Empirical Research and Normative Theory

Transdisciplinary perspectives on the integration of two methodical traditions between is and ought

Collective Volume and Workshop (September 28 to 29, 2017, University of Oldenburg)

For a while philosophy and empirical research used to go hand in hand. But around the time of the emancipation of individual disciplines of science they entered a stage of a formidable and by no means unambiguous relationship. This holds true in particular for questions of practical philosophy: In the last decades different scientific disciplines began to show intensified interest in empirical endeavors on a descriptive understanding of morals – psychology for example investigates how emotions and intuitions influence our theory construction of morals, behavioral economics examine the effect of morals on rational decision making, anthropology deals with the reconstruction of historic origins of our moral traits, primate research looks for the foundation stones of our morals in our nearest relatives, and social sciences investigate preferences on questions of distributive justice. The list goes on. Nonetheless, up to this point there is nearly no integration of classical normative theory on the one hand and this widening empirical research on the other hand.
 

This methodological and contentual separation, though established, does not have to be desirable. Moreover, a conjunction of the insights and methods of both approaches can seem fruitful, as might be implied by the recent success story of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinaryresearch. Contrary to the verdict of a strict segregation of is and ought there are various attempts of an integration of both theoretical approaches. This calls for a discourse on the definition of the  relation of empirical research and normative theory. Several propositions have been made in recent times on how to define this convoluted relation.
 

The workshop aims to discuss possible definitions from an inter- or transdisciplinary point of view. If you want to present a speech in English or German from about 30 to 45 minutes, please send a proposal of about 500 to 1.000 words by June 15, 2017, to alexander.max.bauer@unioldenburg.de together with a short curriculum vitae. We will inform you of our decision by the end of June.
 

For a transdisciplinary collective volume on the topic, we accept – independent from your attendance to the workshop – papers and essays from a historic or systematic perspective on the topic as well as exemplary applications, not limited to a philosophical point of view. Therefore, please send a draft (preferably in English, German is also accepted) of your paper – containing additionally an abstract of about 500 words – by July 1, 2017, to alexander.max.bauer@unioldenburg.de, we will inform you of our decision by the end of August.
 

Contact:

Alexander Max Bauer
University of Oldenburg
Institute of Philosophy
26111 Oldenburg
Germany
mail: alexander.max.bauer@uni-oldenburg.de
phone: +49 152 343 899 25
fax: +49 441 798 4397

Submissions are invited for a special issue of Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review to be published in the second half of 2017. The topic of the issue is Philosophy and its Borders.

Philosophers have developed multiple connections with scholars in other disciplines, both in efforts to understand how different methods and models are employed in the search for knowledge, and to make available for philosophical reflection tools and insights discovered in other disciplines. Philosophy itself contains a number of different traditions, whose conflicts and tensions can be a rich source of creative possibility but can also be sites of exclusion or oppression. Recent challenges to the discipline have encouraged philosophers to recognize that Western philosophy itself – including analytic, continental, or pragmatist traditions – is just one among many possible approaches. Professional philosophers are increasingly asked to include non-Western philosophical sources in our curricula, for example, by bringing Eastern, Muslim, Indigenous, and Africana traditions into conversation with the Western canon. Feminists have long valued inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary work; they often draw on knowledge from different sources and standpoints in an effort to better understand and critique dominant modes of thought. In light of all this, it seems timely to address how best to work across borders in philosophy. Among the questions that might be explored are these:

• How do particular traditions and approaches exert power over others?
• What model or picture of the discipline ought we to present to our students as they are first learning “philosophy”?
• Pedagogy and the role of teaching philosophical traditions: what is appropriate when training students new to the discipline?
• What does it mean to draw disciplines and traditions together?
• How have feminist philosophy, critical race theory, disability theory, and other critical approaches reshaped understandings of the discipline and its subdisciplines, such as bioethics, epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy?
• What successes have there been? What are the areas of conflict or tension?
• What does it mean to think of philosophy as having “core” areas? How do these relate to its borders?
• Non-Western and Indigenous philosophies have different understandings about what counts as philosophy. What challenges are posed by integrating them into disciplinary curricula?
• What does it mean to take the insights and norms of philosophical argumentation and bring them to bear in analyzing work in other disciplines?
• How can different philosophical methodologies be brought together? Do we take our methods with us when we cross borders? Do we weave different methods together?
• What becomes possible, ethically, politically, and scientifically, when we cross borders, especially given that disciplines understand the nature of “borders” in different ways?

Professor Jane Dryden at Mount Allison University will serve as the Guest Editor for this special issue. The issue will include articles originally presented at the 2016 CSWIP conference.

