Monthly Archives: January 2016

Eun Young Hwang (PhD Student, Religious Ethics): “A Constructive Comparative Religious Ethical Analysis of Augustine and Xunzi: The Sacred Origin of Human Rights and Its Demand for Just Society”

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Wednesday, February 3, 4:30, Swift 106 (co-sponsored with Global Christianities Workshop)

ABSTRACT:

While referring to some contemporary theoretical concern for human rights grounded on the person’s potential for sacred experience (Joas) and their implication to the institutional demand not to violate the entitled access to flourishing according to some universal criteria of minimal justice (Pogge), this project engages with a comparative reading of two historically unrelated traditions, Augustine and Xunzi. I will show how Augustine and Xunzi show differences and similarities when dealing with the sacred capability of human person as the source of entitlement for human flourishing and the institutional demand of securing basic rights for human flourishing according to their culture-specific visions of personal fulfillment and social order, which all resonate with the universal concern for human rights and universal criteria of thin justice.

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to maintaining itself as a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinator Anil Mundra (amundra@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

 

 

Dan Wyche on Georges Friedmann and the Politics of Self-Overcoming

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 Dan Wyche: “The Politics of Self-overcoming: Notes on Georges Friedmann.”

Tuesday, January 19 4:30pm, Swift 106

Pub reception to follow

PAPER (TO BE READ PRIOR TO WORKSHOP)

ABSTRACT:

For this workshop meeting, I will be presenting the sections of the first Chapter of my dissertation dealing specifically with the work of the French sociologist of science Georges Friedmann, from whom Pierre Hadot would adopt the term “spiritual exercises.” This material deals with the experiences and reasons for Freidmann’s interest in the question of practices of the self, focusing specifically on the political motivations for his turn towards these themes. By focusing on the politics of his conception of spiritual exercises, this section of the chapter will attempt to set up what I take to be two of the primary questions that confront any contemporary engagement with the question of spiritual exercises, and thus to sketch the beginnings of a response to those challenges through Friedmann’s work in this area.

 

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to maintaining itself as a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinator Anil Mundra (amundra@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.