British Wittgenstein Society

REMINDER – DEADLINE: 31st DECEMBER 2021

Call for Papers
International Workshop and Conference
Oppression, Experience and Language. Wittgenstein and Epistemic Injustice

24-25 March 2022
Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris

Organized by Mickaëlle Provost (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France; conference), Jasmin Trächtler (TU Dortmund, Germany; conference), Sandra Laugier (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France; conference), and Camille Braune (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France; workshops)

The theme of the conference is to discuss, following Wittgenstein’s philosophy, the relations between oppression, experience and language in epistemic contexts.
Feminist philosophy’s preoccupation with questions of cognition, knowledge and science has emerged from the fact that women – as well as other discriminated groups of people – are disadvantaged both as objects and subjects of knowledge when, on the one hand, they are not taken into account in scientific (e.g. economic or medical) investigations and, on the other hand, their access to institutions of knowledge production is impeded or their epistemic authority is questioned. What is in focus here, then, is that and how various forms of oppression and experiences of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007, Médina 2012) are produced, established and reinforced by our epistemic practices. Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science can thus be understood as a critique of established epistemic practices by examining and questioning the social conditions, such as gender, social and ethnic background, and the theoretical presuppositions, such as standards of objectivity, rationality and value freedom, of knowledge and science.
In this context, Wittgenstein's philosophy has been a valuable resource for feminist epistemology for the last decade. Because it allows a renewed conception of "objectivity" and of the way lived experience can be articulated to the production of knowledge, the reading of Wittgenstein opens a reflection on what "masculine bias" in science mean, or on the establishment of criteria of objectivity (Diamond 1991; Crary 2001). Some Wittgensteinian concepts, such as “forms of life” or “language games” are also fruitful for thinking about the ways of making sense or expressing the experience of oppression, and thus come to redefine the perspectives of Critical Theory (Ferrarese & Laugier 2018; Jaeggi 2013). By paying greater attention to ordinary details, as an antidote avoiding the “craving for generality”, Wittgenstein’s philosophy has given rise to singular developments on the renewal of feminist epistemology (Cattien 2017; Scheman 2000), anthropology (Das 2006) or ordinary language philosophy (Diamond 2019; Laugier 2013).
Following the International Workshop and Conference “Wittgenstein and Feminism” held in March 2021, we wish to pay attention to the importance of Wittgenstein’s work to explore how the relations between different forms of oppression – sexist, racist, classist and others –, experience and language manifest in epistemic contexts. The discussion will take shape along three axes that serve to orient, but not limit:
1) Epistemic injustices: How do gender, race and class affect the production, acquisition and transfer of knowledge? In what way does language as a tool of power, as speech and embodied experience reinforce or indicate certain epistemic injustices and in way can language serve to criticise certain conceptions of knowledge, discourse and epistemological criteria?
2) Standpoints and situated knowledge: What forms of oppression are inscribed in the theoretical presuppositions (such as standards of objectivity, rationality and value freedom but also language/forms of linguistic expression in general) of knowledge and science and (how) can these be overcome?
3) Methodological reflections: Are there certain research methods that serve feminist interests and goals better or worse (e.g. quantitative vs. qualitative methods)? Should research consider and include unconventional methods to articulate, explore and overcome forms of oppression (e.g. storytelling, art, poetry)?

Confirmed keynote speakers are:
Prof. Estelle Ferrarese (Université de Picardie Jules Vernes, Amiens, France)
Prof. Manon Garcia (Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA)
Prof. Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany)

This is a two-part event, involving a conference and workshops on the themes listed above.
The workshops will involve close discussion of pre-circulated papers in small groups, each featuring one of our keynotes. For the workshops, we ask that you currently be enrolled in a graduate program (masters or doctorate) or have completed a graduate degree within the past year. This is not a requirement for the conference. You may apply to both the conference and the workshops, but if you do so, we ask that you submit two separate, distinct papers. Papers submitted to the workshops may be works in progress. All submissions must be in English. There is no registration fee.

The aim of this event is to support the philosophical work of women and all other marginalized gender identities on Wittgenstein and feminism. We therefore invite submissions from women and members of all other marginalized gender identities only.
To apply for the conference, please fill out this form:
forms.gle/LzqimZEeRcXDRTbS8 .
To apply for the workshops, please fill out this form:
forms.gle/WG5GmxErYb6NLpZE7 .

