GENERAL PRESENTATION: Philosophy, Practices and the Practice of philosophy

The conferences will take in Paris 1 - La Sorbonne (17, rue de la Sorbonne) - Department of Philosophy (Unless otherwise specified)

Philosophy is often regarded as an essentially speculative discipline, opposed in this respect to the realm of practices. But in numerous cases, it is not possible to extract philosophy from its relationship to a practice or a set of practices. One might, for instance, think of metaphysics whose very development has sometimes been seen as depending on the state of our scientific knowledge. Or, similarly, in ethics the relation to practice has a direct influence on the methodology that is deployed. This closeness of philosophy to practices is so pervasive that some have gone as far as to suggest that philosophy itself might be a type of practice, thereby reviving a conception of philosophy that was more familiar to the Ancients, or even nothing but a form of action.

This questioning of the relation between philosophy and practices is all the more striking today that knowledge is no longer considered as something given, resting on putative a priori foundations as provided by philosophy. If it is not from philosophy that knowledge gains its foundations, what then could be philosophy’s role if not that of being a practice of some kind? It is therefore ultimately in a methodological relation to knowledge, and not as a foundational prolegomenon, that philosophy can find its rightful place as a practice within a web of practices.

We propose three one-day conferences that will each examine an aspect of the relationship between philosophy and practices understood in a broad sense. The first day, on the theme “Science, a model for metaphysics?”, asks to what extent the practice of science impacts metaphysical constructions. The second day examines the interface between philosophy as a practice, psychology and natural science through a dialogue between Goethe, Lichtenberg and Wittgenstein. The third day, on the diversity of contexts of moral particularism, asks how practices might ground ethics in the absence of foundations by principles.

Delphine BELLIS, Etienne BRUN-ROVET,
Sabine PLAUD, Anna C. ZIELINSKA

THIRD DAY: Ethics without principles: the diversity of contexts of moral particularism

One-day conference, May 10, 2008
University of Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne

contact: a.c.zielinska@gmail.com

09h00 Sandra Laugier (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens ; CURAPP), « Ethics and Attention to Particulars »
10h00 Solange Chavel (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens ; CURAPP), « Se passer des principes dans le raisonnement moral ? Sur l’usage du mot “principe” »
10h30 Smadar Bustan (University of Luxembourg), « The limits of an ethics without principles with Levinas and Putnam »
11h00 Coffee break
11h30 Nora Hämäläinen (University of Helsinki), « Two particularisms – between Dancy and Swansea »
12h00 Darragh Byrne (University of Birmingham), « Moral particularism: epistemology or metaphysics? »
12h30 Philipp Schwind (Collegium Oecumenicum, München), « Does holism imply moral particularism? »
13h00 Lunch
14h30 John Skorupski (University of St. Andrews), « Knowledge of Reasons; Self-determination and Warrantable Reasons »
15h30 Anna Bergqvist (University of Reading), « Particularism and Semantic Normativity »
16h00 Coffee break
16h30 Pekka Väyrynen (University of California, Davis), « Explaining Exceptions in Ethics »
17h00 Alan Thomas (University of Kent), « Another Particularism: Reason, ‘Status’ and Defaults »
17h45 Jonathan Dancy (University of Reading, University of Texas, Austin), «Particularism in Epistemology»

Abstracts are now downloadable
Download the program

British moral philosophy is nowadays confronted with a new challenge, under the name of moral particularism. The main theses of this position were first explicitly formulated in Mind in 1981, and then reiterated even more forcefully in 1983, by Jonathan Dancy. Belonging to intuitionist tradition, Dancy refined some of its ideas, inspired partly by John McDowell, but also quoting the names of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jean-Paul Sartre. He attained thus a form of anti-anti-realism in moral philosophy, characterised by two major theses: there are no moral principles, and moral motivation is not something special as compared to any other motivation one might have. Dancy adds to those features the idea of holism of reasons, i.e. the idea that a consideration that is a reason for acting in a certain way in one case may not be a reason for acting in that way, or even a reason for not acting in that way, in other cases. This requires taking carefully into account the whole set of reasons relevant in given circumstances. This metaethical enterprise is to be understood in a broader context of English-speaking philosophy dealing with the problem of reasons and the one of normativity; here, a significant work is made by, among others, John Skorupski.

