A common characteristic of many contemporary social problems is the uncertainty about the extent to which these problems are public affairs, and thus where, by whom and how they have to be dealt with in a liberal democracy. This is particularly pressing in questions about religious diversity and fundamentalism, gender, sexuality, and reproductive work, biotechnology and modern medicine, to name but a few examples.  In spite of their obvious differences in content, problems in areas such as these jointly call for serious reconsideration of political, moral and ethical concepts. The principles of liberalism and democracy, distinctions like the ones between the private and the public, fact and value, science and politics, and between individual morality and the normative neutrality of liberal democracies have to be interpreted against the background of these new societal problems. To deal with public concerns, established institutions and practices need to be re-evaluated fundamentally. These include the sovereignty of the nation state, the autonomous individual as the basic unit in normative theory, the view that democratic politics is the execution of aggregated individual preferences, and the politics of forms of life.  

With this series of seminars with prominent moral and political philosophers from both inside and outside the Netherlands, we want to shed light on different aspects of the broad problematic, from both more theoretically oriented as well as more concretely social and political perspectives. 

Philosophy and Public Affairs 2024-2025

PPA Colloquium 2024/2025 program

Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30 

Recurring zoom link: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/89282729979

Organised by Yolande Jansen and Jasmijn Leeuwenkamp

Contact : j.leeuwenkamp@uva.nl

 

18 September 2024: Jan Overwijk (IFS Frankfurt/UvH) 
Title: ‘Thermodynamic Marx: Exploding Labor-Power’
Commentator: Jeff Diamanti (UvA)

Where does surplus value come from? It is the central question of political economy that has become especially pertinent in our era of ecological collapse. How does economic value relate to ecological resources or “wealth”? A popular interpretation of Marx’s critique of political economy called value-form theory, what I call Rubinism, has found itself in a dilemma. Value cannot be traced to flows of matter-energy in a one-to-one calculus for risk of a reductionist metaphysics. Yet neither can value simply be an idealist measure of the economy, bearing no relation to the thermodynamic flows in which it is nested. In this chapter, I navigate the dilemma by arguing that labor-power “produces” economic value because it uniquely mediates economic value and ecological wealth. The chapter moves beyond Rubinism in tracing abstract labor back to labor-power. Labor-power is split across economic and ecological dimensions, being both a thermodynamic principle and a commodity. Yet while it shares these dimensions with all products, it is an eccentric commodity in that its value is determined through class struggle. It is this eccentricity that puts labor-power in a crucial position to “produce” value itself. Labor-power has the unique capacity to produce value, not because it can create ecological wealth in a way that machines, nature or other forms of human work cannot, but because it has the ability to refuse the transition from ecology to economy. Labor-power is the part of capital that opposes itself in class struggle and thus decides what ecological wealth counts as economic value. In thermodynamic terms, labor-power converts energy into work.

Bio

Jan Overwijk is NWO Rubicon postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Social Research at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and assistant professor at the University of Humanistic Studies. His research is situated in social philosophy and critical theory. His monograph Cybernetic Capitalism: A Critical Theory of the Incommunicable will appear in 2025 with Fordham University Press. Currently, he is working on a project on economic value that stages an encounter between eco-Marxism and ecological economics.

9 October 2024: Eveline Groot (EUR)

Title: ‘The Republicanism of ‘The Mother of Liberalism.’ How Germaine de Staël’s Love of Liberty Guides her Ideas About the Constitution’
Commentator: Thomas Nys (UvA)

Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) developed a unique philosophical theory about state governance due to her reworking of the republican model of government into an aristocratic liberal republicanism. Staël is, however, a liberal thinker prior to being a republican thinker. In this chapter I aim to demonstrate that through the lens of Staël’s philosophical anthropology, and in particular through her use of the passion of love of liberty as an epistemic emotion, Staël is able to develop a fixed a set of moral and political values and principles that need to be met as much as possible within the governance of a state–depending on the political reality, the psychological zeitgeist, and the stage of human progress. This set exists of the promotion of equality before the law, a focus on individual rights, and the requirement of a constrained government.

