Category: Philosophy

ahhh, the Welcome Is Outside

No wonder the Symposium has not yet started; that welcome is outside the room where the presentations will take place. I have no energy to go out there, so will sit here and type and check email. Isn’t liveblogging interesting? It is like longer Twittering. Perhaps Twitter (without formatting or image inserts or tags) is really a liveblogging application?

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Nancy Fraser’s Introduction of the Symposium

The symposium was started in 1980 by Reiner Shurmann, the chair of the philosophy department at the time. The purpose was to look at the contemporary issues that were important to Hannah Arendt’s thinking. Reiner chaired the philosophy department for many years, especially during the time when the administration was considering eliminating the program.

It was through his efforts that the philosophy department exists and thrives today.

Nancy Fraser gave the introduction.

Many important thinkers have spoken at this symposium.

Critical Theory Today is the theme for this year. It is narrow in that it is associated with the thinkers of the Frankfurt School (even the New School

there is also a broader meaning of critical theory, which also has connections with the NSSR, that include reflections on what(ever) meanings of emancipation means.

Critical theory, in both senses, is at a crossroads, as it is a time for cross-disciplinary work and dialogue for what critical theory should be. The hard and fast lines between the Frankfurt School and french post-structuralism, and critical theory is becoming much more inter-disciplinary sense–incuding historians and sociologists. To foster this cross-disciplinary and cross-paradigm was to bring together the five most interesting thinkers as people who can be identified with charting a path in critical theory today.

This is thus a symposium to get a glimpse at some possible futures.

Axel Honneth Introduced by Jay Bernstein

Jay Bernstein introduced Axel Honneth, the director of the Institute of Critical Theory in Frankfurt. Jay said he has made a distinctive contribution within critical theory. Axel has innovated and provided a vision for making critical theory sensitive and applicable to a variety of cases. He is the image of where critical theory will go after Habermas. 

Introduction of the Political Philosophy Symposium

Here I am liveblogging again. I was finally able to connect to the New School wireless network (the instructions for doing so were well hidden on their website, locatable only via a Google search), and thus am hoping to be able ot post this in real time as well.

I did not think I was going to be able to make it today, as I have not been feeling very well today (too much work this week while suffering from Thanksgiving overload with the eating that accompanied it). Nevertheless, I am now beginning to feel a bit better, so decided to go for a walk in the beautiful and sunny but chilly day today. I recalled the symposium is today, so thought it might be nice to listen here, so here I am. 

Waiting for the event to begin. The welcome and introduction was supposed to begin 18 minutes ago, not that I am counting. But as of yet, nothing.

 

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Symposium in Political Philosophy

Tomorrow is the Hannah Arendt / Reiner Schurmann Symposium in Political Philosophy at the New  School for Social Research. The theme for this year’s symposium is Critical Theory Today, and speakers include Axel Honneth, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Luc Boltanski, Judith Butler, and Etienne Balibar.

In the words of Jay Bernstein, the chairperson of the Philosophy Department, the symposium promises to expose its listeners to ideas that will challenge their perceptions and make them uncomfortable. That is one of the very reasons to do philosophy–to  bump into ideas that make us uncomfortable and thereby force us to think through our lives in different and more critical ways.

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