Monday, August 15, 2005

Habermas' seminar on "Naturalism"

It is exciting to know that in the Fall semester at Northwestern University, Habermas in his graduate seminar is taking the issue of naturalism further. It is also interesting to know that he is taking up McDowell's work in his seminar (perhaps for the first time).

Here is the description of the seminar:

"SEMINAR: SPECIAL TOPICS

Progress in biogenetics, neurology and robotics has
sparked a wider reaching discussion on what it means
to conceive of human beings as an integral part of
nature. In this context the kind of naturalism for
which science counts as “the measure of all things”
deserves second thoughts. Whereas Winfrid Sellars
wrote still in the wake of the Unified Science
movement, Quine is the main source for a scientism
that informed the orthodox view in Anglo-Saxon
philosophy. With reference to this background I
propose a discussion of the deviating views of Putnam,
Rorty, Davidson, Mc Dowell and others. With regard to
recent voices in psychology and neurology in favour of
a naturalist self-objectivation of persons, I am
moreover interested in the long standing problem of
Freedom and Determinism: Is our intuitive
understanding of agency and of the practice of
reason-giving up for revision?"

from here

Thanks to Gary E. Davis for the pointer.

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