Contributors are invited to submit their papers directly to the ScholarOne manuscript management system that Dialogue uses: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/dia. In the “Type” portion of the submission process, please use “Special Issue: CSWIP” Please indicate that you want your paper considered for the Philosophy and its Borders special issue in your comments to the Editor. Submissions are open until 30 May 2017. Papers may be in English or French.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Canadian Jacques Maritain Association

Annual Symposium

Friday, October 27 and Saturday, October 28, 2017

Dominican University College of Philosophy & Theology, 96 Empress St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The CJMA welcomes proposals from individuals who are interested in presenting a paper at its 2017 fall conference.

Theme: Renaissance Humanism, the Protestant Reformation, and Jacques Maritain

Acknowledging 2017 as the 500th anniversary of the year which marks the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, it is appropriate that we consider Jacques Maritain's views concerning the Renaissance and Reformation as a pivotal period in history. For Maritain, this period introduces the turn toward the individual and the subsequent emergence of anthropocentric humanism, whereby humanity turns inward for nourishment sustaining growth toward maturity.

     While applauding the march toward greater autonomy within the secular sphere, Maritain remained consistently adamant in his critique of the Renaissance and Reformation as harbingers of a modernity which would derail authentic progress. Maritain contends that the Renaissance and Reformation fostered egocentrism and greed, leading to liberal bourgeois society with its fixation on consumption, and inevitably to the totalitarian nightmares of the previous century. Maritain proposes a theocentric, other focused humanism, which recognizes each human person as the image of God, endowed with inalienable rights and attaining personhood through friendship and loving relationships in community.

     Papers are welcome considering Maritain's treatment of the period from his famous/infamous sketch of Martin Luther in Three Reformers (1925) to his words on the Protestant denominations in his post Second Vatican Council contribution, On the Church of Christ (1970). Maritain's reflections on the Renaissance and Reformation can be gleaned from Freedom in the Modern World (1933), Integral Humanism (1936), his often neglected Moral Philosophy (1960), and shorter pieces. We welcome examination and evaluation of any material from Maritain's corpus contributing to his understanding of the Renaissance and Reformation in relation to subsequent historical, political, economic, philosophical and theological developments. 

     We encourage papers that refer explicitly to the work of Maritain, although we are open to papers examining the legacy of Renaissance Humanism and the Protestant Reformation from other perspectives.

We invite papers, in English or French, relating to the conference theme. Selected papers will be published in Études maritainiennes-Maritain Studies.

Those who wish to present a paper should send a one-page abstract or proposal to:

Dr. Walter J. Schultz

1201-1201 Walden Circle

Mississauga, ON L5J 4M9 Canada

Voice: 905-823-4490

Email: wschultz@isabout.ca

Deadline for submission of proposals: August 4, 2017

Papers should not exceed 35 minutes reading time.

Conceptualizations and Traditions of Social Justice in Canada

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Socialist Studies / Études socialistes

Guest editors: Jérôme Melançon (La Cité universitaire francophone, University of Regina), Janet Wesselius (University of Alberta Augustana Campus), and Philip Merklinger (University of Alberta Augustana Campus).

Presentation of the Theme of the Special Issue

Canada has a long history of progressive social and political traditions of thinking, which have contributed to the development of the conceptualization of social justice and of its praxis.  Conceptualizations, traditions and practices of social justice are present in many Canadian philosophical, religious, labour, social, and political movements, historical events, concrete social developments, as well as government legislation.

The presence of such traditions is not to be equated with the justice of the political system itself, nor does it entail that these traditions have been unambiguously progressive. Discussions of and demands for social justice have included a confrontation with discriminatory and violent structures, such as sexism, racism, colonialism, heteronormativity, and ableism, within social justice movements and traditions of thinking themselves as well as within mainstream political institutions. Through internal and external criticism, social justice movements continue to highlight the ways in which Canadians are excluded from full participation in Canadian society – or excluded entirely as non-citizens or un-Canadian.

At a moment when so many efforts are aimed at celebrating or commemorating the 150th anniversary of the British North America Act, we invite university-based and social movement-based theorists alike to reflect on the history and present state of conceptualizations and practices of social justice as they take place in Canada, regardless of their allegiance to Canada or of their (self-)definition as Canadian. These reflections can be turned toward:

1. the thought and work of a wide range of philosophers, social reformers and theorists, as found in all areas of Canadian public life – in the universities, churches, social groups, social movements and diverse communities – which discuss ways in which to remedy situations of injustice so that all members of the communities and nations in Canada can dwell, work and prosper together;
2. past and present technologies of oppression, domination, exploitation, exclusion, and repression, which confine, subordinate and limit the exercise of social justice in Canada; and
3. the ideological justification of structural inequality, its origins in colonial, capitalist, patriarchal, and other structural relations by those who own and control the means of the production of meaning in Canada – and the critiques and alternatives to these justifications.

Indeed, the goal of this special issue is to further critical and reflective research and scholarship into the role social justice has played in the history and traditions of thought and social action in Canada.

