Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I am writing to draw your attention to this upcoming Zoom event on March 25 (see below), when I’ll be interviewing Marjorie Perloff about her recent translation of Wittgenstein’s Private Notebooks. 

The interview is hosted jointly by Philosophical Investigations and the (online) Simone Weil journal Attention. Participation is free of charge, though it requires a registration. The link for this can be found at the bottom of this email.

The one-hour interview will be followed by 25-30 minutes of questions from the floor. You are very welcome to join us for the occasion. Please note that time – 12 noon – is US Eastern Time, which I believe is 4 pm in the UK and 5 pm in Germany. 

With all good wishes –

Mario

Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry. -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Perhaps poets, artists, composers, and filmmakers have taken such a special interest in Wittgenstein because they recognize that he is himself a kind of conceptual poet. -- Marjorie Perloff.

We are pleased to inform you that Attention and Philosophical Investigations are co-cohosting a special zoom event titled Poetry & Philosophy | An Interview with Marjorie Perloff

The event centers around Professor Marjorie Perloff’s new translation of and introduction to Wittgenstein'sPrivate Notebooks: 1914-1916 (Liveright 2022).

Dr. Perloff is Professor Emerita of English at Stanford University and the Florence R. Scott Professor of English Emerita at the University of Southern California. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.  Perloff has long taught courses on and written about twentieth and twenty-first-century poetry and poetics. Her dozen or so books include Edge of Irony: Modernism in the Shadow of the Habsburg Empire, Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century, The Vienna Paradox: A Memoir, and Frank O’Hara: Poet Among Painters.

Perloff will be interviewed by Dr. Mario von der Ruhr, Editor-in-Chief of Philosophical Investigations. His authored or co-edited books include Simone Weil and Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. 

Date:  Saturday, March 25, 2023 

Time:    12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Eastern Time

Register:  Here (required though free)

Join us!

Ronald Collins 

We have extended the Kirchberg IWS 2023 paper submission deadline until April 1^st

100 Years of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – 70 Years after Wittgenstein’s Death: A Critical Assessment

Scientific Organisers:
Alois Pichler (Bergen), Esther Heinrich-Ramharter (Vienna) and Friedrich Stadler (Vienna)

If you would like to attend the meeting please complete and return the form below electronically and send the requisite payment by Friday 24^th February. While it may well be possible to register after this date – and it will certainly be worth asking - I cannot offer any guarantees. That aside, if the meeting is over-subscribed priority will be given to those who register first. So if you want to come it is a good idea to register immediately. 

The registration fee covers full bed and board from afternoon tea on Friday to morning coffee on Sunday. Anyone who feels that, for some reason, they might be a special case - for example, who does not fall straightforwardly into one of these categories, or for some other reason has no prospect of institutional funding – should write to me explaining their situation. We have some limited funding that may be used to help individuals.

Please note that I am unable to register anyone until I have received payment. Note also that if you have to cancel I will only be able to refund your payment if I am able to fill your place.

If you have any questions, about travel or anything else, please contact me. If you are coming by train the station is Newtown (Powys). (I will try to coordinate transport from the station.)

If you know of people who you think might like to attend please feel free to forward this notice to them. You might also let me have their e-mail addresses, so that I can add them to future mailings.

With best wishes,

David

David Cockburn

Department of Philosophy

University of Wales Trinity St David

Lampeter

Ceredigion SA48 7ED

Registration Form 

Please complete and return this form electronically by Friday 24^th February. At the same time, either put a cheque in the post or pay through internet banking: Welsh Philosophical Society, 40-27-01, 21296280. Give your surname as the reference. (Cheques, payable to 'Welsh Philosophical Society', should be sent to: David Cockburn, Bronygaer, North Road, Lampeter, Ceredigion SA48 7JA.)

NB. All reservations must be accompanied by payment!

Name: .................................................................................................

e-mail address: ....................................................................................

Staff: (£ 240): .....   Retired / unwaged (£ 190): ......... Postgraduate (£ 140): .......  

Paid by (i) internet ….   (ii) cheque …..

