Events
Meditation workshop: An introduction to Friendliness (mettā)
| From: | Fr 14-01-2022 17:00 |
| Until: | Fr 01-04-2022 18:00 |
| Where: | Groningen, Faculty of Philosophy, room Alpha |
This workshop will take place each Friday, from 14th January 2022 until 1st April 2022, from 5.00 to 6.00 p.m.
Friendliness is an emotional and intentional attitude of good-will and non-aversion towards all sentient beings, including oneself. It is rooted in both feeling and understanding. In the Pāli discourses of the Buddha, the practice of friendliness is repeatedly stressed and encouraged for its numerous benefits. It develops a form of emotional intelligence capable of balancing between an acknowledgment of the most difficult aspects of experience, and the cultivation of a sense of happiness nourished by good-will. This provides an ideal pathway to improve one’s relations with others and one’s commitments in life, and to explore deeper aspects of one’s experience. Friendliness supports calm and tranquility, but it also leads to a philosophical investigation into the workings of experience and the nature of freedom. This workshop offers an introduction to the practice of friendliness in both formal meditation and in daily life. Attending the workshop does not require any prior meditation experience or particular background.
Time commitment
Meetings: 1h per week, 12 weeks; plus some individual daily practice.
Registration
The workshop is entirely free from charges. But registration is highly appreciated. Please register here. All registration data will be kept privately and used exclusively for the purposes of organizing the workshop.
PPE Winter School: Climate Change and the Long-Term Future
| From: | Mo 31-01-2022 |
| Until: | Tu 01-02-2022 |
| Where: | online |
After several successful installments, the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen will host its yearly Winter School, aimed primarily at advanced undergraduate students and early-stage graduate students. The theme of the Winter School this year is Climate Change and the Long-Term Future. It will consist of 6 lecture tutorials where topics related to the theme will be discussed from different disciplinary viewpoints: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Unlike previous winter schools, this year’s winter school will be held online because of ongoing epidemiological uncertainties.
All info on the PPE Winter School 2022: Theme, Programme and Registration
RM Winter School: Radical Ideas
| From: | Th 03-02-2022 |
| Until: | Fr 04-02-2022 |
| Where: | online |
The online winter school is aimed at advanced undergraduate (or early graduate) students who are curious about the Research Master in philosophy at the University of Groningen. There will be six presentations by members of the Faculty of Philosophy on a variety of more or less radical ideas. We will also provide information on our Research Master.
All info on the Radical Ideas Winter School: Theme, Programme, and Registration
SCOOP-PPE Lecture by Marco Meyer: New Ways to Deceive: Epistemic Malevolence in Organizational Wrongdoing
| When: | Mo 21-02-2022 15:00 - 17:00 |
| Where: | M.0161 (Kouwerzaal, Muntinggebouw, first floor). Entry either through Grote Rozenstraat 31 or Grote Kruisstraat 2/1. |
Abstract: What role does deceiving customers and regulators play in organizational misconduct? We study the eighty highest-penalty cases of organizational misconduct in the United States from 2000 to 2020, representing more than a third of total penalties inflicted over that period. We show that the majority of these cases involve epistemic malevolence (n=58, 73%), i.e. directly and knowingly causing harm that consists in deceiving others. We also provide indicative evidence that acts of epistemic malevolence are often rooted in epistemic vice, a disposition to act in epistemically malevolent ways grounded in the organization’s culture and governance. Existing research has often linked epistemic malevolence to the strategy of “sowing doubt”, with companies contesting or discrediting findings about harms caused by their products. However, we find that organizations have found new ways to deceive. Rather than sowing doubt, organizations undermine the ability of researchers, journalists and regulators to identify harms in the first place by shielding information about the harmful impact of their products from public view. Based on this analysis, we suggest how regulators can better detect, organizations better protect against, and researchers advance knowledge about epistemic malevolence in organizations.
(Marco Meyer, University of Hamburg; Chun Wei Choo, University of Toronto).
This lecture is a joint initiative of the Sustainable Cooperation (SCOOP) Gravitation Program with the Politics, Philosophy and Economics Program (PPE) of the University of Groningen.
