Digest Week 9 Trinity Term 2019 (Summer Vacation)

TT19, Week 9 (Vacation, 23rd - 29th June) 

If you have entries for the weekly Digest, please send information to admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk by midday, Wednesday the week before the event. 

Unless otherwise stated, all events will take place in the Radcliffe Humanities Building on Woodstock Road, OX2 6GG.

Notices - Events taking place elsewhere in the university and beyond

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One Day Conference | Pluralising Philosophy: Learning from the Case of Chinese Thought | 09.30 | Lecture Room, Radcliffe Humanities

There are increasing calls to pluralise philosophy: to look beyond the parochial, the colonial, the exclusive. This one-day symposium jointly organised by Minorities and Philosophy Oxford and Philiminality Oxford brings together three leading philosophers to explore the tensions within 'canonical'/'Western' philosophy regarding the status of 'non-Western' philosophies, with a particular focus on the case of Chinese thought. Our speakers will address a number of questions – drawing on meta-philosophical, methodological, as well as historical considerations – to shed light on some of these tensions, and identify ways of moving forward. For instance, in what sense might 'Western' philosophy be deemed parochial, and how recent is this phenomenon? What forms do attempts to pluralise philosophy take, and what are their payoffs and pitfalls? Moreover, how do philosophers pluralise philosophy in ways that do not further contribute to the marginalisation of both the traditions they draw upon and other traditions which they do not engage with? What are the assumptions made or rejected by those who debate the 'legitimacy' of Chinese Philosophy? What are some of the concrete ways in which Chinese thought can shed new light on problems in contemporary 'Western' philosophy?
 
The morning session will consist of three lectures (with time for questions) by our invited speakers:
 
- Robert Bernasconi (Pennsylvania State University): 'Narrowing the Philosophical Canon around 1800: The Exclusion of Chinese Philosophy in Context'
- Carine Defoort (University of Leuven): 'The Exclusion of Chinese Philosophy: 'Ten Don’ts', 'Three Represents,' and 'Eight Musts”
- Bryan Van Norden (Yale-NUS College; Vassar College; Wuhan University): 'Learning from Chinese Philosophy'
 
The afternoon session will bring together our three speakers in a moderated panel discussion, with plenty of time for Q&A.

Lunch and coffee/tea will be provided free of charge, but registration is required. Please register here. Follow the event on Facebook for updates.

Full speaker abstracts can also be consulted on the Philiminality Oxford website: https://philiminalityoxford.wordpress.com/events/

The Symposium is organised with the generous support of All Souls College, University of Oxford and Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. Organisers: Maya Krishnan, Chong-Ming Lim, Lea Cantor and Sihao Chew.

Two-day conference | Deciphering the Uncertain: Sociological & Epistemological Aspects of Divination in Early Text Cultures | 24th - 25th June | China Centre, Canterbury Road

Conceived as an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of divination in early text cultures, the conference will feature contributions of both leading scholars in the field and young researchers. 

Our confirmed key-note speakers will be Matthias Hayek (Paris Diderot), Bernhard Maier (Tübingen), Robert Parker (Oxford), William F. Ryan (Warburg Institute), Federico Santangelo (Newcastle), and Kenneth G. Zysk (København).

The participants will deal with issues related to ancient religion, philosophy and anthropology in a broad cross-cultural perspective. So please come along and join us for this exciting event.
 
For the full program and further information regarding the conference, please refer to the website and the Facebook event pages below. Please register here.  

https://decipheringtheuncertain.weebly.com/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1053056094884191/
https://www.facebook.com/events/324950988179776/

 

'Should Blood Donation be a Civic Duty?' | 12.30 | Seminar Room 3, St Anne's College

Speaker: Pol Cuadros (Visiting Scholar at St Anne's College, and Lecturer in the Philosophy of Law and the University of Lleida)

Further information: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/should-blood-donation-be-civic-duty
 

 

Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures | 'Walking on water: from biolocomotion to quantum foundations' | 17.00 - 18.00 | Mathematical Institute

Speaker: John Bush, Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at MIT specialising in fluid dynamics.

In this lecture John Bush will present seemingly disparate research topics which are in fact united by a common theme and underlaid by a common mathematical framework. 

First there is the ingenuity of the natural world where living creatures use surface tension to support themselves on the water surface and propel themselves along it. Then there is a system discovered by Yves Couder only fifteen years ago, in which a small droplet bounces along the surface of a vibrating liquid bath, guided or 'piloted’ by its own wave field. Its ability to reproduce many features previously thought to be exclusive to quantum systems has launched the field of hydrodynamic quantum analogs, and motivated a critical revisitation of the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics.

Please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register.

Watch live:
https://facebook.com/OxfordMathematics
https://livestream.com/oxuni/bush

Two-day conference | Deciphering the Uncertain: Sociological & Epistemological Aspects of Divination in Early Text Cultures | 24th - 25th June | China Centre, Canterbury Road

Conceived as an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of divination in early text cultures, the conference will feature contributions of both leading scholars in the field and young researchers. 

Our confirmed key-note speakers will be Matthias Hayek (Paris Diderot), Bernhard Maier (Tübingen), Robert Parker (Oxford), William F. Ryan (Warburg Institute), Federico Santangelo (Newcastle), and Kenneth G. Zysk (København).

The participants will deal with issues related to ancient religion, philosophy and anthropology in a broad cross-cultural perspective. So please come along and join us for this exciting event.
 
For the full program and further information regarding the conference, please refer to the website and the Facebook event pages below. Please register here.  

https://decipheringtheuncertain.weebly.com/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1053056094884191/
https://www.facebook.com/events/324950988179776/

 

Anscombe Bioethics Centre | Privacy and Autonomy in Medical Law and Ethics: Emerging Trends | 13.00 - 16.30 | Aula, Blackfriars

Ryan Meade (Loyola University Chicago Law School): 'Privacy Law and How it Shapes Our Understanding of the Human Person'

This lecture will examine how the rapidly emerging arena of health privacy law may be influencing how society is understanding the human person. While starting off with a good goal of protecting confidentiality, recent trends in privacy law in the UK, US, and EU reinforces a view of persons disconnected from society.

Thomas Paprocki (University of Notre Dame Law School): 'Doing as I Please or Pleasing as I Do: Understanding Conscience in Relation to Autonomy, Freedom, and Obligation'

This lecture will discuss conscience and autonomy in the context of health care practitioners and organizations operating in an evolving legal landscape of medical demands by individuals as well as government mandates.

To register, please email admin@bioethics.org.uk 

WEH/Ethox seminar | Ethical preparedness and genomics in the headlines | 11.00 - 12.30 | Seminar Room 0, Big Data Institute

Speakers: Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Anneke Lucassen, Professor of Clinical Genetics, University of Southampton.

Bobbie Farsides and Anneke Lucassen are currently leading the Wellcome Trust funded Eppigen project. Utilising a variety of methodological approaches the project will explore conceptual and practical issues raised by the proliferation of genomic medicine in health care. With the recent flurry of publicity around direct to consumer testing and it’s place within the NHS as a backdrop, their paper will discuss one of the key organising concepts they are working on – the idea of ethical preparedness.