|
|
International Scientific Committee:
A. Aspect (Paris); P. Aubenque (Paris); F.J. Ayala
(California); J. Bouveresse (Paris); †E. Chillida
(San Sebastián); †W. Lamb (Arizona); T. Marco (Madrid); U. Moulines
(München); †I. Prigogine (Bruxelles); H. Putnam
(Harvard). Coordinator: Víctor Gómez Pin (Barcelona) Advisory Committee: Evandro Agassi (Honorary President of the International Federation of the
Philosophical Societies. FISP); Giovanni Boniolo
(IFOM-IEO, Milano); Tomás Calvo (President de l´Institut
International de Philosophie. Paris). Victoria Camps (Autonomous University of
Barcelona). Chumakov A. (Russian Philosophical
Society Moscow); Alberto Cordero (City
University of New York); Joseph Dauben (City University of New York); Javier Echeverria
(CSIC. Madrid): Jorge Wagensberg (Barcelona); Francis
Wolff (Ecole Normal Superieure.
Paris); G. Wollmer (Technische Univ.
Braunschweig). Organising Committee: V.
Gómez Pin, Coordinator (Barcelona); J. I. Galparsoro, Secretary (San
Sebastián); G. Arrizabalaga, Treasurer,
Institutional Officer (San Sebastián); V. Gómez Pin,
Coordinator (Barcelona); J. Pacho (San Sebastián); N. Ursua (San
Sebastián); F. Adell
(Barcelona); I. Ceberio (San Sebastián); J. R. Makuso (San
Sebastián); |
|
||||||||||||
|
|
I CIRCULAR
IX INTERNATIONAL ONTOLOGY
CONGRESS Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Departamento de Filosofía, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
(UAB), Departament de Filosofia, Museo Chillida Leku, Fundación Paideia Colaboration Institutions: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere
ed Arti, Centre Leon Robin (Sorbonne), CCCB-Institut d’Humanitats San
Sebastián (September 27-October 1) / Barcelona, (October 4-5) 2010 PHILOSOPHY AS AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNIVERSAL Recent
editions of the International Ontology Congress Since its first edition in 1993
the objective of the International Ontology Congress (IOC) has been to assess
the situation of the key questions of fundamental philosophy contemplated in
the light of contemporary reflection. It follows from this that its Permanent
International Scientific Committee includes distinguished figures of
contemporary science and art alongside philosophers. The editions of the
Congress have been held with the sponsorship of the UNESCO. The III and IV editions of the IOC
concentrated on the concept of Physis. From the
emergence of the concept in presocratic texts to
the subversion that Quantum Mechanics (and specifically theorising such as
Bell’s Theorem) has meant for our representations of Physis,
without forgetting the treatment of the concept in the physics of Aristotle,
all angles were considered. The V edition (held in October
2002) examined the concept of the living, which without ever abandoning the
historical perspective was once again considered from the perspective of
fascinating contemporary debates. Biology played the part of an architectural
discipline, but was also enriched with approaches from linguistics,
semiotics, psychology, chemistry, physics itself, and naturally ethics and
aesthetics, understood beneath the prism of a radical questioning of Kantian
order (is there or is there not a horizon of ends which, within the living,
singles out “transcendentally” what is human?) In
the VI edition of the IOC the organisers proposed to extend the reflection
initiated in the previous one and also to make the leap to the consideration
of the problems with the intersection of biology and linguistics; hence the
title From the Gene to Language: the state of the matter. The president of
honour of the congress was Hilary Putnam. The title of the VII edition was
From the Platonic Cave to Internet: what is Real and what is Virtual. It was
sponsored by the UNESCO and the president of honour was John Searle. Our
perceptions, aesthetic or ethical judgements, and our cognitive efforts have
never been so influenced by information (conveyed by digits) with
two-dimensional plasmation as in our time. Digital
modelling has permitted extraordinary advances, for example, in the field of
medicine. It has been said that even purely theoretical reflection (whether
scientific or philosophical) would today be impossible de facto without
digital paraphernalia. Others object to this and maintain that Einstein, Niels Böhr, and even John
Bell are the cause rather than the result of technological sophistication,
and that science worthy of the name continues to respond to eternal
objectives of intelligibility, for which technology must continue to be
merely an instrument. The subject of what is real and what is virtual has various sides that involve from mathematical
simulation to cybernetics, molecular biology, and neurobiology, without
forgetting cognitive psychology, etc. Another prominent aspect is that of
contemporary physics, in which the term "virtual" is applied to
phenomena that violate the traditional laws of conservation when this
violation is undetectable in a direct manner. The concept of what is "virtual" in art, and particularly in music, was not
neglected either. The question of its universality is an obsession in many
disciplines. Musicologists do not lose heart when it comes to affirm the anthropological importance of music because
some people are not receptive to musical manifestations to which exclusivity
has been abusively attributed. The President of Honour of the
VIII Congress, which once again was sponsored by the UNESCO, was the
distinguished philosopher and physicist A. Grünbaum.
