Ankica Čakardić

University of Zagreb

Family Abolition and Dead Labour: Hegel and Marxist-Feminism

18 February 2025, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

The Croatian philosopher and Marxist-humanist associated with the Yugoslav Praxis School, Blaženka Despot, wrote in one of her essays: “With Hegel’s philosophy, with his intervention on freedom, he becomes a necessary starting point for the foundation of a certain Marxist-feminism”. In this lecture, I will attempt to develop a Marxist-feminist reading of Hegel through the lens of social reproduction theory by tracing some of Despot’s Marxist-feminist ideas. Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) is all about life-making. Its core tenet is the fact that the accumulation of surplus value under capitalism is not possible without informal, dead and unpaid domestic labour that generates healthy labour power. SRT traces the “hidden” processes that enable production possible, looks closely “behind the scenes”, at family relations and marriage, and attempts to examine the phenomena of life-making and the produced gender reality. In Hegelian sense, it focuses on Ethical life in its totality, taking into account both the capitalist system of needs and the state as well as the backstage of these visible social relations, i.e. the nuclear family. In Hegel’s writings we are confronted not only simply and naturally with the problem of the family and patriarchy, but also with the presentation of the fact that they constitute the very basis of the reproduction of capitalist society. In order to solve this Hegelian problem in Marxist-feminist terms and to stake out the terrain for the actualised freedom and emancipation of women, we must tackle this goal in its totality, on the long term. In this context, the anti-capitalist solutions include not only the abolition of private property, but also the abolition of the monogamous nuclear family.

This activity is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
(https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00310/2025)

Julie Saada

Sciences Po Paris

Human Rights, Freedom, and Socioeconomic Rights

11 February 2025, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

I will analyze human rights from both historical and normative perspectives, focusing on three dialectical movements that characterize them. I will emphasize the interdependence of civil-political and socio-economic rights. The dialectic of the original productivity of human rights refers to the historical and intellectual movement that culminated in the French Revolution’s Rights of Man and of the Citizen. While individual rights were proclaimed as opposable to the sovereign, it was also through the absolutization of the sovereign’s authority that collective medieval legal forms were dissolved in favor of the individualization of rights. Subjective rights were thus constituted by a transformation of the legal subject, whose rights became opposable to power, and by a transformation of power, which granted rights to subjects. This movement led to what I term a ‘right to life beyond life,’ meaning a life transcending mere biological existence as it embodies the equal freedom of legal subjects. The right to life beyond life thus denotes the right to a particular political condition. However, this initial dialectic gives rise to two contradictions: Firstly, freedom is conceptualized as negative and individualistic, while the Declaration formulates economic and social rights that have been extensively developed in international Declarations and Conventions on human rights. Conceived as a right to a particular social condition, these rights focus on the material conditions necessary to realize freedom, emphasizing a collective dimension that presupposes social redistribution and solidarity mechanisms that states must ensure. This contradiction produces what I term a dialectic of the continuous production of human rights. Overcoming the contradiction between the two forms of freedom and the types of rights that constitute them can be achieved by establishing an interdependent relationship between rights. As expressed in civil and political rights, individual freedom can only be realized by promoting collective forms of freedom and rights. Thus, the right to life beyond life becomes not only a right to a particular political condition but also a right to a specific social condition, understood as a means of attaining freedom. Secondly, even when rights to a social condition are acknowledged, human rights remain abstract. Their general and indeterminate formulation is a prerequisite for their potential universalization. The contradiction lies in the fact that rights, which establish a right to life as a right to a specific political and social condition, are detached from what individuals and communities can actually do with them. They only become concrete rights when specified to particular agents in specific contexts, facilitated by specific implementation processes. Paradoxically, the universal formulation aims to render these rights locally interpretable and adaptable, creating a dialectic between the universal and the particular. The capabilities approach to human rights provides a means to verify that specific rights correspond to abstract rights and fulfill them, which is an essential condition of human dignity.

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This work/event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
(https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00310/2025)

Fabrizio Boscaglia

Universidade Lusófona/CFUL

Fernando Pessoa e a Filosofia Islâmica: Questões de Receção, Representação e Interpretação

4 February 2025, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Nesta sessão, são abordados aspetos do pensamento e da obra de Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) relacionados com autores e questões da Filosofia e da Teologia Islâmicas. Ao considerar criticamente Pessoa enquanto poeta animado pela filosofia, e mais precisamente poeta e pensador, tal como ele se definiu em 1910 e 1933, esta abordagem baseia-se sobretudo (mas não só) no corpus de escritos filosóficos do autor. A partir da investigação no espólio e na biblioteca particular de Pessoa, tenta-se atender às seguintes questões: existem, na reflexão e na escrita filosófica de Pessoa, referências ao pensamento islâmico? Que autores e questões da filosofia islâmica foram abordados por Pessoa e de que forma? A partir de quais fontes, línguas e contextos culturais? Por que caminhos e para quais finalidades inerentes ao pensamento e à obra pessoana? Como ler estas referências no âmbito do pensamento filosófico contemporâneo em Portugal? Ao tentar responder, levantam-se uma série de questões específicas, relativas, tanto à receção do pensamento islâmico em Pessoa e na Europa, inclusivamente no que respeita à representação orientalista do mesmo, como inerentes à interpretação filosofante que Pessoa faz, em particular, das questões filosófico-religiosas de Deus, dos atributos divinos, do destino e do pluralismo religioso, entre outras.

