Digest Week 2 Hilary Term 2024

Philosophy of Maths Reading Group

This Hilary term, the philosophy of mathematics reading group will run every Wednesday, weeks 1-8 from 4-5pm in the Lecture Room (2nd floor, Radcliffe Humanities Building). Everyone is welcome. Reading the papers would be encouraged but people are welcome regardless. All questions, thoughts, and contributions are strongly invited. The papers are chosen week by week, depending on the interests and questions of the group. If you are not on the mailing list, and would like to be, please send an email to boaz.laan@philosophy.ox.ac.uk.

'John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill on Women’s Place in Society: Differences, Affinities, and Inspirations'

Speaker: MA Elżbieta Filipow (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw; Academic Visitor, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford)

The New St Cross Special Ethics Seminars are jointly arranged by the Oxford Uehiro Centre and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities.  The talks are open to the public, and all are welcome (registration required, please see links below).

Date/Time: 25 January 5pm to 6pm

Liberal feminism, being one of stances in the feminist theory, has its supporters and opponents. The supporters stress the value of its practical postulates: equality in access to education, professional work, as well in marital law and suffrage. The postulates, implemented in numerous countries of continental Europe and Anglosphere, have set a certain standard in thinking on social justice and equality between women and men. The opponents pay attention at theoretical problems connected with the notion of human nature as an unchangeable essence. If the human nature were something fixed, then there is a problem with defining any possible changes that could affect women. Hence, essentialism undermined the possibility of emancipation. What poses another problem stressed by the critics of liberal feminism is androgyny of human nature: it promotes the model of human nature that views women and men as alike, which blurs cultural and social differences between the sexes.

John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill represented the Victorian feminism and shared the practical postulates on women’s equality. It is The Subjection od Women that is most frequently quoted text to present John Stuart Mill’s arguments. Both John Stuart and Harriet, however, are authors of other texts describing the woman’s role and place in the society. In Early Essays on Marriage and Divorce, which they both exchanged, as well as in Harriet Taylor Mill’s Enfranchisement of Women, they diagnosed contemporary situation of women and wondered what women would have been like if they had not been bridled by the subjection.

I assume that John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill draw different conclusion out of the theses on the lack of essentialism and androgyny of women’s nature on what the situation of women in the society should be like. Thus, my presentation is to aim at analysing comparatively essays by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill. I am to familiarize with the main differences between the two as for women’s capacities and their place and role in the society – particularly, in the case of married women’s financial independence and their vocation to matrimony and motherhood.

Research into the subject is part of the research project entitled The Place of Equality in John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, registration number: 2021/41/N/HS1/02244, financed by the National Science Centre (Poland) and are additionally financed by the University of Warsaw (in the framework of The Excellence Initiative – Research University microgrant, University of Warsaw Foundation and Grant for Academic Researchers from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw).

Registration: Please register to attend either in-person (Bookwhen) or to join the webinar (Zoom)

In-person venue: Lecture Theatre, St Cross College, 61 St Giles’, Oxford.

'Waiting for Einstein: Change and Crisis in the Mind Sciences'

Speakers: Shahar Gindi (Beit Berl College, Israel) and Avital Pilpel (Reichman University, Israel)

Moderators: Michael Martin and Elad Uzan

Date/Time: 5-6.30pm on Thursday 25 January 2024

In this lecture, we argue that the root cause of the disconnection between the laboratory and the field of psychology is philosophical - specifically, how psychologists define their concepts. The solution, too, is philosophical. We propose that by employing deeper basic concepts and actively seeking more robust bridging laws between them, interdisciplinary work can aspire to connect basic research with the practice of psychology. 

Venue: Rainolds Room, Corpus Christi College

For more information please email: elad.uzan@philosophy.ox.ac.uk.

Production of Oedipus the King

Dates: 25, 26 and 27 January

Venue: Magdalen College Chapel

On the 25, 26 and 27 January we will be putting on a dazzling new production of Sophocles' Oedipus the King. In the shadowy chapel of Magdalen College, we combine Oliver Taplin's elegant translation with austere choreography, intense violence, and tragic dignity. There will be blood, incest, Prokofiev, abstract knitwear, poetry - we hope to see you there.

Tickets can be purchased here.

Graduate Discussion Group

We welcome all University of Oxford Graduate Students to the return of this seminar series led by Dr Rebecca Brown. The aim of this seminar is to provide an opportunity for graduate students, from all departments, whose work has an applied ethics dimension, to present their works in progress to fellow students as well as OUC research staff. The seminars also provide teaching on practical ethics topics, taught by researchers from the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.

The seminars will be held during weeks 2, 4, 6 & 7 on Fridays from 2pm-4pm with the opportunity to join OUC staff at The Royal Blenheim Hotel afterwards.

Seminar format: This seminar will be run both in person, and on zoom for those unable to attend physically. Each week, for the first hour of the seminar, one of the researchers from the OUC will introduce a key topic in Practical or Medical Ethics. During the second hour of the seminar students will be given the opportunity to present a work/idea in progress, draft papers or thesis chapters for constructive comments and discussion with other graduate students, led by Dr Rebecca Brown.

Part 1: 'Methods in Applied Ethics: Alberto Giubilini - conscientious objection in health care'

Required Reading: Giubilini A, Schuklenk U, Minerva F, Savulescu, J 2023, Conscientious commitment,professional obligations and abortion provision after the reversal of Roe v Wade, Journal of Medical Ethics Online First: 08 February 2023

Suggested further reading:

Symons, Xavier 2022, Conscientious Objection in Health Care: Why the Professional Duty

Argument is Unconvincing, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 47, 4: 549–557

Wicclair M. R. (2000). Conscientious objection in medicine. Bioethics, 14(3), 205–227.

Part 2: 'Work in Progress'

Student Presenting:  Sophie Bertaud: 'Hope pluralism in antenatal palliative care'

Student Responding: TBC

Venue: Oxford Uehiro Centre, Seminar Room, Suite 1 Littlegate House, 16-17 St Ebbes St. OX1 1PT

Please email rocci.wilkinson@philosophy.ox.ac.uk now to sign up for this seminar, to be placed on the mailing list and/or to sign up for a presentation or response slot in Hilary Term.

Production of Oedipus the King

Dates: 25, 26 and 27 January

Venue: Magdalen College Chapel

On the 25, 26 and 27 January we will be putting on a dazzling new production of Sophocles' Oedipus the King. In the shadowy chapel of Magdalen College, we combine Oliver Taplin's elegant translation with austere choreography, intense violence, and tragic dignity. There will be blood, incest, Prokofiev, abstract knitwear, poetry - we hope to see you there.

Tickets can be purchased here.