Abstract: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason surprises many readers with an extended use of metaphors drawing on legal theory and practice. This talk explores the parallels between the Critique of Pure Reason and the establishment of a civil condition in natural right theory.

Abstract: Kant’s views on human history and progress have been widely studied by those interested in his political, historical, and pedagogical writings. But commentators have rarely discussed Kant’s speculative account of the origins of humanity or the circumstances surrounding the beginning of our history. Implicit in such an omission is the assumption that whatever Kant says about this topic is of little philosophical value and does not neatly fit into his critical philosophy. In my talk I will challenge these assumptions. Specifically, I will defend two claims.

This symposium features alumni of the Visual Studies program and former TAs of the 101 class. 
It is a chance to stop and reflect on the riches that the interdisciplinarity of the Visual Studies program offers to thinking in the arts, history, philosophy and the sciences through the example of one of the founders of our program, Gary Hatfield. 
 
Program Talks:
Sasha Igdalova, Goldsmith College, "Optimized art viewing in the gallery: practicing neuroaesthetics in an ecologically-valid setting"
 

Logic started as a branch of philosophy, going back to Greeks, who loved debates, in the classical period. Computing technology is relatively young, dating back to World War II, in the middle of the 20th century. This talk tells the story of how logic begat computing, tracing the surprising path from Aristotle to the iPhone.  But just as logic encountered its unresolvable conundrum in Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, technology has encountered its conundrums in the Popperian Paradoxes.

Abstract:

Ruminations on Rubber Hands
Lawrence Shapiro
University of Wisconsin – Madison

Abstract: Aristotle understands the generation of an animal as an actualization of two sorts of capacities: the active capacities provided by the father, functioning as the efficient cause and the source of the form, and the passive capacities provided by the mother, who supplies the matter on which the efficient cause acts. Eventually, an animal comes to be, equipped with features—wings, a beak, a heart—that play a role in its life. The process is teleological: its efficient cause—initially in the father and later in the organism—acts for the sake of something.