Dietary Requirements: Vegetarian.......Vegan .......... Other 

APRIL 21 @ 4:00 PM - APRIL 23 @ 12:00 AM UTC+0

WELSH PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Gregynog Hall, Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd April 2023

59^th Session

Friday, 21^st April

4 p.m.         Tea

4.30 pm       Barnaby Burleigh (postgraduate, Oxford), “Cora Diamond on the Concept of Ethics”.

7.00 p.m.     Dinner                                     

8.00 p.m.     Discussion of Howard Mounce’s paper ‘The Aroma of Coffee’

Saturday, 22^nd April

8 a.m.          Breakfast

10 a.m.        Lawrence Blum (Massachusetts), “Iris Murdoch’s Political Philosophy”

11 a.m.        Coffee, followed by discussion of paper

12.30 p.m.   Short business meeting 

                    Agenda 1. Arrangements for next meeting. (60^th anniversary meeting.)

                                  2. AOB

1 p.m.         Lunch

4 p.m.         Tea

4.30 p.m.     Michael Campbell (Kyoto), “Gestalt Themes in the Philosophical Investigations”

7.00 p.m.     Dinner

Sunday, 23^rd April

8 a.m.          Breakfast

9.15 a.m.     Annual Wittgenstein Lecture     

                     John Hyman (UCL), Title tbc

10.15 a.m.   Coffee & Discussion

11.45 a.m.   Departure

The conference is sponsored by a very generous anonymous donation.

DAVID COCKBURN

BWS members can now claim a 10% discount on academic services offered by BWS website sponsor Lex Academic.

Spearheaded by research-active academics, Lex Academic are the secret weapon of published researchers across the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields, empowering academics with exceptional proofreading, copy-editing, indexing, and translation.(To claim the discount, please make known your BWS membership to Lex Academic.)

Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria, August 6–12, 2023

100 Years of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – 70 Years after Wittgenstein’s Death: A Critical Assessment

Scientific Organisers:
Alois Pichler (Bergen), Esther Heinrich-Ramharter (Vienna) and Friedrich Stadler (Vienna)

We have extended the Kirchberg IWS 2023 paper submission deadline until April 1^st

SECTIONS:

1. Wittgenstein
2. Wittgenstein (1889–1951) – Research, editions, and access situation 70 years after his death
3. Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung and Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus –Genesis, translation, publication, and edition in context
4. TLP within and outside of Wittgenstein’s work –Interactions, receptions, and controversial interpretations of Wittgenstein’s work up to the present
5. TLP: Open philosophical, ethical, and scientific questions
6. Wittgenstein, Schlick, Waismann, and the Vienna Circle – A reassessment

LIST OF CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: 

Hanne Appelqvist (Helsinki)

Michael Beaney (Berlin/Aberdeen) 

Anat Biletzki (Quinnipiac)

Anna Boncompagni (Irvine) 

Anne-Marie S. Christensen (Odense) 

Annalisa Coliva (Irvine)

James Conant (Chicago)

Maria Carla Galavotti (Bologna) 

Mauro Engelmann (Minas Gerais) 

Christian Erbacher (Bergen/Frankfurt) 

Arthur Gibson (Cambridge)

Richard Heinrich (Vienna)

Lars Hertzberg (Åbo)

Herbert Hrachovec (Vienna)

Allan Janik (Innsbruck)

Wolfgang Kienzler (Jena) 

James Klagge (Blacksburg) 

Oskari Kuusela (East Anglia) 

Jakub Mácha (Brno)

Stefan Majetschak (Kassel) 

Dejan Makovec (Pittsburgh) 

Anat Matar (Tel Aviv)

Cheryl Misak (Toronto) 

Gabriele Mras (Vienna) 

Michael Nedo (Cambridge) 

Jesús Padilla Gálvez (Toledo) 

Martin Pilch (Vienna)

John Preston (Reading)

Alfred Schmidt (Vienna)

Joachim Schulte (Zurich)

Radek Schuster (Pilsen)

Genia Schönbaumsfeld (Southampton) 

Jonathan Smith (Cambridge)

Ilse Somavilla (Innsbruck)

Antonia Soulez (Paris)

David G. Stern (Iowa)

Susan G. Sterrett (Wichita) 

Thomas Uebel (Manchester)

Sarah Uffelmann (Bergen/Munich) Nuno Venturinha (Lisbon)

Thomas Wallgren (Helsinki) 