Its subject was “Apeiron: the problem of infinity
from Greek thought to contemporary science”. Personalities from the world of
mathematics, cosmology, and other disciplines attended from many different
countries to assess the situation in
sessions held in San Sebastián and
Barcelona. At the Casa Asia in Barcelona and under the auspices of this
institution, which is dependent on the
Spanish Foreign Office, a special seminar entitled “Mathematical infinity in
a Chinese context” was held with mathematicians and philosophers with
connections with the Peking Science Academy under the direction of Professor
J. Dauben of the City University of New York (CUNY)
and the Peking Science Academy itself. The success of the participation of
the public in this seminar has encouraged the organisers in their decision
(which was not made recently) to strengthen links with Asian philosophical
and scientific institutions. About
the IX edition of the International Ontology Congress The IX International Ontology
Congress, which continues to be faithful to its theme of returning to the
major problems of Greek philosophy in the light of the reflection of
contemporary science, will however incorporate a minor shift. The subject
chosen will not be a specific philosophical problem but rather the problem
that philosophy itself represents. Philosophy has an emblem in the
opening sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in which he affirms that “all men by nature desire to know”.
Whether Aristotle was right or not and whether it is appropriate or not to
attribute to human nature as such a predisposition to lucidity, this becomes
then a key question that concerns, among other disciplines, education. In
2000 the cyclic World Philosophy Congress was held in Boston, precisely with
the generic title of “Philosophy
educator of Humanity”. And this would be, indeed, a fundamental aspect of
what we intend here, a kind of inseparably ethical and educational corollary
of this purpose. Affirming or denying the universality of philosophy is
almost a case of anthropological optimism or pessimism, of confidence in a
common disposition of reasoning beings, disposition that would be a
consequence of the essential richness of language beyond the contingent
differences that separate peoples, cultures, and civilisations, and even
beyond the difference between adults and children. There is no doubt that
this requires us to understand philosophical disposition to be an elemental
attitude of the spirit that also manifests itself in the demand for
scientific intelligibility. Certainly we cannot obviate the outright
rejection that the thesis could face (see the presentation of section 2). Without underestimating the importance of
these objections, divergence seems to be hampered by a misunderstanding
regarding what should be understood by the term philosophy itself. It is hard to imagine a place where man does
not wonder about man and, therefore, a place without some form of
philosophical anthropology. And this is perhaps valid for each and every one
of the questions that have fed the history of philosophy. The point is not to
affirm that certain modes of spirituality with weaker or stronger links to
religious attitudes characteristic of a given civilisation are definitely a
part of philosophy, but rather perhaps to indicate that, after the
multiplicity of its objectives, the aforementioned arrangement indicated by
Aristotle persists as an invariable factor. This is reflected specifically by
the fact that a person unfamiliar at first with Greek-Western culture would
have no difficulty (obviously with the necessary educational mediation) in
acquiring the theories associated with such a culture. Without a doubt other objections arise here;
it is unquestionable that some of the universal questions posed by philosophy
are also addressed by other symbolic forms such as art and religion, and
naturally by science. The universality of the questions is not in itself
sufficient argument in favour of the universality of philosophy. The problem
of isolating the epistemological specificity of philosophy, at least
confronted to religion and art, will therefore be one of the keys of our
congress.
