Indexicality, Perception: Using Language and Knowing Reality
These four conferences will take place in 2008-2009 at the Université Paris 1
(EXeCO Research Center, “Philosophies Contemporaines”)
Coordination: Valérie Aucouturier, Charlotte Gauvry, Perrine Marthelot, Marc Pavlopoulos et Sabine Plaud
Far from being a merely speculative approach to the world, philosophy involves a concrete reflection upon reality. Philosophical issues include an investigation of our perceptive access to the world, of the nature of perceptions and of sensations. Also, philosophy tries to elucidate the structure of reality such as it emerges by the way we use it: the meaning of reality depends on its inscription in a given context. Philosophical topics thus bring together many different approaches: for instance, the scientific attitude to be detected in physics or in psychology is correlated with a pragmatic investigation of reality. All of these attitudes share one and the same concern: how does the perceiving and acting subject relate to his surrounding world?
Such a concern for the rooting of perception and action in reality immediately raises a second fundamental issue: namely, an issue as to the meaning networks that are correlated to our behavior towards the world, and that include linguistic meaning itself. What are, exactly, the relations between perception, use and sense? Up to what extent does sense depend upon some particular use of the world? Should we say that language makes sense if, and only if it is fitted in a given world, in a given situation? Making sense of these questions requires two things. First, it requires an analysis of the role of the perceiving, acting and speaking subject, as well as of the conditions of his inscription within reality. Second, it requires an investigation of the interconnection between the world and our senses.
For these reasons, we will have to articulate two lines of thought. If language makes sense only insofar as it is fitted in the world, then its meaning depends on a given situation, on a given context. And if the world is as such a context, then the world is meaningful in itself: or at least, as a condition of sense. This very interdependence of meaning and reality will serve us as a guideline for this cycle of conferences.
Each one of these conferences will address some particular aspect of this general issue, focusing on the way it has been dealt with in modern German philosophy (19th/20th centuries). The first conference will question the concept of indexicality, thus opening a reflection on the necessity of an inscription of language in a given situation. The second conference will be concerned with the notion of use for Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and will try to identify the conditions the conditions for a production of sense by means of use. The third conference will examine the work of a leading figure of German science, namely Hermann von Helmholtz, whose theory of perception and of knowledge will be scrutinized. The fourth conference will examine in depth the work of the philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe.
mardi 27 mai 2008
Saturday, November 8th 2008. Indexicality
Indexicality
At the Crossroads of Language and Perception: the Deixis
Coordination: Perrine MARTHELOT
The concern for indexicality might appear as a technical point within philosophy of language. Yet, it does involve a relevant way to investigate the inscription of language in the world of perception. This conference will not deal with the traditional question of how language refers to the world: it will rather examine how, and to what extent, a world is required by the very existence of language. If one has to assume that speech always takes place in a given situation within the world, then one has to address to following issue: is indexicality limited to a restricted and specific part of our meaningful statements, or should it be assumed that language is, in fact, widely indexical? What is at stake, here, is a determination of the very limits and validity of this concept in its wider sense. What is implied is also an analysis of the connection between language and the world in this wider context.
In his Theory of Language, Karl Bühler has formulated the hypothesis that language might include a double-system: a deictic field, and a symbolic field. His investigation of indexicality has led him to focus on the deictic field, i.e. on the so-called “situations”. On that purpose, Bühler has examined in particular the different modes of the deixis (deixis ad oculus, anaphora, deixis ad phantasma). Ha has also investigated the specific way the “I” and the “now” are embedded in a situation. This conference will aim at an assessment of such a re-evaluation of the concept of field, namely by trying to confront Bühler’s work with more contemporary approaches to indexicality.
