Over the last century, the idea of a ‘Western Philosophy’ has become pervasive in academia. It is widely and uncritically used as a neutral, pseudo-geographic descriptor. It has also entered wider cultural milieus through popular texts like Bertrand Russell’s 1945 History of Western Philosophy and, more recently, histories like Anthony Gottlieb’s 2000 The Dream of Reason: a History of Western Philosophy or James Garvey's and Jeremy Stangroom’s 2012 The Story of Philosophy: a History of Western Thought. However, very few authors have defined this vague term, brought it into view, or questioned the very idea.
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Confirmed invited speakers:
● Peter Adamson (LMU, Munich/King’s College London) ● Lucy Allais (Johns Hopkins/ Witwatersrand) ● Kimberly Ann Harris (Virginia) ● Yoko Arisaka (Hildesheim) ● Robert Bernasconi (Penn State) ● Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia) |
● Lewis Gordon (Connecticut) ● Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) ● Catherine König-Pralong (EHESS Paris) ● Lin MA (Renmin, Beijing) ● Linda Martín Alcoff (Hunter College, CUNY) ● Christoph Schuringa (New College of the Humanities, London) |
Questioning ‘Western Philosophy’ will be the first international conference that subjects this concept to critical interrogation, asking whether it is legitimate, where it comes from, when and how it becomes widespread, and how it impacts our understanding of philosophy and its history.
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Existing WorkBuilding on decades of work from, inter alia, the history of philosophy, global intellectual history, intercultural and comparative philosophy, critical philosophy of ‘race’, and decolonial studies, the conference will explore the concept of ‘Western Philosophy’ from philosophical, historical, and historiographical perspectives. The conference therefore aims to bring together scholars working across multiple philosophical traditions from around the world, and to draw together many of the specific debates that have taken place within these fields to explore their broader significance for our understanding of philosophy and its history.
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Conference DiscussionsContributors to the conference will tackle several of the thorny issues at stake: the legitimacy of descriptors, such as ‘Western’, when applied to philosophy (especially if considered a universal practice of human reason); the historical circumstances in which the idea of ‘Western Philosophy’ emerged; and the ways in which disciplinary history of philosophy often presents ‘Western Philosophy’ as equivalent to ‘Philosophy’ as such, implying the exclusion of non-European philosophical traditions from the mainstream 'canon'.
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