*** But if philosophy has aspirations to
universality, if the aim is “philosophy as an educator of humanity”, it is
essential to wonder why so little importance is attached to philosophy in the
basic training of citizens, starting with that of the so-called developed
countries. Aristotle affirmed that a philosophical attitude was the
prerogative of free men. But in this case the neutralisation of such a disposition
in the immense majority of people constitutes an indication of the absence of
effective freedom. The real reason for the lack of the universality of
philosophy must be of a social nature: for the immense majority of human
beings, the struggle to survive continues to take up the entirety of their
existence. Under such conditions there is no chance of a general education
according to philosophical requirements. The foregoing implies that philosophy is
intrinsically committed, it calls for a criticism of any illegitimate social
order as a mere corollary of the vindication of itself. In the last World
Philosophy Congress held in Seoul, the President stressed the importance of
the event in the conviction that “the technological, military, and economic powers
do not have a monopoly of world power”. In his view philosophy, given its
ability to “expose falsehoods and illusions” generated by these forces and to
propose “a better world for humanity to live in”, could establishes itself as
a “counter-power”, the whole mission would be “fighting to create a world
citizenship”. The question is to determine whether there is any possibility
of this really happening, i.e. if philosophy can overcome the burden that the
configuration of world powers represents for education in general. In any case, the vindication of philosophy
would continue to be valid even if the globalisation of the free market
became compatible with the reduction of the huge economic differences between
countries and between citizens within each country. As Professor Ioanna Kuçuradi declared
in the aforementioned Seoul congress, this greater equity would only mean the
effective generalisation of human rights if it were accompanied by a general
education intended to develop in each individual the faculties characterising
them as a human being. This is where philosophy comes into play: educating
humanity through philosophy would be tantamount to making possible for each
one of us to update the entire potential that characterises us as beings of
reason. It simply would be equivalent to helping us to fulfil our humanity
(education must fertilise an organ, but cannot be its substitute, as Plato
had already pointed out). SECTIONS OF THE
CONGRESS 1. - The philosophical exigency considered from palaeontology and
anthropology Under the Honorary Presidency of Eudald Carbonell (Co-Director of ATAPUERCA Project) Aristotle: Pάνteς
ἄνθρωpοι tοῦ eἰdένaι ὀρέγονtaι fύseι Philosophy has an emblem in the opening
sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in which he affirms that “all men by nature desire to know”.
