Digest Week 4 Hilary Term 2022

Faraday Institute Seminars | 1:00pm | In person and online

Speaker: Steve Furber (Manchester University)

Title: ‘Brains, Minds and AI - Implications for Faith and Ethics’

The event is free, and all are welcome. See faraday.institute/seminars for more details.

A Spirit of Trust Reading Group | 4:00-6:00pm | Lecture Room, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road

Written over the course of 40 years, Robert Brandom’s highly-anticipated 2019 book A Spirit of Trust presents a novel reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. It translates the Phenomenology into the idiom of contemporary Anglophone philosophy, demystifying the Phenomenology’s notoriously impenetrable prose and rendering it transparent to contemporary philosophical analysis

The reading group would be of direct relevance for anyone with an interest in Hegel and German Idealism. However, the work is only partially interpretative. The majority of Brandom’s effort is spent on making a host of contributions to contemporary philosophical debates, meaning that the reading group would also be relevant for anyone with an interest in the determination of conceptual content, pragmatist semantics, the social metaphysics of normativity, the metaphysics of agency and intentionality, the relationship between mind and world, and the historical groundedness of our discursive practices. As today's flag-bearer of linguistic pragmatism (following in the footsteps of Dewey, Quine, and Rorty), the reading group is a great opportunity to find out about Brandom’s own thought too, namely his theory of inferentialism, and its advantages and disadvantages over more traditional semantic schemas.

Hegel Reading Group | 6:00-7:30pm | Online via Skype

The Hegel Reading Group continues to meet by Skype on Tuesdays 6:00-7:30pm. We are reading 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (any translation). We are now in Section 6 B: Self-Alienated Spirit. Culture II a 'The struggle of the Enlightenment with superstition'. New Readers please contact either susanne.herrmann-sinai@philosophy.ox.ac.uk or louise.braddock@philosophy.ox.ac.uk for the Skype link. Details of each week's reading are posted on: hegelinoxford.wordpress.com

Sam Elgin (UCSD) will give a talk, "Definition by Proxy" | 2:00pm | Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College

The event is open to everyone and can also be attended online, through Zoom. 

Weekly reading group on the occasion of the centenary of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus | 6:30-7:30pm | Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities

We are delighted to announce that this term we will be hosting a reading group, open to all members of the University and the public, to mark the centenary of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

One of the defining texts of the 20th century, Wittgenstein’s first work is notoriously difficult for first-time readers. By working through it together, the problems that baffle us alone or leave us stranded can be solved through discussion, drawing on our individual readings and backgrounds. This is the perfect opportunity to cover a text often sidelined, or marginalised as an eccentricity in the history of ideas.  

The TLP is composed of 7 core propositions. We will endeavour to finish the text by the end of Michaelmas Term (first week of December). We will play it by ear together and see how far we get each session, though we will try to finish one proposition a week where realistic, with a few exceptions where more time is required. 

Every Friday from January 21st, 18:30, at Radcliffe Humanities Building, Woodstock Road.

Please message us at jack.franco@queens.ox.ac.uk or ph21251@bristol.ac.uk to let us know you’re coming, and to receive a copy of the text. We will be using the newly published (Anthem Press) centenary edition, by Luciano Bazzocchi and PMS Hacker (more on this choice in the first session!)

We will offer suggested further reading at the end of sessions. All welcome, students, staff and public.