Short Bio: Marco Meyer is a Junior Research Group Lead (“Freigeist” Fellow) at the Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg. From 2017 to 2021 he was the Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, University of York, Politics Department. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Groningen. He received a Master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University, a BA degree in Philosophy & Economics from Bayreuth University, and a BA in European History from Bayreuth University. A foundational question in his research is what organizations have a duty to know about their impacts on society. He investigates how organizations can collect that knowledge as a basis for decision making, especially when algorithms are involved. What do organizations have in common that do this really well, and what those who fail? He has made contributions to the ethics of finance, business ethics, and applied epistemology. Recent papers have appeared in the Journal of Political Philosophy; Politics, Philosophy and Economics; the Midwest Studies in Philosophy, and collected volumes in Oxford University Press.
Third PPE Colloquium: Sjoerd Beugelsdijk
| When: | We 23-03-2022 15:15 - 17:00 |
| Where: | Faculty of Philosophy, Room Omega (t.b.c. depending on Corona) |
Third PPE Colloquium 2021-2022: Sjoerd Beugelsdijk (economics)
Fourth PPE Colloquium: Anna Alexandrova
| When: | We 25-05-2022 15:15 - 17:00 |
| Where: | Faculty of Philosophy, Room Omega (t.b.c. depending on Corona) |
Fourth PPE Colloquium 2021-2022: Anna Alexandrova (theoretical philosophy)
Workshop on Injustice, Resistance and Complicity
| When: | We 15-06-2022 |
| Where: | TBA |
Organised by the department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy
Injustice is often difficult to pin down. It manifests not only in one group using their power to inflict physical or psychological harm on another, or to limit another group’s options, choices or possibilities through overt policies or political means. Recent developments in philosophy have highlighted that injustice can take more insidious forms. It can manifest at an epistemic level: depriving agents of the ability to conceptualise the harms done to them, or blocking their ability to articulate the ways in which they have been wronged. Injustice often functions structurally, in the absence of any identifiable oppressing agent. Frequently, unjust social structures have a deceptive nature, making systemic issues appear to be individual failings; thus, effectively identifying and resisting these diverse sites of injustice requires careful attention to the interplay between structural and interpersonal forces, and questions of individual, collective and vicarious responsibility and agency. These matters are further complicated by issues of complicity: the way in which agents can play a role in upholding or reinforcing their own subordination and the subordination of others. Complicity manifests itself in the ‘grey zone’ of agency, responsibility and choice in situations of injustice, where strategic negotiations with oppressive social structures need to be disentangled from adaptive preferences and internalised oppression, or affective mechanisms that inure agents against acknowledging, resisting and combating injustice. Epistemic and structural injustice, and our complicity in both, raise difficult questions for the possibility of resistance.
This workshop invites papers that seek to explore issues of injustice, resistance and complicity from a range of philosophical perspectives. We invite work that builds on traditions including, but not limited to, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, global justice and disability studies, as well as work on responsibility, autonomy, agency and epistemic and structural injustice. Papers may address one or more themes from the workshop, and conceptual and applied approaches from both the analytic and continental traditions are welcome. We particularly encourage submissions from early career researchers and members of groups currently underrepresented in academic philosophy.
Keynote lecture by Professor Alison Jaggar
The keynote lecture will be given by Professor Alison Jaggar who has published pioneering work in social, moral and political philosophy, most recently in the areas of feminist philosophy and transnational justice. Some of this work includes: “Vulnerable women and neo-liberal globalization,” (Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 20020), “’Saving Amina?’: Global Justice for Women and Intercultural Dialogue,” (Ethics and International Affairs 2005), “Agency, Complicity, and the Responsibility to Resist Structural Injustice” (Aragon and Jaggar, Journal of Social Philosophy, 2018), “Decolonizing Anglo-American Political Philosophy,” (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2020) and the edited collection Gender and Global Justice (Polity, 2013).
For any questions regarding the workshop please contact Charlotte Knowles
Collegium Spinozanum IV
| From: | Tu 05-07-2022 |
| Until: | Fr 08-07-2022 |
| Where: | TBA |
This Summer School aims at bringing together advanced students and established scholars working broadly on Spinoza’s thought, sources and reception. The goal of the Summer School is to create an international forum to stimulate scholarly exchange and conversations inspired by different approaches and methodologies. Find all information here