Please join us for the first workshop of the Spring 2016 Term:

Social Ontology as a Normative Project

Aaron Bentley, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Thursday, February 18th, 2016, 12:30-2:00pm
Location: GC Philosophy Dept. Thesis Room

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

Social Ontology as a Normative Project

Please join us for the third workshop of the Spring 2015 Term:

Normativity in Political Representation: A Defense of Representational Obligations

Kenneth Courtney, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Monday, April 20th, 2015
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Room 5109

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

Normativity in Political Representation: A Defense of Representational Obligations

Please join us for the third workshop of the Spring 2015 Term:

On the Limited Significance of Coercion in Theorizing the Nature of the State

Josh Keton, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Tuesday, March 24th, 2015, 4:30-6:00pm
Location: Room 5109 (Globalization Room)

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

On the Limited Significance of Coercion in Theorizing the Nature of the State

A central concern of political, legal and social theorists in the modern period has been to explore and ground morality and justice in terms of freedom and autonomy. One obvious threat to a person’s exercise of their freedom and autonomy is coercion—being forced by others to act contrary to one’s own will. As a result, the concept of coercion has been a central focus of many political, legal, and social theorists. . I argue that once we have analyzed coercion properly we will see that coercion is both dramatically more widespread than we had first assumed. This has the effect of making it the case that the “political” as it has been demarcated by some is much less contained than those theorists suspect, with radical implications for the need to extend principles of justice to areas of life which have normally been thought to be exempt.

Please join us for the third workshop of the Spring 2015 Term:

Educators: Bridging the Ideal and Non-Ideal Divide

Jennifer M. Morton, Department of Philosophy, City College of New York
Tuesday, February 24th, 2015, 4:30-6:00pm
Location: Room 7113 (GC Philosophy Department Thesis Room)

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

Educators: Bridging the Ideal and Non-Ideal Divide

Please join us for our last workshop of the Fall 2014 Term, which will consist of two shorter presentations:

Marx’s Account of Dialectic and its Contemporary Value

Aaron Bentley, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014, 4:15-5:15pm
Location: Room 5109

Group Responsibility for Dissident Action

Matthew Rachar, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014, 5:15-6:15pm
Location: Room 5109

Please see the abstracts for the workshop below.

Marx’s Account of Dialectic and its Contemporary Value

The aim of this paper will be to give an interpretation of Marx’s conception and use of dialectic in his larger philosophical project as well as to provide a precise account of the central concepts of the dialectical method as they are used by Marx. Understanding how Marx understands and uses dialectic is important in at least two ways. First, clarifying a central methodological tool employed by Marx can help clarify his project more generally. Second, something like Marx’s account of the uses of dialectal reasoning has potential as contemporary critique or revision of certain theories of social and political action and rationality. The second of these is my central I will argue that Marx is best interpreted as employing two distinct, but compatible notions of dialectic. First, he uses it in a manner that is straightforwardly compatible with his materialism, as a descriptive logic of history. Second, and more controversially, I will argue that Marx works with and uses a dialectic of ideas and that this use of dialectic is of great importance to the coherence of his greater philosophical project. The view emerges when one pays examines the way that partially free human activity is taken by Marx as that which drives, social, political, and historical change the study of which are at the heart of Marx’s program. In conjunction with Marx’s view of the aims of philosophy as revolutionary this view of human activity will be shown to require a dialectic of ideas. I will claim that this latter notion of dialectic is of great The paper proceeds in three steps. First I will argue for that Marx does endorse both forms of dialectic mentioned above, focusing on how this view can be consistently maintained in conjunction with Marx’s widely noted commitment to materialism. I will then go on to argue for a particular interpretation of the key concepts of dialectic as used by Marx: ‘contradiction’,  ‘presupposition’, and ‘negation’. These interpretations will fall out of a proposed account of the relationship between ideal and descriptive forms of dialectic in Marx and the interpretation of key passages of Marx’s Grundrisse in which he employs these key dialectical concepts. In this section, I will also try to make these concepts logically precise in order to make clear the relationship between of dialectical methodology and so-called ‘analytical’ methodology, characterized primarily in terms of a commitment to classical logic. The upshot of this interpretation of Marx’s dialectic will be spelled out in the final section. I will argue that Marx account of dialectic can and should be taken as a contribution to the theory of action and practical rationality. I will do this by quickly offering an interpretation of Michael Bratman’s influential, contemporary account of practical reasoning as planning in practical contexts, and using it to show how how the interpretation of dialectic given in this paper can be used to critique and extend such views.

