ABSTRACT
In this paper, I use Brazilian thinker Costa Lima’s ideas concerning the “control of the imaginary” in literary theory to reexamine Pierre Hadot’s history of philosophy, as involving the progressive loss of the connection between theoretical discourse and existential practices, following the end of the classical-hellenistic period. In Control of the Imaginary, The Dark Side of Reason and elsewhere, Lima advances a sweeping claim that the Western heritage of literary theorising, from the Romans onwards, has been characterised by a series of, political and theoretical, operations of “controlling” the creative imagination operative in the creation and reception of literary fictions; subordinating this creativity, and its capacity to generate alternative “as if” worlds, to accepted notions of truth, verisimilitude, decorum, and morality. In Lima’s narrative, Aristotle’s Poetics with its notion of mimesis represents a resource to which literary theory should return to theorise what he terms the “criticity” (criticidade) of poetic and literary writings, as means to hold at a distance, and challenge, prevailing epistemic and other norms. In Hadot’s account of Western philosophy, ancient Greek philosophy’s pedagogic and existential concern with forming, as much as informing, students was correlated to the rich variety of distinctly literary forms that ancient texts take: up to the penning of tragedies by a philosopher like Seneca, but including Plato’s and Aristotle’s dialogues. Indeed, Hadot explicitly argues that in the ancient philosophical paradigm, the “imagination”, the literary and the rhetorical, found a place in philosophical discourses—particularly concerning the figure of the sage— which has since been largely lost. Does Hadot’s narrative, linking the atrophy of philosophy as a way of life with the diminution of the literary forms of philosophy, speak to or even echo Lima’s concerns in the literary field? This paper will address the question, not without noting significant qualifications that need to be appended to such a claim.

Dr MATTHEW SHARPE
Matthew Sharpe is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Deakin University. His ongoing research interests include political philosophy, psychoanalysis and critical theory, epistemology, and conservative and reactionary political thought. He is the author of Slavoj Žižek: A Little Piece of the Real (Ashgate, 2005), the co-author with Geoff Boucher of Žižek and Politics (Edinburgh UP, 2010) and The Times Will Suit Them: Postmodern Conservatism in Australia (Allen & Unwin 2008), and the co-author with Jo Faulkner of Understanding Psychoanalysis (Acumen 2008).

The 2012 Deakin University seminar series is hosted by the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.

This Deakin University seminar series is free to attend and open to all. Please direct any inquiries to Dr Sean Bowden at s.bowden@deakin.edu.au.

This week, to herald the coming Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne (13-15 April 2012), the Deakin Philosophical Society will ask whether New Atheism promotes Islamophobia. A small debate between Melbourne’s own Jeff Sparrow and A/Professor of Biology PZ Myers will form the basis for our discussion. The relevant contributions to the debate can be found at:

• (Opening) Jeff Sparrow, ‘Where have all the progressive atheists gone?’, New Matilda, 8 June 2011.
• (Rebuttal) PZ Myers, ‘Atheism ≠ fascism’, Pharyngula, 12 June 2011.
• (Rejoinder) Jeff Sparrow, ‘The Left, the Right and the New Atheism: a response to PZ Myers’, Overland Journal, 14 June 2011.

Directions to building ib on Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus can be found here.

Kind regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
Treasurer, Deakin Philosophical Society.

By popular demand, and due to the recent uproar surrounding the Katter’s Australian Party ad against Liberal National Party of Queensland leader Campbell Newman, this week the DPS will ask the question ‘Is there any sound reason to oppose gay marriage?’

To many, the answer may be an obvious ‘No’. Some may think the DPS shallow, idiotic and/or uncultured for even asking the question. But we’re a philosophical society, not a Ministry of Orthodoxy. As such, we have license to — nay, want to — ask these tough questions. More importantly, we want to consider the tough answers.

Chances are that the obvious ‘No’ answer will be the right one. But we don’t know that it’s the right answer until we consider the arguments. That’s why this week we turn to Michael Levin’s whopping 32 page article ‘Why homosexuality is abnormal’.

Levin’s article was published in The Monist (1984, vol. 67, no. 2), a prestigious philosophical journal that’s been around for over one hundred years. Here’s the abstract:

This paper defends the view that homosexuality is abnormal and hence undesirable—not because it is immoral or sinful, or because it weakens society or hampers evolutionary development, but for a purely mechanical reason. It is a misuse of bodily parts. Clear empirical sense attaches to the idea of the use of such bodily parts as genitals, the idea that they are for something, and consequently to the idea of their misuse. I argue on grounds involving natural selection that misuse of bodily parts can with high probability be connected to unhappiness. I regard these matters as prolegomena to such policy issues as the rights of homosexuals, the rights of those desiring not to associate with homosexuals, and legislation concerning homosexuality, issues which I shall not discuss systematically here. However, I do in the last section draw a seemingly evident corollary from my view that homosexuality is abnormal and likely to lead to unhappiness.

The article is available through Deakin library, here.

Read it, or don’t. See you there, or not.

Kind regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
Treasurer, Deakin Philosophical Society.

The Deakin Philosophical Society is funded by Deakin University Student Association (DUSA).

ABSTRACT
This paper examines the importance of time to the tradition of continental philosophy and the Continental-Analytic ‘divide’.

Dr Jack Reynolds
Jack Reynolds is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at La Trobe University. He is the author of Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity (Ohio UP, 2004), Understanding Existentialism (McGill-Queens, 2006), Analytic Versus Continental: Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy (Acumen, 2010, with James Chase) and, most recently, Chronopathologies: Time and Politics in Deleuze, Derrida, Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology (Lexington, 2011).