Joseph Wang-Kathrein (Innsbruck) 

Anja Weiberg (Vienna)

Papers (to section 1–6) may be submitted via our online platform from January 1st to March 1st, 2023

Instructions for authors: www.alws.at/iws_organization/instructions-for-authors/ Students and early career researchers are especially encouraged to submit a presentation.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Antecedent to the 44th International Wittgenstein Symposium:

14th Ludwig Wittgenstein Summer School, August 1–5, 2023 organised by ILWI in cooperation with the University of Klagenfurt:

Wittgenstein’s Last Writings – The Inner and Outer in Context

with Lars Hertzberg (Åbo) & David G. Stern (Iowa),
Scientific Organisation and Direction: Volker A. Munz (Klagenfurt)

For further information visit us at www.alws.at

The book explores the impact of manuscript remarks during the year 1929 on the development of Wittgenstein’s thought. Although its intention is to put the focus specifically on the manuscripts, the book is not purely exegetical. The contributors generate important new insights for understanding Wittgenstein’s philosophy and his place in the history of analytic philosophy.

Wittgenstein’s writings from the years 1929-1930 are valuable, not simply because they marked Wittgenstein’s return to academic philosophy after a seven-year absence, but because these works indicate several changes in his philosophical thinking. The chapters in this volume clarify the significance of Wittgenstein’s return to philosophy in 1929. In Part 1, the contributors address different issues in the philosophy of mathematics, e.g. Wittgenstein's understanding of certain aspects of intuitionism and his commitment to verificationism, as well as his idea of "a new system". Part 2 examines Wittgenstein's philosophical development and his understanding of philosophical method. Here the contributors examine particular problems Wittgenstein dealt with in 1929, e.g. the colour-exclusion problem, and the use of thought experiments as well as his relationship to Frank Ramsey and philosophical pragmatism. Part 3 features essays on phenomenological language. These chapters address the role of spatial analogies and the structure of visual space. Finally, Part 4 includes one chapter on Wittgenstein’s few manuscript remarks about ethics and religion and relates it to his Lecture on Ethics.

Wittgenstein’s Philosophy in 1929 will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wittgenstein and the history of analytic philosophy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Wittgenstein in 1929 
Andrew Lugg

PART I: Mathematics and Thinking the New

1. Wittgenstein’s Struggle with Intuitionism 
Mathieu Marion and Mitsuhiro Okada

2. The Origins of Wittgenstein’s Verificationism 
Severin Schroeder

3. Searching in Space vs. Groping in the Dark: Wittgenstein on Novelty and Imagination in 1929-30 
Pascal Zambito

PART 2: Method and Development

4. The Color-Exclusion Problem and the Development of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Logic 
Oskari Kuusela

5. What Would It Look Like? Wittgenstein’s Radical Thought Experiments 
Mauro Luiz Engelmann

6. Phenomenological Language: "not possible" or "not necessary"? 
Florian Franken Figueiredo

7. Hypotheses as Expectations: Ramsey and Wittgenstein 1929 
Cheryl Misak

PART 3: Phenomenology and Visual Space

8. Simplicity in Wittgenstein’s 1929 Manuscripts 
Michael Hymers

9. Temptations of Purity: Phenomenological Language and Immediate Experience 
Mihai Ometiță

10. Speaking of the Given: The Structure of Visual Space and the Limits of Language 
Jasmin Trächtler

PART 4: Ethics

11. The Good, the Divine, and the Supernatural 
Duncan Richter 

More information on www.routledge.com/Wittgensteins-Philosophy-in-1929/

Russelliana: 17th September @ 1pm EST/6pm UK

Register at this page for the next Russelliana, a free and online event joint with the British Wittgenstein Society! Time is to be confirmed). This is a panel discussion of Russell and Wittgenstein from 1913 onward, with speakers Jose Zalabardo and James Connelly. Below are the speaker’s abstracts and a description of the event’s theme:

Considered individually, each of Russell and Wittgenstein rank among the twentieth century’s most important and influential thinkers. However, they were also at times both close collaborators, as well as insightful critics of one another’s work. Through both collaboration and criticism, each profoundly influenced the other’s philosophical development. This panel will explore these influences over the period from 1913, when Russell composed and then ultimately abandoned his Theory of Knowledge manuscript in part in response to Wittgenstein’s criticisms, to 1927, when a second edition of Principia Mathematica was published, in which Russell attempted to incorporate several of Wittgenstein’s key logical proposals. Over the intervening years, Wittgenstein wrote and then published the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), which was both deeply influenced by Russell’s philosophical ideas, but also impacted Russell’s thinking significantly as well, as evidenced in Principia Mathematica’s second edition.   

