History of Philosophy Workshop (HPW)
The History of Philosophy Workshop is an interdisciplinary group of
faculty (and some graduate students) devoted to reading and critical
discussion of classic and new work in the history of philosophy, written
by philosophers, historians, literary theorists, and researchers in
other fields. These discussions often include examination of the primary
texts. Often we structure a year's Workshop around a theme -- for
instance, irony, the sublime, "radical enlightenment," romanticism, the
historiography of philosophy, the transcendental, and so on. Typically
the Workshop chooses topics that involve primary texts from both ancient
and modern philosophers. We also invite two or three scholars each year
to give a talk and engage in discussion.
HPW Fall 2007 Semester Plans
The History of Philosophy Workshop will be hosting two visitors in the Fall semester. Winfried Menninghaus, a scholar of romanticism, literature, and philosophy, will be visiting for the first half of the semester and will give a series of three public seminars. Winfried Menninghaus is a professor at the Freie Universität in Berlin, where he teaches Comparative Literature at the Institute for Comparative Literature. Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790) is a key text of his latest research project, in which he seeks to understand how art and beauty relate to notions of life and "life furthering." In his seminars at Rice, Menninghaus will contextualize Kant's approach within a discourse on "life" that originated in the early eighteenth century and can be traced to Darwin and beyond. These seminars should be of interest not only to scholars in philosophy, history, and literary studies, but also to those working in anthropology, psychology, and evolutionary biology.
The workshop's second guest will be Jan Golinski, a philosopher and historian of science, and a professor of history and humanities at the University of New Hampshire. Jan Golinski has published his work on the history of chemistry, on the problems of method in the history of science and on the social history of science in Britain in the eighteenth century. His most recent book is British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment.
Anyone interested is most welcome to join. All events are held in Humanities Building Room 119.
Tuesday, August 28, 4:30 p.m.
Organizational meeting
Tuesday, September 11, 4:30 p.m.
Menninghaus Seminar I
Aesthetics as One of the 18th Century "Life"-Sciences
Readings:
- Baumgarten, Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus §112-113
- Kant, Critique of Judgment,§1, 10-12, 23, 42, 49, 61-67
- Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy, § 3, 7
Additional reading:
- Orians, Gordon H./Judith H. Heerwagen, "Evolved Responses to Lanscapes," in Jerome H. Barkow/Leda Cosmides/John Tobby (eds.) The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture.
Tuesday, September 25, 4:30 p.m.
Menninghaus Seminar II
Benefits of Art-Related Practices I: Fine-Tuning and Optimizing of Mental Operations, Cognition and Emotion.
Readings:
- Baumgarten, Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus §10-29
- Baumgarten, Aesthetica §1-14
- Kant, Critique of Judgment, Introduction, §2, 9, 12
- John Tooby/Leda Cosmides, "Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds?" In Substance. A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism 30(2001), 6-25.
Friday, October 5, 4:30 p.m
Thomas Kuhn and Interdisciplinary Conversation: Why Historians and Philosophers of Science Stopped Talking to One Another
Humanities Building 119
Jan Golinski, Professor of History and Humanities, University of New Hampshire
Dr. Golinski has published research on the history of chemistry, on the problems of method in the history of science and on the social history of science in Britain in the eighteenth century. His most recent book is British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment.
Co-sponsored by the Cultural Studies of Science and Technology Workshop and the German and Slavic Studies Department.
Tuesday, October 9, 4:30 p.m.
Menninghaus Seminar III
Benefits of Art-Related Practices II: Promoting Imagination, Techniques of Deception, Sensus Communis, Paranormal Behavior
Readings:
- Kant, Critique of Judgment, Introduction, § 8, 18-20, 45-49
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