At the Crossroads of Language and Perception: the Deixis
Coordination: Perrine MARTHELOT
The concern for indexicality might appear as a technical point within philosophy of language. Yet, it does involve a relevant way to investigate the inscription of language in the world of perception. This conference will not deal with the traditional question of how language refers to the world: it will rather examine how, and to what extent, a world is required by the very existence of language. If one has to assume that speech always takes place in a given situation within the world, then one has to address to following issue: is indexicality limited to a restricted and specific part of our meaningful statements, or should it be assumed that language is, in fact, widely indexical? What is at stake, here, is a determination of the very limits and validity of this concept in its wider sense. What is implied is also an analysis of the connection between language and the world in this wider context.
In his Theory of Language, Karl Bühler has formulated the hypothesis that language might include a double-system: a deictic field, and a symbolic field. His investigation of indexicality has led him to focus on the deictic field, i.e. on the so-called “situations”. On that purpose, Bühler has examined in particular the different modes of the deixis (deixis ad oculus, anaphora, deixis ad phantasma). Ha has also investigated the specific way the “I” and the “now” are embedded in a situation. This conference will aim at an assessment of such a re-evaluation of the concept of field, namely by trying to confront Bühler’s work with more contemporary approaches to indexicality.
Saturday, January 17th 2009. Use
Use
From Heidegger’s Phenomenological Approach to Wittgenstein‘s Pragmatic Approach
Coordination: Charlotte GAUVRY
The philosophy of the XXth century is mostly focused on the notion of practical experience and on the notion of “use” of the world. In our working session, we will seek to analyze this central notion of “use” through a comparison between the early Heidegger’s (until Being and Time) acceptation of “use” and Wittgenstein’s pragmatic one.
From the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues relentlessly the pragmatic thesis that every speech act is determined by its use. The “use” of the world is the critical way to determinate the sense and its context. The working session’s first aim will be the analysis of this determination.
A cautious comparison with early Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis will be fruitful. Indeed, in Being and Time, the “use” also determinates the setting up of context and sense. Indeed this work can be read as an analytic of the daily life acted in the world. Its insertion in the world is more a pragmatic than a spatial one: ‘in-der-Welt-sein” is an “use” of the world, its trade (“Umgang”). The “sense” itself is determined by its “use”: it is a sense determined by the needs of the praxis rather than through its reference.
However, some central discrepancies remain with Wittgenstein’s approach. Heidegger’s “use” is right away defined as a categorial one and as one determined by and for the Dasein. In the 9th paragraph of Being and Time, “use” is determined by the category of “Zuhandenheit”. Such a “use” is formal and, in one sense, transcendental. Here is a crucial discrepancy. The working session will have to interrogate it.
But the comparison with Heidegger‘s earlier lectures, prior to the Dasein conception, will be extremely relevant to our analysis. The analysis of the facticity of these early lectures, influenced by Dilthey’s hermeneutic and by Bergson’s philosophy of life, presents the advantage of interrogating the notion of “use” without requiring the hypothesis of an a priori or of a conventional determination. Our session will also analyze these early lectures: the understanding of Husserl’s concept of intentionality through the paired concepts of “Bezugssinn/ Vollzugssinn”, the redefinition of context through the trinity: “Umwelt/Mitwelt/Selbstwelt”, in order to interrogate Wittgenstein’s notion of “use” and its possible limitations by reality, by life or by nature.
From Heidegger’s Phenomenological Approach to Wittgenstein‘s Pragmatic Approach
Coordination: Charlotte GAUVRY
The philosophy of the XXth century is mostly focused on the notion of practical experience and on the notion of “use” of the world. In our working session, we will seek to analyze this central notion of “use” through a comparison between the early Heidegger’s (until Being and Time) acceptation of “use” and Wittgenstein’s pragmatic one.
From the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues relentlessly the pragmatic thesis that every speech act is determined by its use. The “use” of the world is the critical way to determinate the sense and its context. The working session’s first aim will be the analysis of this determination.
