Text of the speech

This is a strange book requiring a strange review. It is the publication of some of Paul Ricoeur’s previously unpublished writing, which he himself did not intend to publish. The first part of the book comes from notes he made in 1995-96 on the topic of death. After they were written, they were left in a folder and he never returned to them again. In the second part of the book are some of the “fragments” he wrote during his last days, mostly brief reflections on topics which preoccupied him such as life and death, Christianity, his faith and his philosophy, the Bible, his friend Jacques Derrida and resurrection. There is a Preface by Olivier Abel, a long-time friend of Ricoeur’s and a Postface by Catherine Goldenstein, also a very close friend for his last ten years.

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Description
Phenomenology or Deconstruction? challenges traditional understandings of the relationship between phenomenology and deconstruction through new readings of the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur and Jean-Luc Nancy. A constant dialogue with Jacques Derrida’s engagement with phenomenological themes provides the impetus to establishing a new understanding of ‘being’ and ‘presence’ that exposes significant blindspots inherent in traditional readings of both phenomenology and deconstruction. In reproducing neither a stock phenomenological reaction to deconstruction nor the routine deconstructive reading of phenomenology, Christopher Watkin provides a fresh assessment of the possibilities for the future of phenomenology, along with a new reading of the deconstructive legacy. Through detailed studies of the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur and Nancy, he shows how a phenomenological tradition much wider and richer than Husserlian or Heideggerean thought alone can take account of Derrida’s critique of ontology and yet still hold a commitment to the ontological.This new reading of being and presence fundamentally re-draws our understanding of the relation of deconstruction and phenomenology, and provides the first sustained discussion of the possibilities and problems for any future ‘deconstructive phenomenology’.

Christopher Watkin is a Junior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is currently working on atheism and the death of God in Nancy, Badiou, Zizek and Meillassoux.

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Narrative conceptions of agency have attracted considerable philosophical interest in recent years, and both of these books make significant contributions to the growing literature on this theme. Each treats a wide range of related concepts, including not just narrative agency itself but also personal and practical identity, temporality and the self, practical reasoning, and autonomy.

Kim Atkins’ Narrative Identity and Moral Identity is a book about the nature of human selfhood. Atkins uses the terms “selfhood” and “identity” interchangeably, and approaches her subject in part through a discussion of theories of personal identity. Her central interest, however, is in practical rather than metaphysical identity. A person, in the sense of interest to Atkins, is a practical unity of first-, second-, and third-personal perspectives (more on this below), and questions about personal identity, in her sense, are questions about the continuity of this practical unity over time.

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20-21 March 2009, Faculty of Philosophy and Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford

Friday, 20 March, Faculty of Philosophy

14.00-15.15 Dialogue with Pamela Sue Anderson (Oxford)
On Confidence, Power and Affirmation

15.15-15.30 Break

15.30-16.45 Dialogue with Luc Bovens (LSE)
On Apologies and Forgiveness

16.45-17.15 Coffee/Tea

17.15-18.30 Dialogue with Morny Joy (Calgary)
On Solicitude and Gift

Saturday, 21 March, Regent’s Park College

11.30-12.45 Dialogue with David Klemm (Iowa-Glasgow)
On Reading Ricoeur (tbc)

13.00-14.15 Lunch (own arrangements)

14.15-15.30 Dialogue with William Schweiker (Chicago)
On Ricoeur and Theological Humanism (tbc)

15.30-16.00 Coffee/Tea

16.00-17.00 Round table
Chair: David Jasper (Glasgow)

The event is open to all and there are no registration fees. For further information and to book a place contact Roxana Baiasu, Roxana.Baiasu@philosophy.ox.acor Juliana Cardinale: 020 7955 7539, J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk
Forum for European Philosophy European Institute, London School of Economics, WC2A 2AE www.philosophy-forum.org

Christian phenomenologists such as Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, and Jean-Louis Chrétien have all pressed an incisive and provocative question to modern secular philosophy: do our lived human experiences of self, other and world finally make sense only when we see them as founded on God’s creative act? By answering this question affirmatively, these thinkers have asserted that a rigorous philosophical account of human experience must also involve a philosophy of God. Human experience, precisely in order to be true to itself, must include practices of religious gratitude and praise. As a corollary, philosophy must include theological analysis.

The Silverman Center’s 2009 Symposium on phenomenology and the theological turn will therefore investigate sympathetically and critically this radical turn to religion in phenomenology. We hope you will join us for what is sure to be a spirited conversation about a matter that is of far more than just theoretical interest.
Speakers

Jean-Luc Marion, University of Chicago and University of Paris-Sorbonne
“On the Foundation of the Distinction Between Theology and Philosophy”

Richard Kearney, Boston College
“Returning to God After God: Levinas, Derrida, Ricoeur”

Edith Wyschogrod, Rice University
“Confessional Memoirs: The Phenomenology of Telling It All”

Jay Lampert, University of Guelph
“Do the Arguments for Saturated Phenomena Prove That They Are Necessary or That They Are Possible? Time to Decide”

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The ego, the Other and the primal fact — Toru Tani

Husserl’s transcendental philosophy and the critique of naturalism — Dermot Moran

Some differences between Kant’s and Husserl’s conceptions of transcendental philosophy — Thomas J. Nenon

Heidegger in Mexico: Emilio Uranga’s ontological hermeneutics — Carlos Alberto Sanchez

A non-Bergsonian Bachelard — Jean François Perraudin

Laughing at finitude: Slavoj Žižek reads Being and Time — Thomas Brockelman

Ricoeur and the pre-political — Farhang Erfani and John F. Whitmire

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmnl0nu5noj

(h/t: aadkenn)

October 15-16, 2008

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA

This conference will precede the conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) to be held in Pittsburgh October 16-18, 2008.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: June 30, 2008

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:

Papers addressing all aspects of Ricoeur’s work are welcome. For purposes of consideration, please submit an abstract only (of roughly 300-500 words) and attach a separate title page that includes the paper’s title, the author’s name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and email address. Abstracts will be reviewed blind by a committee. Notification of acceptance will be given via email. Final papers should not exceed a length of 3000 words. Abstracts should be sent to: Professor Dan Stiver at dstiver@hsutx.edu.