STUDIA PHAENOMENOLOGICA (2020)

Call for Papers

Phenomenology & the History of Platonism

Guest Editors: Daniele De Santis & Claudio Majolino

Since the second half of the last century the manifold relationships between the Phenomenological movement and the Aristotelian tradition have been at the center of scholarly interest. Themes such as the nature of intentionality, the question of being, the roots of virtue ethics or the idea of the “political” (to mention only a few) have been deeply investigated and submitted to close scrutiny as to flesh out the intimate connections between Aristotle and phenomenology. By contrast, the actual extent of Plato’s legacy on the various figures and concepts of the phenomenological movement has comparatively received far less attention. It is safe to say, however, that Phenomenology has never stopped assessing in many ways the different aspects of such “Platonic” legacy.

On the one hand, phenomenologists have never ceased to confront themselves with and experiment new “variations” on Plato’s conceptuality: from Husserl’s early appraisal of Lotze’s theory of ideas to his mature endorsement of an overtly Platonic “ideal” of philosophy; from Heidegger’s lectures on the Sophist to his claim that metaphysics as such is Platonism; from Patočka’s interpretation of the “care of the soul” as the spiritual “foundation” of Europe to his idea of “negative Platonism”; not to mention Antonio Banfi’s transcendental reading of Plato or Enzo Paci’s interest in the Parmenides and the Phaedrus; Levinas’ constant references to “the Good” in the Republic or Edith Stein’s systematic appropriation of Platonic and neo-Platonic “metaphysical” motives; Alexandre Koyré’s Platonic reading of Galileo or Jacob Klein’s approach to the eidetic numbers; Adof Reinach’s motto “Phänomenologie als Rückgang zu Platon” or  Roman Ingarden’s assessment of the doctrine of ideas as the basis for any possible material ontology.

But there is definitively more. For, on the other hand, if some “phenomenologists” have actually commented on Plato’s dialogues or openly tackled some of the claims characterizing the Platonic tradition, others have rather followed an entirely different path. Authors such as Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, for instance, implicitly resort to Platonic ideas and mobilize Platonic themes without making their strategy perspicuous. For the presence of Plato’s legacy in phenomenology is far from being limited to the explicit discussion and/or critique of Plato’s texts and themes.

The ambition of the present call for papers is to invite scholars (both phenomenologists and Plato scholars) to explore the relations between 20^th century phenomenology and “history of Platonism(s)” in order to provide what could be characterized as a first and systematic “cartography” of all those motives that—implicitly or explicitly, directly or indirectly, in a positive, negative or even opposite way—animate them and their intertwined histories.

* * *

We welcome submissions on any aspects of the relation between phenomenology and the Platonic legacy. These include, but are not limited to:

• Phenomenology and the history of (ancient and modern) Platonism;
• Phenomenology and Neo-Platonism;
• The doctrine of principles;
• Phenomenological interpretations of Plato’s doctrine of forms or Plato’s philosophy as a whole;
• Phenomenological criticisms of Plato and the Platonic legacy;
• Comparison between phenomenological readings of Plato’s philosophy and other interpretations (e.g., Neo-Kantianism, the Brentano school etc.);
• Plato’s foundational role vis-à-vis the history of Western thought and the idea of philosophy;
• Platonic paideia and the phenomenology of education;
• The idea of Europe and the “care of the soul”;
• Skepticism and the paradox of knowledge;
• Intuitive and discursive form of cognition;
• Platonic dialectics and the method of philosophy;
• Plato and the “a priori”.

Deadline: May 31, 2019.

Languages accepted: English, French, German (maximum 60,000 characters including spaces and footnotes)

For more information about the Journal’s guidelines, visit the website:

www.zetabooks.com/journals/studia-phaenomenologica.html

Please, send your submissions to: submissions@phenomenology.ro

Click here for a .pdf version of this CFP. Please circulate widely.

