Happy Birthday ... Blog Turning One

Dear All,

In a couple of weeks, this blog is turning one. With more than 8,500 views, and visits from all continents, something appears to be going right. But no doubt, there are things that can be done to improve the blog.

Comments and suggestions are hereby invited. You can either leave a comment below, or email me directly, at ole dot koksvik thatsign gmail dot com.

(The blog's purpose is described on the 'About this Blog' page, linked on the right. Suggested amendments to that are of course also welcome.)

Foundations meeting: Tuesday October 4, 12 noon

The foundations reading groups are for postgraduate students in philosophy only.
This group is lead by Jonathan Schaffer.
Place: Benjamin Library
Time: 12 noon - 2pm, Oct 4
Reading: Lewis's "Index, Context, and Content" (contact Jonathan for a copy if required)

Foundations: Philosophy of Language (Schaffer)

Time: 12noon - 2pm, Tuesdays
First Meeting: October 4
Place: Benjamin Library
Topic: Invariantism / contextualism /relativism. For the first two meetings we will set up a background semantic framework, and for the last three meetings we will look at specific debates concerning predicates of personal taste, epistemic modals, and knowledge ascriptions.

Ethics & International Public Policy - Fri 7 Oct

* Note updated details *

Next meeting: Friday 7 October, 12.30-1.30pm

Location: Coombs Seminar Room F.

Reading: Elizabeth Anderson (2010), 'The Imperative of Integration' - chapter 1.

Contact: jonathan dot pickering at anu etc

==========

A few colleagues have recommended Elizabeth Anderson’s recent book on ‘The imperative of integration’, and we thought we could devote a few sessions of the Ethics and International Public Policy reading group to the book in October. In case you’re not familiar with the book, here are a few impressions from fellow reading group member Scott Wisor:

‘The specific focus is on racial integration in the U.S., and specifically integration of blacks and whites. While that narrow topic may not be of particular interest to many of you, her book bears on, and brings new insights to, a host of standard philosophical topics, including ideal and non-ideal theory, feasibility, methodology and political philosophy, justice, responsibility, legal philosophy, democratic theory, equality, citizenship, and more. The philosophy is top notch, but at least as impressive is her ability to engage in interdisciplinary research. She doesn’t just draw on other fields, she has a command of them. Her range over other disciplines, from social psychology to economics to constitutional law, is as good as or better than almost any contemporary philosopher. I think it nicely demonstrates the possibilities of interdisciplinary, applied philosophy.’

We’re planning to meet over three consecutive weeks, beginning on Friday 7 October with chapter 1. At our first session a couple of people who have already read the book can recap some of the empirical work in chapters 2 and 3, and we can confirm the timing of some or all of the remaining chapters (4-9).

Marx's Capital - Seminar 8 - 30 September

Seminar 8 will be on Friday 30 September at 3pm in Seminar Room F in the Coombs Building.

We will be discussing Chapter 2 and possibly the beginning of Chapter 3. It would be good if we have read up to at least the end of the first part of Chapter 3.

Evolution Reading Group, meeting 2

The next meeting of the Evolution reading group will be 2 PM Friday 30 September, in Seminar Rm E.

The reading is Denis Walsh's, Tim Lewens', and Andre Ariew's "The trials of life: natural selection and random drift".

Electronic copy of the reading available upon request.

Contact: Stephan Kubicki (stephan.kubicki{at}anu.edu.au)

Marx's Capital - Seminar 7 - 23 September

Seminar 7 this Friday 23 September at 3pm in Seminar Room F in the Coombs Building.

We will be continuing our discussion of the first chapter of Capital, 'The Commodity', with a focus on the final section on the commodity fetish.

Marx's Capital - Seminar 6 - 16 September

There will be no seminar this Friday 9/9/11.

We will reconvene for Seminar 6 next Friday 16/9/11 in Seminar Room F of the Coombs Building.

We will be discussing the last section of Chapter 1, the 'commodity-fetish.'

Marx's Capital Volume 1 Reading Group

The focus of this group is Karl Marx’s Capital Volume 1. The group is open to anyone who has an interest in Marx’s critique of political economy. Regarding participation in the group it would be helpful to have at least a passing familiarity with Marx’s work and his relationship to German Idealist philosophy – in particular Hegel. Even though Capital Volume 1 is the focus of the group we often post supplementary readings in order to illuminate both different sections of the text and different interpretations. Hopefully we will finish volume 1 by mid 2012. Some of us may then embark on volumes 2, 3 and 4. We meet every Friday 3pm to 5pm in Seminar Room F of the Coombs Building.
For more information please contact Anthony Hayes email: antyphayes [at] gmail [dot] com

Moral and Political Philosophy - 14 September

The MPP reading group's next meeting will be Wednesday 14 September, to discuss the first part of Chapter 4 ("Wrongness and Reasons") of the Scanlon text. We will be reading up to and including Section 5. A scheduling conflict with a CAPPE postgrad confirmation seminar this week mean that we will again have no reading group this week.

So, this week there is no meeting.

Next week there is a meeting at the usual time and place (Seminar Room F, 2:30pm Wednesday)

Jon H