The 2012 Deakin University seminar series is hosted by the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.

This Deakin University seminar series is free to attend and open to all. Please direct any inquiries to Dr Sean Bowden at s.bowden@deakin.edu.au.

This Wednesday, 14 March, from 5-6.30pm in ib3.307 on the Waurn Ponds campus the Deakin Philosophical Society will discuss the question ‘Should philosophy be experimental?’ Discussion will focus on the work of Associate Professor Joshua Knobe. In particular, we’ll look at a very brief article that Knobe published in The Philosophers’ Magazine entitled ‘What Is Experimental Philosophy?’. You can also find good introductions to Knobe’s work here and here, the transcript of an interview with Knobe here, and Knobe’s contribution to the New York Times philosophy column ‘The Stone’ here.

Hope to see you all there.

Kind regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
Treasurer, Deakin Philosophical Society.

ABSTRACT
The place of work in the contemporary theoretical field is a paradoxical one. Many empirical inquiries continue to be based on the assumption that work and employment are key factors in the study of major social phenomena such as inequality (economic, sexual or cultural), or shifts in family structures. This assumption is largely relayed in public discourse and policy discussions. On the other hand, there is widespread consensus in the theoretical arms of the humanities and social sciences that the work paradigm is now obsolete, both on descriptive and normative grounds. Adding to this complexity, substantive new models have emerged, notably the “psychodynamics of work” in France, which challenge this theoretical consensus. This paper places itself within this overall project to reaffirm and redescribe theoretically the centrality of work. I focus in this paper on the historicist assumptions at the heart of the theoretical consensus against the centrality of work. I identify four major reference points for these historicist objections: Marxist, Foucauldian, social-theoretical and anthropological. In a final part, I make some suggestions to indicate the contours of a rejoinder against such powerful objections.

A/Prof JEAN-PHILIPPE DERANTY
Jean-Philippe Deranty is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Macquarie University. He is the author of Beyond Communication: A Critical Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Philosophy (Brill, 2009), and is the editor of a number of volumes including Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts (Acumen, 2010) and, with Alison Ross, Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene (Continuum, 2012). Jean-Philippe is also a member of the editorial board of Critical Horizons.

The 2012 Deakin University seminar series is hosted by the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.

This Deakin University seminar series is free to attend and open to all. Please direct any inquiries to Dr Sean Bowden at s.bowden@deakin.edu.au.

This Wednesday, 7 March, from 5-6.30pm in ib3.307 on the Waurn Ponds campus the Deakin Philosophical Society will discuss the question, ‘Is torture ever justified?’ A presentation by Marc Thiessen at the 2011 Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas will be used as a basis of discussion. You can download video and audio of Thiessen’s presentation at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2011/10/29/3346885.htm. We’ll screen the ‘highlights’ of the presentation at the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting.

Hope to see you all there.

Kind regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
Treasurer, Deakin Philosophical Society.

In 2012, Deakin University will be hosting a series of philosophy seminars. These seminars are planned for each Tuesday afternoon. For a full schedule of coming presentations, visit http://deakinphilosophicalsociety.com/calendar.

Today, Tuesday 6 March from 3.30-5pm in c2.05 on the Burwood campus (videolinked to ic1.108 on the Waurn Ponds campus), Dr Patrick Stokes from Deakin University will presents ‘The Naked Self: Some Kierkegaardian Contributions to Analytic Philosophy of Personal Identity’.

ABSTRACT
Kierkegaard is a philosopher with striking — and often confronting — things to say about the nature, structure, constitution and importance of selfhood, yet he his work has been almost totally absent from contemporary discussions of self and identity. I argue that Kierkegaard’s reflexive understanding of memory and anticipation, particularly his discussions of ‘contemporaneity’ as an experience of phenomenal co-presence with past and future events, offer useful insights for these discussions. However, Kierkegaard’s understanding of selfhood also challenges contemporary accounts of the self (both metaphysical and practical) due to its fundamentally normative, eschatologically-oriented nature, and its corresponding dual temporality. Ultimately, Kierkegaard offers an irreducibly first-personal, temporally-emplaced model of selfhood that points beyond some of the current impasses in personal identity theory.

Dr PATRICK STOKES
Patrick Stokes is Lecturer in Philosophy at Deakin University. His current research is concerned to bring Kierkegaard into dialogue with contemporary analytic philosophy, as well as to explore the temporal and perspectival aspects of the question of selfhood. He is the author of Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self and Moral Vision (Palgrave, 2010) and, with Adam Buben, the co-editor of Kierkegaard and Death (Indiana UP, 2011).

The 2012 Deakin University seminar series is hosted by the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.

Unfortunately, the planned Jim Hopkins session had to be cancelled. Instead we’ll discuss the question, ‘Could a secular ethic defend paedophilia?’ Rabbi Moshe Averick’s brief article ‘A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late’ will form the basis of discussion. Averick responded to reader comments in the follow-up article ‘Atheism and Pedophilia Part II: The Incoherent Moral Philosophy of Michael Ruse’ and that article may clarify some of the arguments in the first article.

Hope to see you all there.

Kind regards,

Dylan Nickelson,
Treasurer, Deakin Philosophical Society.

The Deakin Philosophical Society is funded by Deakin University Student Association (DUSA).

This Wednesday (22 Feb) the Deakin Philosophical Society will discuss the ethics of a ‘fat tax’. This will be our second week of bioethics discussions.

For background reading on the topic, there is this Op Ed piece from the NY Times as well as this series of Slate articles.

Hope to see you all there,

Jason Bishop
President
Deakin Philosophical Society