Meet and Greet with Vida Yao
Time: 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Location: Melden Library
Join us for a meet and greet prior to the UCI DoP Colloquium to get to know Vida Yao, an Associate Professor in Philosophy at UCLA. (Refreshments will be provided)
Department of Philosophy Colloquium- Vida Yao (UCLA)
Philosophy at the end of our outlook: Bernard Williams’ “Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline”
Why do academic philosophy in times like these? I present a reading of Bernard Williams’ conception of philosophy as a humanistic discipline alongside his reflections on humanistic inquiry more generally, guided by the concern that during times of deep social and political crisis, academic philosophy is not worth doing. Given those circumstances, one might - and should - wonder if it is anything other than a distraction, an evasion of political responsibility, or a decadent frivolity. I present this reading in light of Roger Scruton’s criticism in 1995 that though Williams was “the most prominent” British ethicist of the time, his work lacks substantive ethical content. Given Williams’ response to Scruton, my reading will emphasize two things: first, that Williams’ conception of philosophy as a humanistic discipline reveals why the substance of his ethical thought is typically presented in an indirect and oblique manner. Second, that by reading Williams with this in mind, one can reconstruct from his later work a way of answering the question I began with. Philosophy, understood in a certain way and given certain historically contingent social and institutional conditions, can express and reflect the values of the outlook he held and which we may be losing: it may manifest a distinctively liberal form of freedom inseparable from the value of truthfulness.
Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Location: HIB 55