Wednesday 22 January 2014

Philosophers' Rally, Nijmegan 2014

I have been invited to be one of the three international speakers at the student philosophy rally at Nijmegan, Netherlands, in a couple of months. I must say that I rather like the idea of a rally and must resist the temptation to appeal for a storming of the palace afterwards. An army of philosophers!

The website is here.
http://philosophersrally.com/

And the blurb runs:
Philosophers’ Rally 2014: Selves & Persons24th & 25th April 2014, Radboud University NijmegenConfirmed keynote speakers: Simon Critchley, Tim Thornton, Katalin Farkas
On April 24th and 25th, the Radboud University Nijmegen will host the 2014 edition of the annual Dutch Philosophers’ Rally:  a two-day conference organized by students under the banner of the Dutch Association for Philosophy Students. The Philosophers’ Rally aims to offer talented students of all levels (undergraduate to PhD) an opportunity to present their own research and to become acquainted with the work of their peers. The Rally aims to be an inspiring platform where both young as well as very experienced philosophers can meet and exchange ideas.
The theme for this edition of the Philosophers’ Rally will be ‘Selves & Persons’:
The philosophical question ‘Who are we?’ shows up in many debates and contexts. The difficulty is that each time it surfaces, the meaning of ‘we’ may differ. It can mean ‘we’ as humans, as organisms, as citizens, as men or women, and a countless variety of other things. This shows that this question  transgresses different philosophical genres and ages. The common goal these different genres share is the quest for identity and recognition of what it means to be a self or a person, outside of their immediate context.
Thus, for the Philosophers’ Rally 2014 – held this year at Radboud University Nijmegen – we will be searching for answers to that question: what does it mean to be a self or person? And hopefully, that question will be answered from all possible philosophical angles, containing many different notions of selves and persons.