This tradition of careful scrutiny of particulars is also quite lively in France and goes far beyond the Sartrian heritage. In the most contemporary moral philosophy one might notice a growing interest in philosophical positions refusing general answers and suspicious of principles, both from members of “continental” and “analytic” traditions. In this context, we would like to confront one of the most stimulating movements in moral thought in the English-speaking world with the ideas purported by thinkers who do not belong directly to the same metaethical tradition, but whose methods, analyses and conclusions might contribute to understanding the new requirements and needs emerging in today’s moral philosophy. We also aim to provide a framework for thinking about the epistemological constraints entailed by a non-systematic account of ethics, and ask some questions about the relevance and legitimacy of moral discourse.

Anna C. ZIELINSKA
Université Pierre Mendès France, Grenoble 2

SECOND DAY: Goethe-Lichtenberg-Wittgenstein: Philosophy, Psychology, Natural Sciences

Goethe-Lichtenberg-Wittgenstein:

Philosophy, Psychology, Natural Sciences

International Conference

Date: Saturday, March 15th 2008

Location: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Centre Panthéon: 12, place du Panthéon, 75005 Paris

Room # 1

Coordination: Sabine PLAUD

Contact: Sabine.Plaud@univ-paris1.fr

Event supported by the DAAD

General presentation (.doc file)

Session “Life, action, expression - Wittgenstein and Goethe”

Chair: Valérie Aucouturier (Université Paris 1, Kent)

9.AM: Registration

9.15: Introductory remarks

9.30: Eli Friedlander (Tel Aviv University) – “Wittgenstein, Goethe and the Life of Colors”

10.15: Sabine Plaud (Université Paris 1, EXeCO) - « “That is not an experience, it is an idea ”: Wittgenstein on Morphology and primal phenomena »

11.AM: Coffee break

11.15: Antonia Soulez (Université Paris 8 – MSH Paris Nord) – “Une philosophie de l’acte sans théorie de l’action”

12.AM: Emmanuel Halais (UPJV): “Wittgenstein, philosophie et expression de soi”

12.45: Lunch break

*

Session “Towards a new physiognomy of language: Wittgenstein and Lichtenberg”

2.30 PM: Alfred Nordmann (TU Darmstadt, University of South Carolina, Lichtenberg-Gesellschaft) – “Goethe, Lichtenberg, Wittgenstein: "A Picture Held Us Captive"”

3.15: Elise Marrou (Université Paris 10, EXeCO) –“Le Witz de la tyrannie orientale: présentation grammaticale ou expérience de pensée?”

4. PM: Coffee break

4.15: Klaus Speidel (Université Paris 4) - “Change of perspective as a heuristic device in Lichtenberg’s and Wittgenstein’s thought”

5. PM: Sophie Djigo (UPJV) – “Witz et satire chez Lichtenberg et Wittgenstein: un autre ton pour la philosophie”

5.45: End of the conference

FIRST DAY: Science, a model for metaphysics?