Whether Aristotle was right or not and whether it is appropriate or not to
attribute to human nature as such a predisposition to lucidity, this becomes
then a key question that concerns, among other disciplines, anthropology and
palaeontology. As we said, it is hard to imagine that in any
place man stop wondering about man, that is, that there is not any kind of
philosophical anthropology. And this is perhaps valid for each and every one
of the questions that have fed the history of philosophy. It is difficult to
contemplate a human community without a background of these elementary
questions (from which arises, among other aspects, the need to analyse
phenomena, to describe them and to order them as a whole, all of which we may
refer to as science), as this would
almost be tantamount to imagining it without culture, without knowledge, and
even without technology. 2. - The debate about
universality of philosophy in the philosophical tradition of occident. Under the Honorary Presidency of Pierre Aubenque It is a fact that philosophy,
whatever its features may be, is a human production of a relatively recent
history, especially in the occidental version. Can a cultural universal
appear so late? Can it arise only within one geo-cultural context or just
within some of them? It is legitimate to keep the term “philosophy” for what
in the West has been practised since the Greeks under this name, excluding by
this way spiritual productions that intercultural philosophy calls
philosophic as well? 3. - Invariant features of philosophy and
non-occidental traditional cultures Under the Honorary Presidency of Darius Shayegan It is known that some people
supported that philosophy would be the exclusive fruit of the Greek culture,
in such a way that the analogue forms linked to other civilizations would be
modalities of spirituality that correspond to an exigency of spirit different
from the philosophical one. Nevertheless, the so called intercultural
philosophy admits that in the Maya, Vedic or ancestral Africans cultures,
among others, there are modalities of philosophy as well. Which are the
intersection points, if there are any? If that is the case, the following
question arises: is it not abusive to characterize as “philosophy” almost
exclusively what in occident is called under this name? 4. - Philosophy and the origin of science Under the Honorary Presidency of Andrés Moya
(Head of the Instituto Cavanilles
of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology) In this section we will wonder
about those philosophical invariances present in
the scientific activity (very probably in all civilizations and in all
times). This section, in a certain way, tries to remember that science,
originally, may be primarily an exigency of intelligibility, whatever its
ulterior applications may be. Remembering this origin, philosophy
interrogates science in a world that we know it is mainly the fruit of
science itself and of the ways of technology that are shoots of science. 5. - PARMENIDES. Common root of philosophical thought and poetic
thought. Under the Honorary Presidency of Jose Saramago
(NOBEL Award) The significant Parmenides finds himself inextricably
connected to the history of philosophy and literature. Many times it is
forgotten (simply because of the difficulties of translation) that this jewel
of the logical thought is, primarily and first of all, a poem. Remembering this inextricable knot of both dimensions of
spirit (poetry and philosophy) is the aim of this section. 6. - PAIDEIA “Philosophy educating humanity” Under the Honorary Presidency of Ioanna Kuçuradi (Director of the
Centre for Research and Application of the Philosophy of Human Rights, Hacettepe University) Affirming or denying the universality of
philosophy is almost a case of anthropological optimism or pessimism, of
confidence in a common disposition of reasoning beings, disposition that
would be a consequence of the essential richness of language beyond the
contingent differences that separate peoples, cultures, and civilizations. As we said before, in 1998 the World
Philosophy Congress was held in Boston with the generic title of “Philosophy educating Humanity”. This
title was mentioned in the last edition of the Congress (Seoul 2008) by the
professor Ioanna Kuçuradi.
The professor emphasized the fact that the biggest equity that would mean the
reduction of the abyssal economical differences between countries and persons
would only suppose an effective generalization of the human rights if it were
accompanied of a general education intended to develop in every individual
the faculties that entitled them as a human being. And in this project
perhaps philosophy would have a fundamental role. PRESENTATION
OF PAPERS: Papers
must be sent to the Secretary of the Congress, who will pass them to the
Advisory Council of the International Scientific Committee. A one-page
abstract should be sent before 30th
June 2010. A selection of papers will be included in the Proceedings. REGISTRATION: UPV* and UAB** students:................... ........……...................…...................................
Free Students: ……………………………………………………………………………..
35 euros General public before 30th June 2008:......................................................................... 70
euros General public after 30th June 2008:..................................... ………………………
100 euros Please transfer the corresponding amount to the following bank
account: 2101 0001
10 0010789824: Kutxa, Calle
Garibay, San Sebastián, Spain. IBAN code................... ES98 2101 0001 10 0010789824 BIC (SWIFT) code CGGKES22 Account holder International Ontology Congress Reference............. IOC REGISTRATION
FORM: This form should be completed and sent to the
Secretary of the International Ontology Congress: NAME: ADDRESS: TELEPHONE NUMBER: FAX: E-MAIL: INSTITUTION: PRESENTING A PAPER: YES
NO SECTION IN WHICH YOU WISH THE PAPER TO BE INCLUDED: TITLE
OF THE PAPER: *UPV
= Universidad del País Vasco **UAB
= Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona |
|
||||||||||||