A cautious comparison with early Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis will be fruitful. Indeed, in Being and Time, the “use” also determinates the setting up of context and sense. Indeed this work can be read as an analytic of the daily life acted in the world. Its insertion in the world is more a pragmatic than a spatial one: ‘in-der-Welt-sein” is an “use” of the world, its trade (“Umgang”). The “sense” itself is determined by its “use”: it is a sense determined by the needs of the praxis rather than through its reference.
However, some central discrepancies remain with Wittgenstein’s approach. Heidegger’s “use” is right away defined as a categorial one and as one determined by and for the Dasein. In the 9th paragraph of Being and Time, “use” is determined by the category of “Zuhandenheit”. Such a “use” is formal and, in one sense, transcendental. Here is a crucial discrepancy. The working session will have to interrogate it.
But the comparison with Heidegger‘s earlier lectures, prior to the Dasein conception, will be extremely relevant to our analysis. The analysis of the facticity of these early lectures, influenced by Dilthey’s hermeneutic and by Bergson’s philosophy of life, presents the advantage of interrogating the notion of “use” without requiring the hypothesis of an a priori or of a conventional determination. Our session will also analyze these early lectures: the understanding of Husserl’s concept of intentionality through the paired concepts of “Bezugssinn/ Vollzugssinn”, the redefinition of context through the trinity: “Umwelt/Mitwelt/Selbstwelt”, in order to interrogate Wittgenstein’s notion of “use” and its possible limitations by reality, by life or by nature.
Saturday, February 7th 2009. Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann von Helmholtz:
Theorist of Perception, Philosopher of Mind
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
Coordination: Sabine PLAUD
Location : Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne – Department of Philosophy, 17, rue de la Sorbonne. 75005 Paris, Stair C, 1st Floor, Room Lalande
Program:
9. Am : Opening – Chair : Sabine Plaud (Université Paris 1 - EXeCO)
9.15 Am : Edwin Glassner (Wiener Kreis Institut, Vienna) : « Benno Erdmann's formal empiricism and the resolution of the tension between Helmholtz's causal theory of perception and his psychophysical parallelism »
10 Am : Matthias Neuber (University of Tübingen) : « Helmholtz's theory of space perception and its influence on Schlick »
10.45 Am : Coffee-break
11 Am : Antonia Soulez (Université Paris 8) : « Helmholtz et l’idée d’un système naturel de la musique »
11.45 Am : Frédéric Pascal (EHESS – Institut Jean Nicod): « La relation entre le monde physique, la sensation et la discrimination perceptive sur le domaine de l'acoustique et de l'audition »
12h30-14h : Lunch-Break
2 Pm : Chair : Guillaume Garreta (Université Paris 1, EXeCO, CIPh)
2 Pm : David J. Hyder (University of Ottawa) : « What does the transcendental argument of Helmholtz's first two papers on geometry prove? »
2.45 Pm : Christophe Bouriau and Gerhard Heinzmann (Archives Poincaré, Nancy) : « Perception et inférences inconscientes : le mythe de l'immédiateté perceptive »
3.30 Pm : Coffee-break
_____________________
Argument:
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) is doubtlessly one of the leading figures of German science in the late 19th century. Having an almost universal field of interests, he belongs to the last generation of scholars who can be described both as philosophers and as scientists. As a physicist, he provided significant contributions to the investigation of the laws of conservation of energy and to the principles of mechanics. As a psychologist, he is remembered for his influential inquiries in the interactions between physiological and psychical processes: his approach can thus be compared to Fechner’s own attempts to give birth to a psychophysical science.
Helmholtz’s claim that the physical and the psychical are interrelated has concrete consequences in the works he dedicated to the physiology of perception. His impressive Handbook of Physiological Optics thus articulates both the physiological and the psychological aspects of vision, by drawing a distinction between impressions, sensations and visual perceptions. Similarly, his Lehre von den Tonempfindungen can be rightly characterized as a revolutionary work, not only in virtue of its elucidation of harmony, but also in virtue of the overall psycho-physical theory of perception it implies.