Call for papers

Affects, Moods, Emotions, and Belonging

Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists (ICNAP)

Tenth Annual Meeting

University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM)

May 31–June 3, 2018

Keynote Speakers:

Roberta de Monticelli (San Raffaele University, Milan)

Denis Fisette (UQAM)

Theme:

Lived experience is not reducible to intellectual experience alone. Through various states of mind, we relate affectively to life, experience it in different moods, and react emotionally to various circumstances and situations. At critical moments, we become aware, on the one hand, that we belong to a place or to a social group. On the other hand, we can experience not belonging to a place or group with which we are associated. These terms – “affect”, “mood”, “emotion”, and “belonging” – refer to the various qualities of experience that we would like to explore as the topics for this year’s conference.

The conceptualization of affects, moods, and emotions, as well as of the subjective phenomenon of belonging or not belonging, first and foremost raises the question of the nature and description of these experiences. What kind of phenomena are they? How to describe them? What role do they play in consciousness? Are they more than mere feelings? What is their relation to intentional objects? In the case of belonging or not belonging, for instance, what is their relation to identity? Do these experiences involve acts of judgment? Are they already cognitive or how do they relate to cognitive experiences? Do they play any normative role, for instance, in aesthetics, ethics, politics, or economics? What is their linkage to action or social action?

As these experiences are very diverse, the question also arises of a consistent typology. Do we have phenomenological grounds to justify each of these concepts, and what are they? Shall we treat all these terms under the same generic concept – such as a type of perceptive or intuitive content – or not? The same question arises about the subcategories of these terms. How should we explore the diversity of affects, moods, or emotions that one can possibly experience? And what are the different affective and emotive dimensions that characterize belonging or not belonging? How shall we categorize each of them? Can we conceptualize them under some generic categories, for instance, considering whether they possess a positive or a negative, or an attractive or a repulsive, content when they are phenomenologically examined? Or should we oppose any kind of reduction to such a binary perspective?

Submission guidelines:
We accept proposals for papers, panels, and posters. Participants have 30 minutes for presentation and 20 minutes for discussion. We welcome volunteers to serve as moderators.
Please indicate whether you are willing to serve in this function.

Paper submissions should consist of two separate documents. The first document should include the title, a 250–500 word abstract of the paper, the presenter’s name, discipline, and contact information. The second document should contain, for anonymous review, only the title of the paper, the abstract, and the presenter’s discipline.

Panel submissions should also consist of two documents. The first document should include the titles of the panel and papers, a rationale of 250–500 words for the panel, abstracts of 250–500 words for the papers, the names of the chair and presenters, their respective disciplines, and their contact information. The second document should contain, for anonymous review, only the titles of the panel and papers, the rationale for the panel, the abstracts of the papers, and the disciplines of the presenters. Panels are limited to 3 presenters.

Poster submissions should follow similar guidelines as paper and panel submissions.

Deadline and contact information
Please send submissions as email attachments to George Heffernan (george.heffernan@merrimack.edu). Please put ICNAP SUBMISSION in the subject line, and format submissions in Word.doc or Docx (not PDF) to facilitate anonymous review. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2018. Notifications of acceptances will be sent by March 31, 2018. Please address all logistical inquiries (regarding, e.g., travel, lodging, etc.) to Siegfried Mathelet (siegfried_mathelet@hotmail.com).

A full PDF version of the Call for Papers can be found here.

Call for Abstracts

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology
in association with The Max Scheler Society of North America

Time, Memory, and Eternity

13-15 June, 2018

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh (PA)

Keynote Speakers:

Nicolas De Warren (Penn State)

Lanei Rodemeyer (Duquesne)

Carlo Ierna (University of Groningen)

Guido Cusinato (University of Verona)

