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2nd DUBLIN PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE CONFERENCE 'The Private'Trinity College Dublin &
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David Copperfield begins his story by worrying whether "I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else." How could anybody else play the pivotal role in one’s own story, and whose story is it anyway? There is a host of problems surrounding the issue of personal identity and epistemology of private or first-person character. This conference is organised around that theme, and reflects a diverse range of interests and approaches, since if there’s one thing that oddly unites us it is a great interest in ourselves and a great concern with our privacy.
Draft programme
FRIDAY 25 March13.30-14.00 Registration and refreshments
14.00 Session I
- ‘Privacy and the Event; Aesthetic Experience as the Basis for Political Engagement’
Connell Vaughan, University College Dublin, Ireland
- ‘Truly introspective judgements’
Kevin Reuter, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK - ‘Introspection as the diagnostic tool of self-scepticism’
Eoin Ryan, Brown University, USA - ‘Immunity to Error through Misidentification, Nonceptual Contents, and Semantic Relativism’
Jérémie Lafraire, Institut Jean Nicod, France
17.00 - 18.30 Plenary
- 'Life as an open book: the FBI’s role in Oppenheimer’s search for self-understanding'
Ray Monk, University of Southampton, UK
Abstract: In his security hearing of 1954, the physicist Robert Oppenheimer had the uncomfortable experience of having his personal conversations and private meetings scrutinised in great detail in the most public manner possible, the details having been provided by violations of his privacy through FBI surveillance. When, years later, it was suggested to him that, when the transcript of those hearings was published his life became an open book, he denied it, saying: “Most of what meant most to me never appeared in those hearings.” However, he added, “I did have occasion then to think of what it might have been like to be an open book. I have come to the conclusion that … it may still not be such a bad way to live.” This paper explores what Oppenheimer might have meant by that in the context of Oppenheimer’s attempts to understand himself and my attempt, as his biographer, to understand him.
SATURDAY 26 March
09.30 - 10.00 Coffee and Tea
10.00 Session III
- 'Doxastic responsibility – between belief and acceptance’
Amir Konigsberg, Princeton University, USA, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- ‘Hegel’s Mutual Recognition and the Development of Personal Identity’
Stephen Hudson, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium - ‘Intimate Habits: Connecting Self and Other?’
Alex South, University of Glasgow, UK - ‘The Narrative Self and the Body’
Fiona Ennis, University College Cork, Ireland
13.45 Session V
- ‘On the first step in a private language argument’
Thomas Raleigh, University of Essex and King’s College, University of London, UK - ‘Everybody Says ‘I’- A ‘Detectivist Story’ about the First-Person Perspective’
Anna Ciaunica, University of Burgundy, France
15.15 - 16.30 Session VI
- ‘The Alternative Definition of Privacy’
Marc-André Weber, Neuchâtel University, Switzerland - ‘The Case(s) of the Litigating Spies: Reputation, Privacy, and Respect’
Juan Espindola-Mata, University of Michigan, USA
Venue: The humanities Institute of Ireland, UCD campus. For directions to the Institute, see here.
Travel details. The cheapest flights to Dublin are normally with Ryanair (www.ryanair.com). From the airport, the cheapest way into town is with the Aircoach, the big blue buses that leave from just outside the arrivals hall. Note that there are several Aircoach routes, and only one goes to UCD, so ask the driver. The UCD stop is sometimes called the 'Montrose'. The Aircoach costs 14 Euro return, and takes about 50 minutes to UCD. The cost of a taxi from the airport to downtown is about 30 Euro, and from the airport to UCD will be 40 Euro.
Cheap accommodation (approx 50 Euro per night) is available from the following:
- http://www.kildarestreethotel.com/, downtown; you have to take the following buses from Kildare street to UCD: 11, 39a, 46a, or 145. The journey takes about 20 minutes, and will cost 1.80 Euro -- you have to pay the driver the exact change.
- http://www.tavistockhouse.com/, about 15 minutes walk to UCD.
- http://www.montroselodge.com/, close to UCD.
- http://abbeyleigh.net/, close to UCD.
- http://www.donnybrooklodge.com, close to UCD
- http://www.taratowers.com/, a hotel, a bit pricier, and about 15 minutes walk to UCD.
Registration is free, but places are limited, so please contact the conference organisers at: UCDgrad2011@gmail.com to reserve a place.