Call for papers: University of Alberta Philosophy Graduate and Postgraduate Conference on 'Interiority'

Submission deadline: extended to 15 February 2017 Keynote speaker: Kathleen Okruhlik

03 February 2017

Interiority

University of Alberta Philosophy Graduate and Postgraduate Conference

5-7 May, 2017

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

We invite graduate students and postgraduates to submit papers to the graduate and postgraduate philosophy conference that will take place on 5-7 May 2017 at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Traditionally, to have interiority means that one has subjectivity and a conscious self-presence: interiority therefore refers to the bounds of the self and the phenomena of mental life. In philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology, interiority figures heavily in the problem of other minds, the private language argument, and Cartesian knowledge claims. In moral, political, and feminist philosophy, interiority is central to a number of questions including whether and how it is possible to achieve an authentic self; whether individual, free choice is a coherent notion; and whether interiority can come in degrees and how this gradation would relate to the moral status and political capabilities of agents. Each of these issues become all the more pertinent in the political and technological landscape of the age of information, where notions of autonomy, privacy, voluntarism, and responsibility have become highly fraught. The goal of this conference is to bring interiority to the foreground, so that we may unpack its nature and role in contemporary philosophical and political discourse.

We strongly encourage submissions from all areas of philosophy and from related disciplines, and we especially encourage submissions from groups underrepresented in the profession. Possible questions for consideration include: Is interiority possible without exteriority? Are notions of self and the mind necessarily interior? Is interiority just another relational property of a subject? Is introspection necessary for self-knowledge and for forming normative commitments? What values are required for theory choice and for producing scientific knowledge?

Keynote Presentation

Kathleen Okruhlik

"Values and Voluntarism"

Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy at The University of Western Ontario

Member, Rotman Institute of Philosophy

Affiliate Member, Department of Women's Studies and Feminist Research

Deadline for submission: extended to 15 February 2017

Submission Guidelines: Papers should not exceed 3000 words. They should be prepared for anonymous review and sent as a PDF file to uofaphilconference@gmail.com. In a separate PDF attachment, please include your name, academic affiliation, e-mail address, paper title, and an abstract of no more than 150 words. For more information, please contact us at uofaphilconference@gmail.com. Free housing may be available to presenters during the conference.