Speakers

Jose Zalabardo (University College London)  

Tractarian ideas in Russell’s Theory of Knowledge manuscript  

I plan to discuss some passages of Russell’s manuscript in which some central ideas of the Tractatus appear as targets, including the Tractarian accounts of expressions and of logical form and, time permitting, the picture theory.

James Connelly (Trent University)  

Russell, Wittgenstein, and the Second Edition of Principia Mathematica  

I plan to critically exposit and assess Russell’s implementation of Wittgenstein’s ideas within the second edition of PM. I will argue that while Russell understood Wittgenstein’s proposals, he did not implement them in ways that strictly cohere with Wittgenstein’s intentions, because he did not find the associated ideas plausible enough. Instead, Russell attempted to revise and reconstruct Wittgenstein’s ideas as charitably and fruitfully as possible, but found they were not up to the task of providing a foundation for mathematics of the sort envisioned in PM.

Register online to get the Zoom link. Questions or concerns may be raised at this link.

CFP: Royal Institute of Philosophy Graduate Conference: Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Social Science

Conference Venue:

Durham University

Organisers:

Michael Wee (Durham University); Ruby Main (Durham University)

Details:

On 11-12 November 2022, Durham University will host a conference sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy on ‘Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Social Science’. Abstract submissions are welcome from researchers of all levels from disciplines relating to philosophy and/or social science, and are especially encouraged from graduate students and early-career researchers.

We are pleased to announce the following keynote speakers:

·    Nigel Pleasants (Exeter)

·    Rachael Wiseman (Liverpool)

·    Arif Ahmed (Cambridge)

This conference will explore Wittgensteinian perspectives on the philosophy of social science, in order to promote further dialogue between philosophy and the social sciences, and to build on the legacy of Peter Winch and his book The Idea of a Social Science. Key questions that conference papers are invited to address include (but are not limited to):

·    What are the philosophical presuppositions of social science, in its different forms, as it is practised today? Does social science depend on externalist conceptions of human relations, e.g. an atomistic view of human relations, or a form of reductionism such as behaviourism?

·    Should social science make a sharper distinction between causes of human behaviour and reasons for acting? What are the implications of this distinction for areas of study such as nudge theory and implicit bias? If willing is not, as Wittgenstein suggests, a kind of causality, does this limit the validity of social scientific studies of causes in behavioural patterns?

·    How might Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations in the ‘Philosophical Investigations’ illuminate the way we ought to study regularities in human behaviour? Is Winch right to apply Wittgenstein’s concept of internal relations to social relations?

·    How do Wittgenstein’s views on community and language use relate to social concepts and recent work in social metaphysics?

·    What role can the description and clarification of psychological concepts play in the social sciences? Does the Wittgensteinian idea that psychological concepts like belief cannot be pinned down to a particular mental state, and can exist in multiple language-games, spell trouble for social scientific methodologies?

·    How does Winch’s critique, or other Wittgensteinian critiques, of social science compare with other well-known philosophical treatments of social science (e.g. Alasdair MacIntyre’s, Charles Taylor’s)? Is there a distinctively Wittgensteinian philosophy of social science?

Abstract submission

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) to  by 12 Sep 2022. Presentations will be 30 minutes, plus time for discussion.

Abstracts should be anonymised, but please indicate in the same document if you are a graduate student (at the time of the conference).

Subsidies for UK-based travel and accommodation within Durham will be provided for graduate student speakers. 

In-person presentation of papers and attendance of the conference is highly encouraged for all speakers, but please let us know if you will require an option for online attendance or presenting. 

Contact

Registration for the conference is free for both delegates and speakers. To book a place, please email  with your name and affiliations.

PhilEvents page: philevents.org/event/show/102130

Conference website: wittgensteinsocsci.wixsite.com/wittgenstein-soc-sci