One-day conference – Date: 8 December 2007

Place: Ecole normale supérieure Paris (45, rue d'Ulm)
Salle Cavaillès (Staircase A, 1st Floor)

Program:

9h00-9h15 Introduction
by Delphine BELLIS and Etienne BRUN-ROVET
9h15-10h15 Delphine BELLIS (Paris IV)
La métaphysique cartésienne et ses modèles optiques
10h15-11h15 Marion CHOTTIN (Paris I)
Science et métaphysique chez Berkeley
BREAK
11h45-12h45 Anna ZIELINSKA (Grenoble II)
Ontologie comme organon. Repenser la place de la métaphysique dans le travail du scientifique
LUNCH BREAK
14h00-15h00 Anastasios BRENNER (Montpellier III)
Vérité scientifique, vérité métaphysique
15h00-16h00 Etienne BRUN-ROVET (EXeCO)
La science comme test des théories métaphysiques
BREAK
16h30-17h30 Don ROSS (Cape Town/Alabama)
Non-domesticating metaphysics

Summary of the main themes:

In a classical mindset, metaphysics is portrayed as the search for principles and first causes. Thus understood, metaphysics constitutes a forteriori the foundation of physics – and, more generally, of science defined as the collection of all the special sciences – as it offers science principles of ontology or even of rational theology. It is in such a mindset that Descartes, in the image of the tree of “philosophy” that he provides in the letter-preface of the Principles of Philosophy, represents metaphysics as the roots of the tree whose trunk is physics and whose branches are the special sciences (medicine, mechanics and morals). However, the somewhat paradoxical etymology of the term “metaphysics”, which makes it denote that which comes after physics (although it is known that this denomination refers to the order in which Aristotle’s works were classified) could lead us to consider the possibility that metaphysics, although foundational in its ambitions, always comes in some sense “after” science. Is it not possible that the normative and foundational work of metaphysics could also intervene, in the constitution of knowledge, after the elaboration of scientific theories? Or even that metaphysics itself might be impacted by scientific theory? Such a possibility heralds a hiatus between, on the one hand, the function assigned de jure to metaphysics and, on the other, the particular conditions of its development; this gap, most familiar in contemporary post-positivist philosophy of science, was not entirely absent from metaphysical constructions even in this classical era.

It is especially in the last century, however, that the question of the relation between scientific knowledge and metaphysics has undergone profound changes. To the extent that the expansion of science corresponds with the emergence of a positivist conception of science, or even with an extreme form of scientism, it is no longer possible to affirm, even in a post-positivist context, the conceptual priority of the study of being to that of natural phenomena. But, even so, the question is not entirely eschewed. Indeed, two strategies have been used to account for the relation which could obtain between specifically scientific constructs on the one hand, and their putative foundations (inaccessible to empirical methods and therefore forever invisible) on the other. The first strategy consists in making explicit and criticising the non-empirical presuppositions of science (realism, laws of nature, causality) and, where necessary, in reformulating these concepts so that they might be made compatible with scientific practices as they emerge from an observation of the way scientists work. It is within this strategy, for instance, that the universality of the laws of nature has been put into doubt to be replaced by an ontology of causal powers coherent with scientific observation. But this approach consists ultimately in a form of compatibility test which any metaphysical conception should pass before being (provisionally) accepted by the scientific community: science thus perceived is a means by which one can select between different metaphysical theories, where these theories are nonetheless still understood as constituting the conceptual foundations of science. There is however a second strategy which operates a more radical inversion of the respective roles of science and of metaphysics. This second approach considers that, far from founding science, metaphysics itself should be naturalised. The question is then no longer what ontology is fitting for science, but rather how ontological questions might be resolved by the methods of science. In particular, this conception of metaphysics might answer the question of the unity of science by invoking arguments unsuspected by the positivists.

The aim of our one-day conference is to explore the consequences of these varying degrees of naturalisation on the pressing questions in contemporary philosophy of science, in particular with respect to scientific realism, to the status of the laws of nature and to the unity of science. Is it possible that science, in the final analysis, might be the ultimate model for metaphysics, both methodologically and within a strict definition of “model”. Science could indeed be a model for metaphysics in many different ways: it might give metaphysics its structure or its methods; it could constitute a point of reference with variable normative contents; but science might also provide metaphysics with schemas and with rational paradigms, hence forming a kind of “metaphysical image”, itself a set of images for metaphysics.

Delphine BELLIS and Etienne BRUN-ROVET