or novel theoretical openings.

In the wake of the "immanent turns" in philosophy and cultural studies in the 1970s and 1980s transcendence was deemed a relic and a hierarchical concept that established false authority and even spiritual tyranny. In recent years thinkers in diverse fields have turned to transcendence again, not in order to rehabilitate but to rearticulate 'transcendence' as a concept for epistemological, literary and aesthetic criticism. It seems that philosophies of all-inclusive immanence repeat the same hegemonic mistakes for which thinkers of transcendence were previously criticized. Hence immanence needs to be radically revised and cracked open -- not in order to establish other worlds or any deeper realities with their paramount Others, but so as to reveal ontological and epistemological blind spots unattainable by means of ordinary language and thought.

Despite the common conception of transcendence as a plane beyond language, language is a fundamental locus at which the divide between the immanent and the transcendent is determined. Language is also where the divide itself is always already suspended. Conversely, the very suspension applies to plain immanence too: when the place of transcendence is disputed, the ontology of immanence becomes a matter of negotiation. How, then, is transcendence written today and what is at stake?

The organizers welcome proposals for contributions (max. 400 words, for a 20 minute paper + 10 minute discussion time). The abstract and a short bio-bibliography should be e-mailed to

transcendences(at)uta.fi *by 2 April 2010*.

Speakers will be notified by the end of April. Full conference info will be available by the end of May.

ORGANISERS:
The Project *Literature, Transcendence and Avant-garde* http://www.littravant.eu/
Department of Literature and the Arts (University of Tampere, Finland)
Further information: paivi.mehtonen(at)uta.fi
 

LITERARY TRANSCENDENCES

7-8 October 2010, University of Tampere, Finland
Abstract submission dead line: 2 April 2010
Keynote speakers of the conference include: *Kevin Hart* (Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies, University of Virginia) and *Shira Wolosky* (Professor of American Studies and English Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The conference Literary Transcendences welcomes contributions on the contemporary notions and significance of transcendence, be they reinterpretations of literary, philosophical or theological texts and traditions, or novel theoretical openings.

In the wake of the “immanent turns” in philosophy and cultural studies in the 1970s and 1980s transcendence was deemed a relic and a hierarchical concept that established false authority and even spiritual tyranny. In recent years thinkers in diverse fields have turned to transcendence again: not in order to rehabilitate but to rearticulate ‘transcendence’ as a concept for epistemological, literary and aesthetic criticism. It seems that philosophies of all-inclusive immanence repeat the same hegemonic mistakes for which thinkers of transcendence were previously criticised. Hence immanence needs to be radically revised and cracked open—not in order to establish other worlds or any deeper realities with their paramount Others, but so as to reveal ontological and epistemological blind spots unattainable by means of ordinary language and thought.

Despite the common conception of transcendence as a plane beyond language, language is a fundamental locus at which the divide between the immanent and the transcendent is determined. Language is also where the divide itself is always already suspended. Conversely, the very suspension applies to plain immanence too: when the place of transcendence is disputed, the ontology of immanence becomes a matter of negotiation. How, then, is transcendence written today and what is at stake?

The organizers welcome proposals for contributions (max. 400 words, for a 20 minute paper + 10 minute discussion time). The abstract and a short bio-bibliography should be e-mailed to

transcendences(at)uta.fi *by 2 April 2010*.

Speakers will be notified by the end of April. Full conference info will be available by the end of May.

ORGANISERS:
The Project *Literature, Transcendence and Avant-garde* http://www.littravant.eu/
Department of Literature and the Arts (University of Tampere, Finland)
Further information: paivi.mehtonen(at)uta.fi
 

Tampereen yliopistossa järjestetään yksipäiväinen filosofian seminaari otsikolla
Arkikielen filosofia
Perjantaina 5.3.2010
Pinni B 3116


10:00–10:15 Kortelainen, Ilmari Ja Järvenkylä Joose: Avaussanat
10:15–10:45 Järvenkylä, Joose: Tavallisen kielen reunaehdoista
10:45–11:15 Vuorio, Timo: TBA
11:15–11:45 Korko, Alma: P.F. Strawsonin kritiikki atomistista analyysia kohtaan

11:45–13:15 Lounas

13:15–13:45 Maury, André: Hyvän merkitys – Von Wright vs. Austin
13:45–14:15 Keskinen, Antti: Kieli, Logiikka ja Ontologia
14:15–14:45 Valtonen, Pasi: Merkitys on käyttöä: Michael Dummett ja arkikielen filosofia

14:45–15:15 Kahvitauko

15:15–15:45 Kovalainen, Heikki: “Kaikella on merkitystä” – Stanley Cavell kielestä ja olemisesta
15: 45–16:15 Koskensilta, Risto: Arkikielen filosofia ja kaksi kielikäsitystä


Tilaisuuteen ovat kaikki kiinnostuneet lämpimästi tervetulleita!