Topics may include conceptions of social justice present in:

• social, political, and ethical values and principles;
• structures of social and political injustice;
• forms of ideologies (e.g. co-operation, social-democracy, socialism, anarchism) present in Canada;
• Indigenous resistance and resurgence;
• nationalism, legislation, and state-building in Québec;
• minority rights and actions;
• sovereignty and federalism in view of justice among peoples;
• labour and student movements;
• movements, parties, and organizations aimed  at social justice;
• meaningful historical events and locations;
• individual figures, from philosophers and leaders to emblematic persons such as Omar Khadr;
• municipal, provincial, and federal policy and programs, or self-organization;
• other topics related to the manner in which social justice is conceived and theorized in Canada.

Submissions

Authors are encouraged but not required to send expressions of interest with abstracts by May 3, 2017 to Jérôme Melançon (jerome.melancon@uregina.ca); inquiries are also welcome at the same address.

Completed papers must be submitted by July 3, 2017 through the SS/ÉS Online Submission system: http://www.socialiststudies.com/index.php/sss/about/submissions. For inclusion in this special issue, please add the abbreviation “CTSJ” in your article title when submitting your paper, as well as a mention in the text of the paper. Papers may be submitted in French or in English. Please follow all of the journal’s guidelines prior to submission.

Message to member societies, associations, and institutes of FISP

Dear Colleagues,

As you are aware of, the 24th World Congress of Philosophy will take place in Beijing, RP China, on August 13-20, 2018. As the preparation of the Congress is entering its last stretch, I would like to provide you with some relevant and -- hopefully -- useful information.

1. REGISTRATION IS OPEN. Registration to the Congress is now open and available through the website of the Congress, at the address http://wcp2018.pku.edu.cn/yw/index.htm. Online submission of contributed papers is also possible through the website. Please note that anyone can submit a paper to one of the 99 sections of the Congress; instructions about the modalities of online submission can be found of the website. Useful information concerning logistic arrangements, accommodation, and local information is being posted online on a regular basis as well. Please feel free to write to the Secretariat of the Congress (secretariat@wcp2018.pku.edu.cn) or directly to me for any particular query.

2. PLENARY SESSIONS. The programme of plenary sessions, symposia, and endowed lectures of the Congress is available online. May I thank all members of FISP who nominated panelists for these sessions; it was not possible for the Steering Committee to retain all of them, but each proposal was deeply appreciated. Thank you.

3. ROUND TABLES. Proposals for round tables are welcome. Please send your proposal either to me or to Professor Stelios Virvidakis, University of Athens (svirvid@phs.uoa.gr), who is in charge of centralizing all information concerning round tables. Please note that, according to WCP rules, round tables panelists should proceed from three different nationalities at least; standard duration for round tables is 1h50; and there is no limit to the number of round tables that can be proposed. On the other hand, a special commemoration of FISP 70 years will take place during the Congress; it will be managed by Professor Evandro Agazzi, Hon President of Fisp (evandro.agazzi@gmail.com).

4. STUDENT SESSIONS. The Executive Committee of the Congress is wishing to enhance the presence of students sessions in the programme. These sessions should bring together mainly, but not exclusively, PhD students from different countries, who would discuss their ongoing researches in 2-hour debates with prominent international scholars. Assistance to provide on campus accommodation for students is being considered by the local Organizing committee. For queries, proposals, and requests about these sessions, please write to Prof. Ernest Lepore from Rutgers (lepore@ruccs.rutgers.edu), Prof. Riccardo Pozzo from Rome (riccardo.pozzo@cnr.it), and Prof. Wu Tianyue on behalf of the Chinese organizing committee (wutianyue@pku.edu.cn). May I encourage all members of FISP network to promote and support a large participation of students.

5. SOCIETY SESSIONS. Member societies, associations, and institutes of FISP can hold their own sessions during the Congress. Society sessions may include scholarly symposia, administrative meetings, assemblies, and any other format that a society might choose to adopt; they are an essential part of the Congress, and appropriate venues will be available for them. For all proposals or clarifications, please contact me directly: I will be happy to assist you with any such request. May I underline, especially for newly admitted members of FISP, that no additional costs will be incurred by societies, associations, and institutes holding their sessions during the Congress. As the number of available rooms will not be unlimited, though, may I recommend that requests for society sessions be submitted as early as possible.

6. FISP WEBSITE. Finally, let me invite you to visit the website of FISP, and check if the information concerning your society, association, or institute is correctly updated. In case you find any wrong, missing, or outdated information, please let me know.

Needless to say, feel free to contact me for any further query, request, or information you might need.

Yours most cordially,

Luca Maria Scarantino

Secretary-general of FISP.

Prof. Dr. Luca M. Scarantino
Chair of the Executive Committee
24th World Congress of Philosophy
Beijing, Aug 13-20, 2018

Secretary-general of FISP
General Editor, Diogenes
Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione - IULM
Via Carlo Bo 1 -- I-20143 Milano