Bio

Eveline Groot is a PhD candidate in the history of philosophy at the Erasmus School of Philosophy, and writes her doctoral thesis on Germaine de Staël’s (1766–1817) ideas about human nature, morality, and politics. Eveline has studied philosophy, ancient culture, and religion studies at the University of Amsterdam and University of Edinburgh.

30 October 2024: Hannah McHugh (UU)
Title: TBA
Commentator: TBA

13 November 2024: Jamie Draper (UU)
Title: TBA
Commentator: TBA

4 December 2024: Marie-Louise Krogh (LEI)
Title: TBA
Commentator: TBA

18 December 2024: Carolina Sanchez-Jaegher (UU)
Title: TBA
Commentator: TBA

8 January 2025: PhD Workshop - Jetske Brouwer
Title: TBA
Commentator: TBA

29 January 2025: Carmen Lea Dege (RU)
Title: TBA
Commentator: Daniel Loick (UvA)

7 May 2025: Hagar Kotef (SOAS, London)
Title: TBA
Commentator: TB

Philosophy and Public Affairs Colloquium 2023/2024

Recurring Zoom Link: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/83155738032

Philosophy and Public Affairs Colloquium 2023/2024

Recurring Zoom Link: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/83155738032

 

20 September: Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30

Speaker: Dr. Philip Robichaud (VU)

Commentator: Dr. Thomas Nys (UvA)

Title: “The Primacy of Private Blame”

 

11 October: Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30

Speaker: Dr. Yara Al Salman (UU)

Commentator: Dr. Johan Olsthoorn (UvA)

Title: “Sharing Use and Authority: The Value of Group Ownership”

 

24 November (Friday!): Doelenzaal UB, 12:00 - 17:00

Speaker: Prof. dr. Hartmut Rosa (Jena)

Commentators: Dr. Mathijs Peters (LEI), Dr. Stefan Niklas (UvA), Drs. Carmen Puchinger (UU), Drs. Tivadar Vervoort (Leuven)

Title: “Late Modernity in Crisis: Best Account - Outlining a Systematic Theory of Modern Society”

 

13 December: Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30

Speaker: Prof. dr. Marina Martinez Mateo (München)

Commentator: Dr. Gulzaar Barn (UvA)

Title: “Critical Theory and Family Abolition”

 

17 January: Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30

Speaker: Prof. dr. Yolande Jansen (VU/UvA)

Commentator: Drs. Oscar Talbot (UvA)

Title: “‘The European Way of Life’ as a Nightmare for Others in the Anthropocene”

 

7 February: Faculteitskamer OTM, 13:30 - 15:00 (!!)

Speaker: Dr. Selin Gerlek (UvA)

Commentator: Dr. Olya Kudina (TU Delft)

Title: “Materiality and Machinic Embodiment: A Postphenomenological Inquiry into ChatGPT’s Active User Interface”

28 February: Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker: Dr. Mihnea Tanasescu (Brussels)
Commentator: Drs. Jasmijn Leeuwenkamp (UvA)
Title: “The Political Agency of Water: Community, Value, and Legal Personality”

11 March: Faculteitskamer 2 OTM, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker: Prof. dr. Susan Wolf (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Commentator: Dr. Thomas Nys (UvA)
Title: “Being Responsible”

20 March: Faculteitskamer OTM, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker: Dr. Nicholas Vrousalis (EUR)
Commentator: Dr. Gulzaar Barn (UvA)
Title: "Materializing Intersectional Oppression: An Exploitation-First Theory of Class, Gender, Race"

6 June: Faculteitskamer Oude Turfmarkt 145, TBA

Speaker: Prof. dr. Linnet Taylor (TiU)