Time-consciousness and memory have long been central to phenomenological research. With the publication of Husserl’s Bernau Manuscripts (Hua 33) and the “C manuscripts” (Hua Mat 8) we can now see the full development of Husserl’s thoughts on time-consciousness from 1905 through to the 1930s. Husserl begins by responding to Franz Brentano’s early conception of time, adding to it the notions of the temporal object as phenomenon and temporally constitutive consciousness, and furthers the distinctions between phantasy, memory, and retentional, impressional, and protentional consciousnesses – each having its own type of intentional object. Meanwhile, Brentano’s theory of time advanced beyond Husserl’s early characterization, developing the notion of time consciousness as the in obliquo form of inner consciousness by 1916. Edith Stein worked extensively with Husserl to rewrite and edit his 1905 time lectures. Today, we know that she contributed more than she is credited to the published version of this text. In her own work, Stein deals with the various modes of consciousness according to which we apprehend objects in time and in memory. Husserl’s early, middle and late manuscripts on time, time-consciousness, and temporalization provide a fecund background by which to understand this theme in the early movement more generally. In 1927, Martin Heidegger and Hedwig Conrad-Martius published Sein und Zeit and Die Zeit, respectively. Memory has also been a persistent theme of phenomenological investigation, as evidenced by Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung (Hua 23). The notion of eternity is embedded among phenomenological discussions as well, notably in Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being, Dietrich Mahnke’s Der Wille zur Ewigkeit, and Max Scheler’s On the Eternal in Man. Scheler also introduced the early phenomenologists to the writings of Henri Bergson, in which time and memory play central roles. We encourage papers that engage the works of Brentano, Husserl, Scheler, Bergson, Conrad-Martius, Stein, and the full spectrum of early phenomenologists, including the early writings of Heidegger and Levinas.

Abstracts should be 400-600 words, and include a short bibliography. Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent to Rodney Parker (rodney.k.b.parker@gmail.com)

Deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2018.

Decisions will be sent out no later than March 1st, 2018.

Organizers: Rodney Parker, Charlene Elsby, Zachary Davis, and Eric Mohr

Host: Jeff McCurry, The Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University

A .pdf version of this Call for Abstracts is available here.

Call for papers

Special Issue of the on-line journal Philosophical Readings
(https://philosophicalreadings.org/)

Lotze’s Back!

D. De Santis & D. Manca (eds.)

Rudolf Hermann Lotze was born in Bautzen on May 21st, 1817. Lotze was a philosopher and logician; he also had a medical degree and was versed in biology, psychology as well as physiology. He studied at the University of Leipzig, and then moved to Göttingen, succeeding Johann Friedrich Herbart in the chair of philosophy. With the publication of his monumental Mikrokosmus, and the two-volume work System der Philosophie, Lotze became the most important and influential thinker of his generation (the one recently described as late German idealism). His alleged influence on Frege has long been the topic of harsh debates (like the one between H. Sluga and M. Dummett on the objectivity of thought and the origin of the so-called analytic philosophy); his importance for the early Husserl, as well as for Heidegger, is well known and undeniable, like his influence on the neo-Kantian tradition (from Rickert to Windelband, Natorp, Bauch and even Emila Lask). According to Sandor Ferenczi, during his late psychology lectures, Lotze also anticipated some of Freud’s key insights (like the notion of unbewusste Vorstellung). Lotze was a “systematic” thinker, perhaps the last philosopher really to consider the system as the one and only possibility to grasp rationally and understand the world as a whole.

As shown by the recently increased number of publications on Lotze and his philosophy (see for example: Late German Idealism. Trendelenburg and Lotze by F. Beiser (2013), the monumental Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography (2015) by W. Woodward, and the anthology of essays on Lotze et son héritage. Son influence et son impact sur la philosophie du XXe siècle (2015), edited by F. Boccaccini), the interest in this still partially unknown thinker is growing.
The present call for papers would like to contribute to what might be labeled Lotze Renaissance; topics would include:

– Logic and mathematics in Lotze’s philosophy
– Lotze’s metaphysics
– Lotze’s philosophy of nature and anthropology
– The method of philosophy, and the function of the philosopher
– Lotze and the phenomenological tradition
– Lotze, Frege and the objectivity of thought
– Lotze and the neo-Kantian tradition
– Lotze and classical German philosophy (Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart)
– Spiritualism and materialism
– Lotze and the development of natural science in the 19th century
– Lotze and the Gestalt psychology
– Lotze and American philosophy

Contributions can be written in Italian, French, English, Spanish and German, and sent to:
desantis_daniele@yahoo.it; danilomanca30@gmail.com

Invited Contributors: William Woodward, Riccardo Martinelli

Deadline: August 31st, 2017