Philosophy Seminar Series: Thursday, 24 May 2012, 2-4pm, Philosophy Resource Room; Speaker: Geir Sigurðsson, Associate Professor, University of Iceland; Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson
Abstract:
Better known as one of Italy‘s greatest modern poets than a philosophical thinker, Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) is probably not included in many philosophical encyclopedias. However, Leopardi was indeed a peripheral philosopher living in one of the peripheries of Europe at the time. He was keenly aware of the dominant themes in Enlightenment philosophy, was profoundly critical of it, and even formulated an elaborate, albeit unsystematic, philosophical response, mainly in his chronological diaries, the Zibaldone di pensieri, but also in many of his essays, dialogues and aphorisms. This seminar will provide an outline of the Leopardian existential critique of the philosophical views dominating the late eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, in particular those found in German Idealism and Romanticism, and offer a comparison of Leopardi‘s and Kant‘s visions of the relationship between rationality and “boredom”, a prevalent topic in Leopardi‘s thought. If time allows, an outline will be provided of Leopardi‘s “ultraphilosophy”, as he chose to call it himself, a kind of philosophy meant to overcome the ills of the progressive philosophy of his day.
About the Speaker: Geir Sigurðsson has studied philosophy, social sciences and Chinese studies in Iceland, Ireland, Germany, China and the United States. He concluded his PhD in philosophy from University of Hawaii in 2004. Presently, he is head of program and associate professor in Chinese studies at University of Iceland, where he has a broad range of teaching obligations, but focuses in his research mainly on Confucianism, Daoism and comparative Chinese-Western philosophy, while also taking an odd interest in peripheral Western thinkers. Having published a number of papers and translations in and out of his area of specialization, he is presently working on a monograph on ritualized action and education with an emphasis on Confucianism.
More information on the Philosophy Seminar Series can be found here. A list of past talks in the series can be found here.
About the Speaker: Axel Gelfert is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore and Co-Chair of the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Research Cluster at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Since 2011, he has also been an Associate Fellow at Tembusu College. He completed his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge in 2005, after which he spent a year as a Junior Fellow at Collegium Budapest (Institute for Advanced Study), before arriving at NUS in 2006. His research and teaching revolve around issues in the philosophy of science and technology, social epistemology, and history of philosophy.
About the Speaker: Andres Luco is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Group at Nanyang Technological University. He has previously taught philosophy at North Carolina State University and the University of Cape Town.
About the Speaker: So Young holds an MA from Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea. Her study is mainly in early Confucian philosophy, and she wrote her MA thesis on Confucius’ renxue in the Analects. Her current research interests in NUS are early Chinese philosophy, including Confucianism, Daoism, and thoughts of the other schools in the pre-Qin period. Also, she is interested in Comparative Philosophy and Ethics.
About the Speaker: Paisley Livingston (BA Stanford, PhD Johns Hopkins) is Chair Professor and Head of Philosophy at Lingnan University. Before moving to Hong Kong in 2001 he taught in the philosophy department at the University of Copenhagen. He was previously Full Professor at McGill University and also taught at Aarhus University, the University of Michigan, and Roskilde University. He has held research positions at CREA, l’École Polytechnique, Paris, and Zinbun, Kyoto, and was a guest professor at Siegen University in Germany.