Commentator:  TBA

Title: “Fairness, Accountability and Transparency: Friction and Reconciliation’’

Contact: Tijn Smits - t.m.smits@uva.nl

 

Abstract. The past few years have seen growing recognition that machine learning raises novel challenges for ensuring non-discrimination, due process, and understandability in decision-making. They have also witnessed an unprecedented increase in the complexity of machine learning models, which challenges efforts to address the concerns above. This chapter will focus on identifying these concerns (e.g. algorithmic bias and discrimination) and on the challenges met, but also posed by, their proposed solutions. The work of addressing fairness, accountability and transparency in machine learning systems takes place at the intersection of ethics, political philosophy, law and regulation, and social justice. There is perhaps no other object of multidisciplinary research that has generated so much contemporary conflict. In order to understand why, we will outline both the history of the debates that have arisen over fairness in relation to machine learning, and the worldviews that are coming into conflict. We will use the concept of levels of abstraction (Floridi, 2008) to consider the different conceptual levels these debates address, and to analyse why they are not easily reconciled. We will then outline possible ways to foster generative, rather than destructive, friction around the concept of fairness, and how these conflicts can speak to each other in a useful way.

 

Bio. Dr. Linnet Taylor is Professor of International Data Governance at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), where she leads the ERC-funded Global Data Justice project. Her research at TILT broadly focuses on how new sources of digital data are impacting governance, research on human and economic development, and political representation.

 

 

19 June: Faculteitskamer Oude Turfmarkt 145, 16:00 - 17:30

Speaker: Dr. Romy Eskens (UU)

Commentator: Dr. Chris Ranalli (VU)

Title: “Offensive Advice” (co-authored with Jonas Haeg)

Contact: Tijn Smits - t.m.smits@uva.nl

  

Abstract. It’s often permissible, or even required, to warn others about possible dangers and advise them about how to avoid these. Think of, for instance, warning signs along hiking trails, travel advice about countries in conflict, and general health guidance. However, advice about avoiding dangers sometimes seems morally offensive, even when it’s factually good advice. For example, many think it offensive to advise women not to walk home alone at night, or to refrain from wearing certain clothes, in order to reduce the risk of being sexually assaulted. This is so even if the suggested strategies indeed reduce the risk. Our question is: what is it that makes danger-related advice of this kind, but not the earlier ‘good’ kind, morally offensive? We consider and reject several possible answers – for example, that it’s the danger’s wrongful status or a misallocation of responsibility – and then develop and defend our own. According to our answer, factually good advice is morally offensive if and because the speaker lacks the appropriate evaluative commitments.

 

Bio. Romy Eskens is an Assistant Professor at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University. Before starting in Utrecht, she was a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at Stockholm University, where she also earned her PhD. Her research is primarily in moral philosophy, and secondarily in social/political philosophy and moral psychology. She currently writes about the ethics of mind, personal relationships, moral address, reactive attitudes, harming and rescuing, and moral equality and partiality

Schedule for the PPA Colloquium  2022-2023

For more information about attending the event and receiving the papers, please contact Gerrit Schaafsma at g.schaafsma@uva.nl  

 

It is also possible to join via Zoom, using the following link: 

 

https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/84176339942

 

The full schedule is below. Please scroll down for more specific information about our first session. 

 

 

14 September, 16:00

Dr. Lucie White (Utrect)  

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Precautionary Reasoning, Pandemic Restrictions and Asymmetry of Control  

5 October, 16:00  
Dr. Thomas Fossen (Leiden)  
Political Obligation, Membership, and the Problem of Judgment  

26 October, 16:00
Dr. Gulzaar Barn (UvA)  
A Right to Gestate?  

16 November, 16:00 
Prof. Lisa Herzog (RUG)  
The epistemological preconditions of markets and their historicity  

7 December, 16:00 
Dr. Siba Harb (Tilburg)  
Refugee Protection and the EU   

11 January, 16:00 
To be determined. 

1 February, 16:00  
Mr. Joris Roelofs (UvA)  
A Political Phenomenology of Improvisation  

22 February, 16:00
Prof. Frieder Vogelmann (Freiburg)
Truth as Force: A Materialist Picture

 

Previous in PPA:

Programme Spring 2022:

30 March: 

Just Serrano-Zamora (RUG)  

Paper: "Epistemic-Political Orientations: Rethinking Political Epistemology."