Group Responsibility for Dissident Action

This paper is concerned with the important practical concerns brought out by dissident action in the context of a group agent, especially for the relationship between individual agency and group agency, and the ascription of responsibility to group agents based on their institutional design. I use a thought experiment to highlight a problem for some accounts of group control over, and responsibility for, group member dissident action. I then offer a diagnosis of why this problem arises in certain theories and put forward some initial suggestions for what a full account of group responsibility for dissident action would require.

Please join us for the second workshop of the Fall 2014 Term:

Towards A Philosophical Theory Of Money

Jules Salomone, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Monday, November 10th, 2014, 4:30-6:00pm
Location: Room 5109

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

Towards A Philosophical Theory Of Money

In this paper, I will argue in favor of three interrelated theses: 1) economics cannot but fail to provide us with a satisfactory account of money; 2) in spite of its obvious merits, Searle’s general social ontology needs some serious revisions if it is to explain what money is; 3) although money is arguably a social convention, it must necessarily exist for reasons that go beyond its conventional nature. More precisely, 1′) I will explain why mainstream economics must proceed as if money does not exist and why alternative theories that try to account for the existence of money begs the question. 2′) Although social ontology will consequently appear to be able to do what economics fails to do, I will focus on Searle, one of the leading figures of that field, and show why his theory is not fit for purpose. The discussion will bear upon both his account of the physical counterpart of social entities and his claim that such entities owe their existence to some enigmatic fiat. 3′) Drawing the lessons from my criticism of Searle and taking inspiration from Aristotle’s underestimated theory of money, I will finally argue that money must exist for normative reasons. Among other things, I will explain why only monetary exchanges can be fair.

Please join us for the first workshop of the Fall 2014 Term:

What is Social Software?

Rohit Parikh, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Monday, October 20th, 2014, 4:30-6:00pm
Location: Room 5109

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

What is Social Software?

Much discussion about society revolves around principles, e.g. principles of justice and fairness.  But there are complementary aspects to these usual concerns, namely methods and information.  If we know what our goals are, how do we achieve them?  And if these methods require the participation of many, how do we see to it that they have the information that they need?
For instance the will of the people is the basis for democracy.   But this will must be expressed somehow, so we have elections.  And then to prevent double voting we make sure that people do it only once.  In Afghanistan for instance it is achieved by putting an indelible ink mark on the hand of someone who has voted.   This prevents them from voting a second time.  Again, we must always inform people that they have the right (and perhaps the duty) to vote.   In New York this is achieved via a letter from the Board of Elections.
So we have three factors in running a society, Goals, Methods, and Information.
We cannot confine our consideration to goals because methods and information are also important and in this internet era, the spread of information has taken radically different forms, some beneficial and some less so.
These issues are addressed in the Social Software program to which many have contributed.  We offer an account of some current developments.

References:

Jan van Eijck and Rineke Verbrugge, Discourses on Social Software, Amsterdam University Press, 2009.

Eric Pacuit, Rohit Parikh and Eva Cogan, “The Logic of Knowledge Based Obligation”.  Synthese, March 2006, Volume 149, Issue 2, pp 311-341

Rohit Parikh “Social Software”, Synthese, 132, Sep 2002, 187-211.