Wednesday 7th November
Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham
Organisers: Katharine Jenkins, Ian James Kidd, Aness Webster
9.30 Tea and coffee
Humanities A2
10.15 Welcome
Katharine Jenkins, Ian James Kidd, Aness Webster
10.30 Emergent Vulnerabilities, Feigned Hurt: The Twisted Strategy of Usurping the Moral High Ground
Meena Dhanda
Chair: Katharine Jenkins
12 Lunch (vegan)
1.30 Reading Groups, Recognition & Reform: The Praxis of Gender Activism
in Philosophy
Anne-Marie McCallion
Chair: Katharine Jenkins
3 Afternoon tea
3.30 Formal Africana Philosophy and Cosmopolitan Decolonisation
Liam Kofi Bright
Chair: Katharine Jenkins
5 Drinks
Abstracts
Emergent Vulnerabilities, Feigned Hurt: The Twisted Strategy of Usurping the Moral High Ground
Meena Dhanda
Moral and political criticism of oppressive systems is bound to divide people into allies who want to dismantle the system, apologists who proffer explanations for why the ‘system’ is harmless and the ‘oppression’ imaginary, and neutrals who refuse to comment due to many reasons, including lack of clarity of moral purpose, absence of political will or self-confessed lack of relevant knowledge and experience. In this talk the focus is on one astounding strategy that apologists deploy: feigned hurt. In the face of the plea made by sufferers of oppression for attention and action, the apologists put on the mantle of a ‘sufferer’ themselves. Moral and political confrontation discloses this emergent vulnerability. Using the example of the hostile public arguments around the prohibition of caste discrimination in British Equality Law, the paper presents the twisted logic of usurping the moral high ground, whereby an accusation of wrongdoing is made against those who have called out caste privilege. There is a conundrum here which it is hoped our philosophical discussion will clarify: how can one distinguish between genuine vulnerabilities and parasitical ones?
Reading Groups, Recognition & Reform: The Praxis of Gender Activism in Philosophy
Anne-Marie McCallion
Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot met in Oxford during the time of World War II. As a result of conscription, the people who remained at the University during this time were predominantly women – in addition to medically exempt men and conscientious objectors. The In Parenthesis Projectstudies the collective corpus of these four women; attempting to establish them as a united philosophical school, as well as understand how these unique conditions may have contributed to their flourishing. In this talk, I will present findings from the empirical aspect of this project which conducted research on undergraduate philosophy students within gender sensitive settings. I present and discuss student testimonies from this research; deriving from them the necessity for two distinct formsof praxis when combating underrepresentation in philosophy. I term these the culture andcontent approaches. In distinguishing between these two categories of praxis, I will outline the various practical strategies which fall into each category; arguing for the necessity – as well as the practicality – of both approaches working together. Finally, I conclude this talk by briefly responding to a few common objections to my recommendations.
Formal Africana Philosophy and Cosmopolitan Decolonisation
Liam Kofi Bright
For some years now I have tried to practice and promote formal Africana philosophy. This is a form of philosophising in which one uses the tools of mathematics to elucidate, defend, and refine ideas or worldviews which are especially associated with Africana thinkers. In this talk I take the opportunity to step back and reflect on why it is (I claim) that there might be anything distinctive and useful about applying mathematical methods to Africana philosophy in particular. To make my case I shall draw upon Kwasi Wiredu's project of conceptual decolonisation. In particular, I shall argue that formal philosophy facilitates exactly the kind of cross-cultural comparative work that Wiredu argued was necessary for full decoloniation. Since I shall also defend the claim that Wiredu's project of conceptual decolonisation is worth engaging in to create a just philosophy, I hope to defend a certain sort of practice of mathematical philosophy by placing it within an Africana meta-philosophical framework.
Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham
Organisers: Katharine Jenkins, Ian James Kidd, Aness Webster
9.30 Tea and coffee
Humanities A2
10.15 Welcome
Katharine Jenkins, Ian James Kidd, Aness Webster
10.30 Emergent Vulnerabilities, Feigned Hurt: The Twisted Strategy of Usurping the Moral High Ground
Meena Dhanda
Chair: Katharine Jenkins
12 Lunch (vegan)
1.30 Reading Groups, Recognition & Reform: The Praxis of Gender Activism
in Philosophy
Anne-Marie McCallion
Chair: Katharine Jenkins
3 Afternoon tea
3.30 Formal Africana Philosophy and Cosmopolitan Decolonisation
Liam Kofi Bright
Chair: Katharine Jenkins
5 Drinks
Abstracts
Emergent Vulnerabilities, Feigned Hurt: The Twisted Strategy of Usurping the Moral High Ground
Meena Dhanda
Moral and political criticism of oppressive systems is bound to divide people into allies who want to dismantle the system, apologists who proffer explanations for why the ‘system’ is harmless and the ‘oppression’ imaginary, and neutrals who refuse to comment due to many reasons, including lack of clarity of moral purpose, absence of political will or self-confessed lack of relevant knowledge and experience. In this talk the focus is on one astounding strategy that apologists deploy: feigned hurt. In the face of the plea made by sufferers of oppression for attention and action, the apologists put on the mantle of a ‘sufferer’ themselves. Moral and political confrontation discloses this emergent vulnerability. Using the example of the hostile public arguments around the prohibition of caste discrimination in British Equality Law, the paper presents the twisted logic of usurping the moral high ground, whereby an accusation of wrongdoing is made against those who have called out caste privilege. There is a conundrum here which it is hoped our philosophical discussion will clarify: how can one distinguish between genuine vulnerabilities and parasitical ones?
Reading Groups, Recognition & Reform: The Praxis of Gender Activism in Philosophy
Anne-Marie McCallion
Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot met in Oxford during the time of World War II. As a result of conscription, the people who remained at the University during this time were predominantly women – in addition to medically exempt men and conscientious objectors. The In Parenthesis Projectstudies the collective corpus of these four women; attempting to establish them as a united philosophical school, as well as understand how these unique conditions may have contributed to their flourishing. In this talk, I will present findings from the empirical aspect of this project which conducted research on undergraduate philosophy students within gender sensitive settings. I present and discuss student testimonies from this research; deriving from them the necessity for two distinct formsof praxis when combating underrepresentation in philosophy. I term these the culture andcontent approaches. In distinguishing between these two categories of praxis, I will outline the various practical strategies which fall into each category; arguing for the necessity – as well as the practicality – of both approaches working together. Finally, I conclude this talk by briefly responding to a few common objections to my recommendations.
Formal Africana Philosophy and Cosmopolitan Decolonisation
Liam Kofi Bright
For some years now I have tried to practice and promote formal Africana philosophy. This is a form of philosophising in which one uses the tools of mathematics to elucidate, defend, and refine ideas or worldviews which are especially associated with Africana thinkers. In this talk I take the opportunity to step back and reflect on why it is (I claim) that there might be anything distinctive and useful about applying mathematical methods to Africana philosophy in particular. To make my case I shall draw upon Kwasi Wiredu's project of conceptual decolonisation. In particular, I shall argue that formal philosophy facilitates exactly the kind of cross-cultural comparative work that Wiredu argued was necessary for full decoloniation. Since I shall also defend the claim that Wiredu's project of conceptual decolonisation is worth engaging in to create a just philosophy, I hope to defend a certain sort of practice of mathematical philosophy by placing it within an Africana meta-philosophical framework.