Applications for both the conference and workshops are due by December 31st, 2021. All successful applicants to the workshops should be ready to submit full papers by February 1st, 2022. There is no such requirement for successful conference applicants. Questions and submissions for the conference should be directed to Mickaëlle Provost () and Jasmin Trächtler ().

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ Messages to the list are archived at listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Recent posts can also be read in a Facebook group: www.facebook.com/PhilosL/ Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos To sign off the list send a blank message to .

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Institut des sciences juridique et philosophique de la Sorbonne (UMR8103)
Centre de philosophie contemporaine de la Sorbonne (PhiCo)

With the support of IRP CRNR and the Institut Universitaire de France

Workshop "Wittgenstein and Transcendantal Philosophy"

Date: sept. 25, 2021
Hours: 2pm-7pm
Location: room Halbwachs (Center Sorbonne, 17, rue de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris)

To be registered send an email to
Mandatory sanitary pass to attend the workshop

14h00 – Bernhard Ritter (Universität Graz/ Université Paris 1): “The Concept of Space in Kant and Middle Wittgenstein”

15h00 – Alexander Englander (Universität Bonn): “Anti-Rationalism in Kant and Wittgenstein”

16h00 – Gabriele Mras (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien): “Disclosing a Few More Arguments on the Opening of a Philosophical Investigation. A Comparison of Kant with Hegel and Wittgenstein”

17h00 – Pause

17h15 – Elena Partene (Ecole normale supérieure): “Sens et sensibilité : de Wittgenstein à Kant”

18h15 – Christian Martin (Universität Heidelberg): “On Comparing One Philosopher With Another”

Please email to receive the Zoom meeting information.

Please join us for a Zoom panel discussion of Kevin Cahill's book
Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture: Naturalism, Relativism and Skepticism (Routledge, 2021)

on Tuesday, 19 October
Time: 19-21 CET (13-15 EST)

Panelists: Kevin Cahill (University of Bergen, Norway), David Stern (Univ. of Iowa, USA), Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley, USA), Martin Gustafsson (Åbo Akademi University, Finland), Julie Zahle (Univ. of Bergen) and Martin Sætre (Univ. of Bergen). Sorin Bangu (Univ. of Bergen) will chair the discussion. There will be time for questions from the online audience as well.

The book is available as Open Access: www.routledge.com/Towards-a-Philosophical-Anthropology-of-Culture-Naturalism-Relativism/Cahill/p/book/9780367637156

Please email to receive the Zoom meeting information.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 @ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
A conversation between James Klagge (Klagge, J.C. (2021) Wittgenstein’s Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry. The MIT Press.) and Duncan Richter (2021) Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. A Student’s edition. Lexington Books). With poetic contributions from Richard Barnett (Wherever We Are When We Come To The End) richardbarnettwriter.com

To join us at this event you must first register via this link newcastleuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqde6upzssGd1hmL6Kc58L42hBBWflyndC

Extended Deadline: September 15th, 2021

Groundless Grounds and Hinges.
Wittgenstein’s On Certainty within the Philosophical Tradition
Topoi. An International Review of Philosophy Special Issue
Guest editors
Begoña Ramón Cámara (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) and Jesús Vega Encabo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

Brief description of the issue
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work On Certainty has raised an increasing interest in the last years. Many of Wittgenstein’s scholars have claimed that, although it is merely a set of notes, On Certainty can be considered, along with the Tractatus logico-philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations, one of Wittgenstein’s three major “works”. A growing series of studies of an exegetical-interpretative nature have thus flourished, in which it is asked, among other things, whether there is a continuity between On Certainty and Wittgenstein’s previous work, or whether it rather reveals a new and unprecedented phase of his philosophy. This phase would show a turn with respect to Wittgenstein’s previous interests and his previous metaphilosophy, or philosophy of philosophy, in which he insisted almost exclusively on the therapeutic or critical-negative character of philosophizing. But it is not only Wittgensteinians and Wittgenstein’s scholars who have drawn attention to On Certainty. It has often been read and used by philosophers who are interested less in Wittgenstein’s work than in recovering his ideas for developing new positions in contemporary epistemology.
This volume will gather a set of papers that offer new readings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, and seeks to address a series of questions that turn around the traditional problem of our search for grounds. The problem of the ground and the possibility of positing groundless grounds are at the core of On Certainty, a work that needs to be read anew by placing it in the broader context of the epistemological tradition and, in general, of the metaphysical and philosophical tradition. We do not envisage though this volume as a historical research on the sources of its thought nor on its influence. We rather seek to elucidate this fascinating set of Wittgensteinian remarks in the light of classical positions and long-range disputes in the history of philosophy.
The various articles that will be here included are concerned with making sense of the groundlessness that our practices of giving reasons seem to exhibit without losing their significance. As the interpreters of this dense set of notes have already pointed out, the search of immutable foundations gives way in the Wittgensteinian text to the postulation of ungrounded beliefs, of arational commitments, of groundless propositions, or of inescapable conditions provided by nature. A beginning must be provided, an anchorage, a point on which our epistemic practices, our research, and our justification can pivot. But this search for a proper beginning always clashes with the acknowledgement of a lack of ultimate foundation, be it of an empirical or transcendental order. Understanding how On Certainty embraces the inevitability of a beginning—but a beginning that does not act as an immutable and ultimate foundation—requires a return to debates that our philosophical tradition has been shaping in a slow work of thought and that can also be discovered in the careful and nuanced Wittgensteinian reflection.