This conference will aim at an exploration of these different aspects of Helmholtz’s insights. Besides his specifically scientific contributions, one may investigate the general theory of knowledge involved in his studies. One might, among others, focus on his concern for a semiotic account of perception, on his new exploration of Kantian themes, or on his theory of unconscious inferences. The conference will also examine Helmholtz’s radical influence on later thinkers, e.g. on Heinrich Hertz, who has been his assistant and one of his more brilliant students. Lastly, we will have the opportunity to clarify some applications of Helmholtz’s research in some unexpected fields, e.g. in aesthetics, where his physiological theory of harmony has provided musical composition with a new set of norms.
Theorist of Perception, Philosopher of Mind
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
Coordination: Sabine PLAUD
Location : Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne – Department of Philosophy, 17, rue de la Sorbonne. 75005 Paris, Stair C, 1st Floor, Room Lalande
Program:
9. Am : Opening – Chair : Sabine Plaud (Université Paris 1 - EXeCO)
9.15 Am : Edwin Glassner (Wiener Kreis Institut, Vienna) : « Benno Erdmann's formal empiricism and the resolution of the tension between Helmholtz's causal theory of perception and his psychophysical parallelism »
10 Am : Matthias Neuber (University of Tübingen) : « Helmholtz's theory of space perception and its influence on Schlick »
10.45 Am : Coffee-break
11 Am : Antonia Soulez (Université Paris 8) : « Helmholtz et l’idée d’un système naturel de la musique »
11.45 Am : Frédéric Pascal (EHESS – Institut Jean Nicod): « La relation entre le monde physique, la sensation et la discrimination perceptive sur le domaine de l'acoustique et de l'audition »
12h30-14h : Lunch-Break
2 Pm : Chair : Guillaume Garreta (Université Paris 1, EXeCO, CIPh)
2 Pm : David J. Hyder (University of Ottawa) : « What does the transcendental argument of Helmholtz's first two papers on geometry prove? »
2.45 Pm : Christophe Bouriau and Gerhard Heinzmann (Archives Poincaré, Nancy) : « Perception et inférences inconscientes : le mythe de l'immédiateté perceptive »
3.30 Pm : Coffee-break
3.45 Pm : Michael Heidelberger (Université de Tübingen) : « Helmholtz criticized : Hering, Mach, Riehl, James »
4.30 Pm : Jean-Marie Chevalier (Université Paris-XII, Institut Jean Nicod) : « Un éclairage peircien sur la chromatique de Helmholtz »
5.15 Pm : Sabine Plaud (Université Paris 1 – ExeCO) : « Des faits dans la perception aux faits dans la proposition : L’articulation entre signe et image chez Helmholtz et Wittgenstein »
_____________________
Argument:
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) is doubtlessly one of the leading figures of German science in the late 19th century. Having an almost universal field of interests, he belongs to the last generation of scholars who can be described both as philosophers and as scientists. As a physicist, he provided significant contributions to the investigation of the laws of conservation of energy and to the principles of mechanics. As a psychologist, he is remembered for his influential inquiries in the interactions between physiological and psychical processes: his approach can thus be compared to Fechner’s own attempts to give birth to a psychophysical science.
Helmholtz’s claim that the physical and the psychical are interrelated has concrete consequences in the works he dedicated to the physiology of perception. His impressive Handbook of Physiological Optics thus articulates both the physiological and the psychological aspects of vision, by drawing a distinction between impressions, sensations and visual perceptions. Similarly, his Lehre von den Tonempfindungen can be rightly characterized as a revolutionary work, not only in virtue of its elucidation of harmony, but also in virtue of the overall psycho-physical theory of perception it implies.
