Visiting Speaker Series

Every semester, our department invites several guest speakers to lecture on various topics. All lectures are free, and are open to all members of the community and to the general public.

In Fall 2024, all takls will take place at the Arts and Letters Club, 14 Elm Street.

If you have questions about our speaker series, please contact this year's organizer, Dr. Pirachula Chulanon (pirachula@torontomu.ca).

Date and Time: October 10, 3:10-5:00p.m
Speaker: Rajiv Kaushik (external link)  (Brock University)
Title: "Speech and Body: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Phenomenology and Language in Merleau-Ponty"

Abstract: The turn away from phenomenology in 20th Century French philosophy was in large part due to an increased emphasis on Ferdinand de Saussure’s notion of “linguistic structure” – that language is the internal system of differences between signs. Thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur and Jean-François Lyotard famously offered a “semiological challenge” to phenomenology. The idea was that phenomenology, especially Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, reduces to the sensible world and cannot think linguistic structure. Thus, the argument goes, phenomenology leaves out a basic element of human life: not only can it not think linguistic structure, but it also cannot think about elements, e.g., writing and text, which are its result. What could the idea of “flesh” in Merleau-Ponty possibly say about these? This paper takes up this challenge. I point out that Merleau-Ponty very clearly did want to take linguistic structure seriously, but, if so, we need to reconsider some of the basic themes in his ontology. Taking inspiration from the recently published “problem of speech” lectures, I reconstruct Merleau-Ponty’s idea that speech is a concrete limit situation from which we get both the idea of a language structure in which there are differences and of an ontological difference between being and beings. This is an internal criticism of both linguistic structure and formal ontology. I hope to stress the importance of linguistic structure and writing in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the flesh. This is an ontology of fragility – a fragile ontology, a being that requires symbolization. This paper emphasizes under-developed themes in Merleau-Ponty’s work such as: bodily event, difference, symbolization, and the writing of philosophy

 
Date and Time: October 24, 3:10-5:00 p.m.
Speaker: Rebecca Rozelle-Stone (external link)  (University of North Dakota)
Title: "Out of Touch: Finding Our Way with a Praxis of Sensible Attention" (Jointly hosted by the Society for Women of Ideas)

Abstract: For those of us living in industrialized countries, our social, political, and existential present can be characterized as being “out of touch.” Our being-out-of-touch can be understood in a double fashion. In one sense, we are more mediated than ever by screens and virtual worlds, and accordingly, we are more disconnected from the earth and its creatures, including fellow persons, and from our multiple senses—particularly touch. The Covid-19 pandemic only exacerbated a growing trend towards isolation, privatization, and desensitization in relation to the sensuous world. In another sense, growing numbers of us are out of touch with reality. Delusion is an increasingly significant element in the social-political zeitgeist, shaping policies and election outcomes, and supplanting distraction as the primary mental debility of our time. Two recent books address each of these tendencies: Richard Kearney’s Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense (2021) and Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (2023). This paper argues that these two phenomena are inherently connected, and it does so by drawing on the rich thought of Simone Weil, whose concepts of the void, the falsifying imagination, necessity, limit, and attention have much to recommend in diagnosing and addressing our current crisis of touch. However, I argue that we must extend Weil’s idea of attention-as-looking to include a more holistic praxis of sensible attentiveness, since the primacy of vision has, for some time, been a major factor in putting us out of touch with the world. 

 
Date and Time: October 31, 3:10-5:00 p.m..
Speaker: Catherine Collobert (external link)  (University of Ottawa)
Title: "Emptiness as a Cure in Madhyamaka Philosophy"

Abstract: Buddhist Philosophy is conceived of as soteriological. Since its soteriological aim permeates all of Buddhist philosophy, a failure to acknowledge the centrality of soteriology constitutes a failure to grasp both what reasoning and knowledge are for and how they function within Buddhist schools. In their works, Madhyamaka philosophers remind their opponents not to lose sight of what is at stake in the intricacy and subtlety of reasoning. The knowledge of the nature of reality as emptiness is not for its own sake but for the sake of liberation. As Chandrakīrti puts it, the arguments “set forth suchness only for the sake of freedom.” (MĀ 6.118). It goes without saying that knowing the truth amounts to being free from ignorance. Yet the end of ignorance is worthwhile only because the latter results in the end of suffering, which is the primary goal. In other words, there is the crucial idea that the truth is worth pursuing solely on account of its soteriological efficacy. That means that knowing all phenomena as empty has a powerful liberating effect. In fact, the investigation into the nature of reality must lead the investigator to the realization of emptiness, which is tantamount to freedom from suffering. This paper argues for the curative function of emptiness as the truth of all phenomena and examines the chief condition for emptiness to fulfill its function. This condition lies in the mind’s capacity to radically transform itself through understanding the nature of reality. The transformation of the mind consists of moving from a state of insanity to a state of sanity, from a state of confusion and obscuration to a state of clarity. The transformation therefore amounts to the fundamental shift from a state of suffering to a state of happiness.

Date and Time: November 14, 3:10-5:00 p.m.
Speaker: Laura McMahon (external link)  (Eastern Michigan University).
Title: "The Politics of Vulnerability: Merleau-Ponty, Butler, Family Systems Theory, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."

Abstract: This paper uses the School for Peace in Israel-Palestine as an example of what it might look like to develop a global community rooted in a recognition of shared human vulnerability. Part I offers a phenomenological account of vulnerability, putting Butler’s work into dialogue with Merleau-Ponty’s concept of “intercorporeality” and phenomenology of perception. Part II argues that family systems theory offers a framework through which to articulate the nature of our shared vulnerability, allowing us to see the manners in which problems reside not “in” individuals, but within the dynamic systems of which they are a part. Part III analyzes School for Peace “encounters” in order to explore the ways in which liberatory political change occurs through shifts in the behavioral dynamics at play in the political status quo. I conclude by arguing that our political identities are most fully realized through, rather than in spite of, our inherent vulnerability.

 
Date and Time: November 21, 3:10-5:00 p.m.
Speaker: Lydia Goehr (external link)  (Columbia University).
Title: "Resting on a Mistake: New and Old Keys for Analysis in Philosophy and the Arts."

Abstract: The talk counterpoints three forms of analysis that emerged around 1900 and which long dominated thereafter in analytical philosophy, music analysis, and psychoanalysis. Each form addresses a pursuit of meaning as a breaking down or as a break down, as a working-through either to make or to unmake a particular structure or claim of sense. Each form takes as its starting point the question what it means to make a mistake, to be in error, or to have (and even to encourage ) an accident. The talk assesses the relevance of analysis today: is analysis still relevant, and if so, on what contemporary terms? What role has analysis in the critique of concepts?