Papers about the following topics among others will be welcome:

• Wittgenstein’s On Certainty under the light of the philosophical tradition;
• The dialogue of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty with the different skeptical schools and arguments;
• Wittgenstein and the problem on the search for grounds, both in its metaphysical and in its epistemological strands;
• On Certainty and the historical and philosophical significance of positing groundless grounds;
• Wittgenstein’s hinge epistemology and the search for groundless grounds;
• Wittgenstein’s conception of inquiry, epistemic practices and assumptions guiding research;
• Wittgenstein and naturalism;
• Contributions that place, re-read, interpret and understand Wittgensteinian themes within a broader philosophical and historical context.

Invited Contributors
Modesto Gómez Alonso (Universidad de La Laguna)
Andy Hamilton (Durham University)
Jakub Mácha (Masarykova Univerzita)
Kevin Mulligan (Université de Genève)
David Pérez Chico (Universidad de Zaragoza)
Luigi Perissinotto (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia)
Nuno Venturinha (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Deadline for submission
September 15th, 2021

Submission process
Papers should be original contributions. They should not exceed 8000 words, and should follow the instructions for authors established by Topoi, available on the journal’s website:
www.springer.com/journal/11245/submission-guidelines#Instructions%20for%20Authors

Papers will be subject to double-blind peer review by at least two referees, following international standard practices. Papers will have to be submitted via Topoi’s editorial manager. Please, make sure to select the category “SI On Certainty (Ramón Cámara / Vega Encabo)” from the Article Type menu.

For further information, please contact:
Begoña Ramón Cámara () and Jesús Vega Encabo ()

Journal website: www.springer.com/journal/11245

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ Messages to the list are archived at listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Recent posts can also be read in a Facebook group: www.facebook.com/PhilosL/ Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos To sign off the list send a blank message to .

Please join us for a Zoom panel discussion of Mauro Engelmann?s Reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus on Tuesday, August 10. Mauro (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil) will take part in a discussion with Oskari Kuusela (UEA, UK), James Levine (Trinity College, Dublin) and Duncan Richter (VMI, USA); David Stern (U. of Iowa) will moderate and introduce the panelists.  There will be time for questions from the online audience at the end of the event.

The discussion will take place from 10 to 12 AM Pacific time, 12 to 2 PM Central time, 1 to 3 PM Eastern time, 6 to 8 PM in the UK, Ireland and Portugal, and 7 to 9 PM in most of the rest of Europe, on Tuesday, August 10.   

Please email  to receive the Zoom meeting information.

David G. Stern
Professor and Collegiate Fellow
Department of Philosophy
276 English-Philosophy Building 
University of Iowa                        
Iowa City, IA 52242-1408                 

Tractatus map site: tractatus.lib.uiowa.edu/ 

Call for Abstracts Extended — New Deadline July 30thBetween Weil and Wittgenstein: Connections and Comparisons in Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics

There are many parallels between the thinkers Simone Weil and Ludwig Wittgenstein. They each lived in a tense relationship with religion, with both being estranged from their cultural Jewish ancestry, and both being tempted at various times by the teachings of Catholicism. They both underwent a profound and transformative mystical turn early into their careers. Both operated against the backdrop of escalating global conflict in the early 20th century. Both were concerned, amongst other things, with questions of culture, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, science, and necessity. And, perhaps most notably, they both sought to radically embody their ideas and physically ‘live’ their philosophies. 
Yet despite this, there exists no systematic attempt in the literature to chart the connections, contrasts, and comparisons between these two profoundly influential thinkers. This anthology proposes to fill this gap in the literature, by collating a series of essays that track the relationship between the two, their thought, and any potential areas of meaningful overlap and communication between them. It is hoped that doing so may help cast a clarifying light over the work of two of the most enigmatic philosophers of the 20th century, as well as providing a rich resource for approaching the issues discussed by both thinkers from a fresh perspective.
This anthology is accepting abstracts on any of the topics mentioned above, and any further topics that may be of philosophical, ethical, or theological interest. Abstracts should be 500 words, and should be sent with a 50 word biography to , under the topic ‘Wittgenstein and Weil’

DFG Research Training Group 2477 “Aesthetic Practice”
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim


15–16 July 2021 
ONLINE WORKSHOP
"WITTGENSTEIN’S EXERCISES: 
AESTHETIC AND ETHICAL TRANSFORMATIONS"

This workshop aims to investigate Wittgenstein’s philosophical practices as exercises. It explores their simultaneously aesthetic and ethical dimension, so as to uncover their transformative potential for and within ordinary social practices, conceived of as a weave of trained, embodied practices and techniques. For this purpose, the workshop focuses on three intertwined issues: 
1. It examines the aesthetic/literary form of Wittgenstein’s texts, so as to investigate the use of pictures, comparisons, and instructions as exercises to be enacted by readers, and further analyzes the transformative, both aesthetic and ethical, effects which such exercises bring out.
2. It explores Wittgenstein’s texts as improvisational exercises to be enacted by readers in their relation to particular aesthetic practices.
3. It sheds light both on the aesthetic and ethical dimension of the notion of exercise, as well as on the constitutive ambiguity of constitution and transformation entailed in ordinary practices conceived of as embodied trainings and techniques. 

Thursday, 15 July, 2021 
2:45–7:40 pm                   
 
2:45–3:00 Opening Remarks Lucilla Guidi (University of Hildesheim, Germany)

3:00–3:50 Beth Savickey (University of Winnipeg, Canada) Are We Having Fun yet? 
4:00–4:50 Davide Sparti (University of Siena, Italy) Projective Imagination. Therapeutic Exercises and Improvisation in Wittgenstein by way of Cavell

4:50–5:20 Break 

5:20–6:10 Katrin Wille (University of Hildesheim, Germany) Wittgenstein: Philosophy as Aesthetic Practice
6:20–7:40 Anna Boncompagni (University of Irvine, California, US) Between Captivity and Liberation: The Role of Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy

Friday, 16 July, 2021 
3:00–8:00 pm

3:00–3:50 Logi Gunnarsson (University of Potsdam, Germany) Að hugsa á íslensku og útlensku / Thinking in Icelandic and foreign tongues / Auf Isländisch und in Fremdsprachen denken
4:00–4:50 Oskari Kuusela (University of East Anglia, UK) Transformation of Thinking and Dissolution of Problems

4:50–5:20 Break

5:20–6:10 Anne-Marie Christensen (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) ‘Slab, I shouted, slab!’ Transformations of Identities and Language in light of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy.
6:20–7:10 Andreas Hetzel (University of Hildesheim, Germany) Philosophizing as a Self-transformative Praxis. Wittgenstein and Valéry 

7:20–8:00 Closing Discussion

The workshop will be hosted on Zoom. To receive further details and attend the workshop, please register by 12 July by writing to:  

50 minutes are scheduled for each speaker: 20/30 min. for the presentation, the rest for discussion. Each 50 min. slot will be followed by a short break (10 min.).

The workshop is organized by Lucilla Guidi  within the activities of the Research Training Group 2477 “Aesthetic Practice”.   
For more information on our research please visit: www.uni-hildesheim.de/grk-2477/

'Wittgenstein Tractatus at 100' Thursday 27 May 10:00-10:45 BBC Radio 3
A reminder that the discussion of the Tractatus by Juliet Floyd, Monica Nagler-Wittgenstein, Dawn Wilson and Ray Monk -- which is part of the Tractatus Centenary celebration organised by the British Wittgenstein Society in collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum and Wittgenstein Initiative -- will be available this Thursday on BBC Radio 3's programme 'Free Thinking'.
www.radiotimes.com/radio-programme/jxxmh/free-thinking/episodes/?episode=hqv9fv&fbclid=IwAR1wM0EF5nCf9GTP4tjOPUY4gKnU19HOGRsxKR1Bk1FZ3RhPerzOUwi49sI