This conference will aim at an exploration of these different aspects of Helmholtz’s insights. Besides his specifically scientific contributions, one may investigate the general theory of knowledge involved in his studies. One might, among others, focus on his concern for a semiotic account of perception, on his new exploration of Kantian themes, or on his theory of unconscious inferences. The conference will also examine Helmholtz’s radical influence on later thinkers, e.g. on Heinrich Hertz, who has been his assistant and one of his more brilliant students. Lastly, we will have the opportunity to clarify some applications of Helmholtz’s research in some unexpected fields, e.g. in aesthetics, where his physiological theory of harmony has provided musical composition with a new set of norms.
jeudi 22 mai 2008
Saturday, May 16th 2009. Elizabeth Anscombe.
“Elizabeth Anscombe and contemporary philosophy” - International conference ExeCO-ENS Philosophy department - Saturday, May 16, 2009
Student, executrix, and great commentator of Wittgenstein, deeply knowledgeable about ancient philosophy and more particularly Aristotle, Anscombe was also a Thomist and an active Roman Catholic ; she was a teacher to Cora Diamond and Philippa Foot’s senior colleague. Anscombe paved the way for contemporary philosophy of action and, perhaps in spite of herself, the ethics of virtue. Her strong philosophical personality is marked by thought as diverse as it is controversial. Anscombe defended the primacy of singular causal relations over nomological regularities as early as 1971, the non-referentiality of the first-person pronoun (a paradox to most philosophers still) and she coined the notion of a “direction of fit.” While she always defended strong positions, Anscombe strove to engage with the most recent developments in analytical philosophy and sought to debunk some of its unwittingly empiricist and idealist habits.
Her advocacy of certain medieval positions sometimes struck her colleagues as being as abstruse as her Wittgensteinian analysis but through both she sought to reinvest philosophical questions with their fundamental brutality. Anscombe is a philosopher in the analytic style but she is also a philosopher in the ancient style, constantly raising questions through simple examples that seem harmless but are actually very often devastating. She was also a remarkable reader, able to work on a given question by weaving together Aristotle and Wittgenstein, Brentano and Descartes or Austin and Aquinas without ever forgetting to point out the gaps that separate the moderns from the ancients. She is one of the very few contemporary thinkers that enable us to believe in the unity of philosophy.
By looking at the diverse facets of Anscombe’s writings and her incredibly dense thinking, this conference aims to measure her pertinence in today’s debates and to confront her claims and arguments with recent philosophical developments.
PROGRAM
Morning : University Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne – 12, Place du Panthéon, 75005 Paris, Room 216
9h00-9h15 Introduction by Valérie Aucouturier (Paris 1) and Marc Pavlopoulos (ENS)
9h15-10h00 Bruno Gnassounou (Nantes University) : "Proposition et connexion non prédicative"
10h00-10h45 Marc Pavlopoulos (ENS) : "Connaissance sans observation, connaissance pratique et connaissance de soi : quelques remarques grammaticales"
10h45-11h00 Break
11h00-12h45 : The first person
11h00-11h30 Rachel Wiseman (University of York) : "Anscombe and McDowell on intentions and I"
11h30-12h15 Vincent Descombes (EHESS) : "La référence à soi"
12h15-12h45 Table ronde avec Vincent Descombes, Bruno Gnassounou et Rachel Wiseman.
12h45-14h15 Lunch break
Afternoon : École normale supérieure - 45, rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, room Cavaillès
14h15-15h00 Valérie Aucouturier (Paris-1 and University of Kent) : "L’expression des intentions"
15h00-15h45 Philippe de Lara (Paris 2 University) : "Que prouve l’argument des stopping modals ?"
15h45-16h00 : Break
16h00-16h45 Roger Teichmann (Oxford University, St Hilda’s College) : "Is Pleasure a Good ?"
16h45-17h30 Cyrille Michon (Nantes University) : "Libre arbitre et responsabilité morale"
17h30-18h00 Roundtable with Vincent Descombes, Cyrille Michon and Roger Teichmann : Anscombe and moral philosophy.
Contact :
valerie.aucouturier@malix.univ-paris1.fr ; marc.pavlopoulos@ens.fr
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