Venue: Faculty Room at the UvA Philosophy Department

Time: 16:00 – 18:00

 

13 April: 

Laurin Berresheim (PhD ASCA/Ethics)

Paper: "Balancing and limiting the right to privacy"

Venue: Faculty Room at the UvA Philosophy Department

Time: 16:00 – 18:00

 

11 May: 

Gulzaar Barn (Utrecht)

Title of paper to be announced

Venue: Faculty Room at the UvA Philosophy Department

Time: 16:00 – 18:00

24 May:
Spinoza Lecture I by Prof. Lewis Gordon
Venue: Zuiderkerk
Time: 20:15

16 &17 June:
Two-day symposium in honour of Charles Mills
Venue: TBA
Time: 9.30-17 on both days

16 June:
Spinoza Lecture II by Prof. Philomena Essed
Venue: AULA
Time 20:15

Schedule for the PPA Colloquium meetings October-December 2021, fortnightly, on Wednesday afternoons 16-18 hrs and with drinks afterwards. These will be hybrid meetings which will take place part live in the Faculty Room and part on zoom at: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/82703955267 (this is a permanent link, it will accessible on Wednesdays from 15.30-18.00 on every occurrence of the colloquium).

We will distribute a work in progress chapter or article to be discussed about one week before the meetings.

Programme

13 October: 

Gerrit Schaafsma -- Resisting Injustice: Civil Disobedience and Climate Change
Commentator: Francisco Garcia-Gibson
Moderator: Jasmijn Leeuwenkamp

27 October:  

Cécile Laborde – White and secular privilege
Commentators: Christoph Baumgartner and Sophie Lauwers (Lauwers on Zoom).
Moderator: Yolande Jansen

10 November: 

Jasmijn Leeuwenkamp: Will human rights save the ‘anthropos’ from anthropocentrism? Climate change and the overrepresentation of Man.
Commentator: Laura Burgers
Moderator: Gerrit Schaafsma

24 November: 

Mari Mikkola: Dissident Theorizing: Tracing Nonideal Philosophical Methodology (first two chapters).
Commentator: Jana Cattien
Moderator: Daniel Loick

I am currently working on a monograph that undertakes to develop a nonideal methodology informed by socially engaged philosophical outlooks – most notably, by feminist and anti-racist insights – in analytic philosophy. Feminist philosophers and philosophers of race often claim to be methodologically committed to nonideal theory: that an examination of normative concepts like justice should start by attending to actual oppressive social relations, instead of aiming to articulate an unachievable ideal of a perfectly just society. Although not all nonideal investigations are feminist and anti-racist, the latter are frequently pitted against more ‘mainstream’ ones that overlook real-world complexities generated by gender, race, ability, class, and sexuality (among others). Since non-standard philosophical contributions are marginalized and even subject to outright derision, nonideal theorists sometimes see themselves as dissidents or ‘outlaws’ relative to more traditional investigations in challenging established philosophical assumptions and conceptions. Prior work attests to the value of feminist and anti-racist interventions in analytic philosophy. My book aims to do something deeper and more thoroughgoing: to investigate and demonstrate the transformative potential of dissident nonideal insights when thinking about the methodology of analytical philosophy.
 

8 December: 

Hao Wang: Algorithmic colonization of the public sphere
Commentator: Marijn Sax
Moderator: Gerrit Schaafsma

 22 December: 

Francesca Raimundi: Title TBA
Commentator: Daniel Loick 
Moderator: Yolande Jansen