Lisätietoja: joose.jarvenkyla(at)uta.fi
 

TODELLISUUDEN TUNTEMINEN JA ETIIKKA
Symposium
Tampereen yliopistossa 10.-11.12.2009, HUOM. muuttuneet salit [päivitetty 9.12.2009]: Päätalolla A2a & A3


Ohjelma:

TORSTAI 10.12.2009
Päätalolla LS A2A

10:15 Tapahtuman avaussanat

10:30-11:45: Maailman ja itsen tuntemisesta
Jaakko Belt: Filosofin velvollisuus Husserlia seuraillen
Oskari Kuusela: Filosofia ja itsetuntemus

lounas (11:45-13:00)

13:00-14:15: Välienselvittelyä
Sami Pihlström: Todellisuuden tunteminen ja pragmaattinen metodi
Henrik Rydenfelt: Pragmatismi ja uskonnollisten uskomusten eettiset
seuraukset

kahvi (14:15-15:00)

15:00-16:15: Emerson-Nietzsche
Henna Seinälä: Ikuinen paluu elämän hyväksymisenä
Heikki A. Kovalainen: Etiikka todellisuuden tuntemisena

16:45-18:00: Paneeli (äänessä kolme esitelmöitsijää)

-- kaikille avoin ILLANVIETTO --
-- Ratinanlinnan saunalla (Aleksenterink. 32 B, 4 krs.) --
-- (AATOS klo 18 +, esitelmöijät n. klo 21 +) --

PERJANTAI 11.12.2009
Päätalolla LS A3

10:15-11:30: Minusta ja toisesta
Leila Haaparanta: Empatia ja eettinen asenne
Lars Hertzberg: Todella tarkoittaa

lounas (11:30-12:30)

12:30-13:45: Kohti fenomenologista etiikkaa
Simo Pulkkinen: Husserlin alkuperäinen etiikka
Susanna Lindberg: "Alkuperäisen etiikan" hyödyistä ja haitoista

kahvi (13:45-14:30)

14:30-16:30 Symposiumin päätös + loppukeskustelu
Arto Laitinen: Mitä tarkoitetaan puheella ontologian eettisistä
perustoista?
n. 15:15 Kaikille avoin loppukeskustelu

Loppukeskusteluun toivotaan myös opiskelijoiden osallistumista.

TERVETULOA!
 

Individuaatio varhaismodernissa metafysiikassa
seminaari
ke 9.12.2009
Historiatieteen ja filosofian laitos, Tampereen yliopisto
Pinni B 0039

Suomen Akatemian tutkijatohtoriprojektini järjestää yhden päivän kotimaisen seminaarin individuaatiosta 1500-1700-lukujen filosofiassa. Individuaatio on metafysiikan klassinen ja edelleen ajankohtainen kysymys. Se tarkoittaa olioiden erottamista toisistaan yksilöinä (jonain ajanhetkenä eli synkronisesti tai jollakin aikavälillä eli diakronisesti). Individuaation ongelma liittyy siis läheisesti identiteettiin, jonka eräs erityisongelma on persoonan identiteetti. Puhujina on suomalaisia alan kärkinimiä.

Ohjelma
11.00-11.15    Jani Hakkarainen: avaus
11.15-12.00    Simo Knuuttila (Helsinki): Suárezin kausaliteettikäsitys
12.00-12.45    Olli Koistinen (Turku): Descartes ja Spinoza substanssien individuaatiosta
12.45-13.45    lounastauko
13.45-14.30    Valtteri Viljanen (Turku): Spinoza kappaleiden individuaatiosta
14.30-15.15    Arto Repo (Turku): Leibniz ja aggregaatit
15.15-16.00    Juhana Lemetti (Helsinki): Hobbes kappaleiden individuaatiosta
16.00-16.30    kahvitauko
16.30-17.15    Ville Paukkonen (Helsinki): Berkeley kappaleiden individuaatiosta
17.15-18.00    Jani Hakkarainen (Tampere): Hume kappaleiden individuaatiosta
18.30-               kokouspäivällinen

Jani Hakkarainen
tutkijatohtori
Suomen Akatemia
Historiatieteen ja filosofian laitos, Tampereen yliopisto
jani.hakkarainen [at] uta.fi
 

FILOSOFIAN ILLAT PÄÄKIRJASTO METSOSSA SYKSYLLÄ 2009

AMERIKKA

Maailman mahtavin talouden, politiikan ja sodan supervalta on myös kulttuuriteollisuuden mastodontti, jonka usein pelätään tallovan alleen maailman muut kulttuurit. Pohjois-Amerikan Yhdysvaltojen kutsuminen yksinkertaisesti "Amerikaksi" ja yhdysvaltalaisten "amerikkalaisiksi" on itsessään yksi esimerkki monia ärsyttävästä itsekeskeisyydestä ja -varmuudesta.

Yhdysvallat on kuitenkin kulttuurinen moninaisuus, lukuisten paikkojen, kansojen ja perinteiden sulatuskattila tai salaattikulho. Sillä on historianaan erityislaatuisia ajattelutapoja, mytologioita ja filosofioita, joiden tunteminen auttaa ymmärtämään nykyaikaa muuallakin maailmassa. Tampereen kaupungin Pohjois-Amerikan teemavuoteen osallistuen Filosofian illoissa selvitellään, mistä "Amerikassa" on oikein kysymys.

OHJELMA
Keskiviikkoisin (huom. muuttunut viikonpäivä)
klo 18.00-19.30, luentosalissa 1.

23.9. Heikki A. Kovalainen (tutkija, Tampereen yliopisto): R.W. Emerson - amerikkalainen ajattelija

21.10. Ville Lähde (FT): Myytti villistä lännestä

18.11. Reijo Kupiainen (FT, tutkija, Suomen Akatemia): Amerikka elokuvissa

Juontajana Tuukka Tomperi.
Vapaa pääsy, tervetuloa!
Järj. Tampereen kaupunginkirjasto ja filosofinen aikakauslehti niin & näin