Tim Crane (Cambridge): "The Conscious and the Unconscious"
Abstract: Mental states with intentional content can be conscious or unconscious. But what does it really mean to say these states have content, and does it mean the same thing for the conscious states as it does for the unconscious? In other words, do conscious and unconscious intentional states have the same kind of content? The consensus among analytic philosophers is that the answer to this question is yes; a dominant idea, for example, is that all intentional states have propositional content, and...
Abstract: Thanks to more than three decades of economic and social reform, China today abounds in de facto “liberties of the moderns.” It therefore seems appropriate to try to shed a particular kind of light on China’s moral and political culture by examining its way of organizing modern liberties in comparison with the American way. Using this common denominator, I will discuss various differences between China and the United States, in terms of the presence or absence of public valorization of freedom, the...
Please join us for a screening of Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking film Breathless with an introduction by Professor Sean Kelly. Breathless is one of the films featured in Professor Kelly's course "Existentialism in Literature and Film" and is being shown concurrently as part of the department's Philosophy & Film Series organized by Professor Cheryl Chen.
For more information on Godard's film, along with two essays by film scholars and critics Dudley Andrew and John Powers, see the...
Abstract: States deserve to be judged, sometimes stringently, in proportion to the power they wield within or beyond their borders, but they should be judged reasonably. The most stringent reasonable standard for such judgment is a realistic utopia appropriate for the state under appraisal. What exactly one should mean by realistic utopia requires careful spelling out and it will be a further task to put together a realistic utopia for a particular state. I will make a preliminary attempt at both tasks with reference...
Abstract: Some may balk at the idea of discussing democracy in China as a matter of reality rather than project or critique. But if we follow Tocqueville and think of democracy as a matter not only of the political system but more importantly also of the general condition of a society, then examining the partial reality of democracy in China, not least the partialness itself, is entirely appropriate and may indeed be illuminating. All the more will this be true if we also follow Tocqueville in treating the great...