An Uncertainty Model of Suicidality

Sidney Carls-Diamante (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

20 December 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Uncertainty is a factor widely but implicitly acknowledged to contribute to suicidality, but is not often studied as a suicidogenic factor in its own right. This presentation details the role of uncertainty in generating suicidal thoughts and actions. It is proposed that suicidality is a set of cognitive and behavioural strategies for reducing uncertainty and its consequential disruptions to homeostasis, i.e., psychological and/or physiological stability. The presentation argues that there are three dimensions of uncertainty that specifically contribute to suicidality: uncertainty about 1) whether currently experienced adversity will continue into the future, 2) about whether present conditions will improve and 3) about when they will change. Persisting through life entails continued experience of such high-uncertainty states that may prove detrimental to homeostasis. In contrast, death is a high-certainty state, wherein distress, pain, or suffering – manifestations of disrupted homeostasis – are reliably predicted to end. Suicidal ideation thus emerges as a mental model that allows the agent to imagine death as a state wherein homeostasis is restored. When the agent’s distress becomes severe enough, escalation to suicidal action can occur as a behavioural strategy to precipitate restoration of homeostasis (in the form of an end to suffering) through death.

Lisbon Meetings on the Philosophy of Music

5 June 2025

School of Arts and Humanities

University of Lisbon

The Language, Mind and Cognition Group (LanCog), in collaboration with the multidisciplinary group Clepsydra (University of Lisbon), is pleased to announce the Lisbon Meetings on the Philosophy of Music, to be held on 5 June 2025 at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon.

This one-day event will feature contributions from leading scholars in the field, and up to five selected presentations from emerging researchers. We invite submissions of extended abstracts on any topic related to the philosophy of music.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

• Andrew Kania (Trinity University, San Antonio)

• Julian Dodd (University of Leeds)

• Nemésio G. C. Puy (Complutense University of Madrid)

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions should take the form of extended abstracts (maximum 1000 words).

• Abstracts must be submitted in English and prepared for anonymous review.

• In addition to the abstract, authors must include their name, institutional affiliation, and contact information in the body of the email accompanying the submission.

• Accepted abstracts will be allocated a 25-minute presentation slot, followed by discussion.

• Please submit your abstract in PDF format to the following email address: philmusic.lisbon@gmail.com.

Important Dates

• Submission Deadline: 1 March 2025

• Notification of Results: 1 April 2025

Participation Fees

• Registration Fee: 115€

Scientific Committee

• Federico Lauria (University of Lisbon)

• Matteo Ravasio (Peking University)

• Tiago Sousa (University of Minho)

• Vítor Guerreiro (University of Porto)

Organizing Committee

• Hugo Luzio (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

• Madalena Sobral (Clepsydra, University of Lisbon)

For further inquiries, please contact the organizing committee at philmusic.lisbon@gmail.com.

Scientific Realism Under Fire

Michele Pizzochero (University of Bath & Harvard University)

13 December 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: Structural realism and entity realism are two widely discussed forms of scientific realism that seek to identify those claims within scientific theories that warrant ontological commitment. Broadly, structural realism holds that belief should be accorded to relations, while entity realism (especially in the version articulated by Ian Hacking) endorses belief in the entities susceptible to manipulation. Both views assert that these claims—relations or entities—underlie the empirical success of science and persist amidst theory change. In this talk, I will challenge both structural and entity realism using the historical case of phlogiston, a fire-like element posited by eighteenth-century chemists that was ultimately deemed non-existent. Despite its referential failure, the phlogiston theory was empirically successful, generating genuine predictions and unifying diverse phenomena. Drawing from this episode, I will develop a twofold argument. First, against structural realism, I will argue that the set of empirically successful relations identified within phlogiston theory was not retained in subsequent scientific theories. Second, against entity realism, I will argue that phlogiston, despite its non-existence, enjoyed manipulative success. Overall, these arguments cast doubt on the general applicability of structural and entity realism as reliable guides to track reality in the face of theory change.

Moral Dimensions of Offsetting Luxury Emissions

Stearns Broadhead

6 December 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: This work addresses moral aspects of using carbon offsets for counteracting individuals’ luxury emissions. After introducing and outlining the main topics and terms related to carbon offsetting, it answers three objections that have been leveled against carbon offsetting: objections from the indulgences analogy, objections from the directness of the duty not to harm, and separateness objections. The work argues that advocates for offsetting have resources to defend against these criticisms by pointing to particularities of individual emissions’ harmfulness, as well as the preemptive nature of offsetting. The work then shows that in spite of these defenses there is reason to regard not emitting as a better option because of a host of problems that plague offsetting in its current forms. This work concludes that offsetting enhances individuals’ options for discharging their duty not to harm, but that standards of justice and efficacy need to be adopted.

Francisco Felizol

Praxis-CFUL

Entre rei sagrado e vítima microcósmica, bobo judicial e carrasco executivo: Os vértices antropológicos da soberania ante a ameaça populista

3 December 2024, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

Em 1975, Foucault entronizava o soberano grotesco como um dos motores do poder. Esta ideia poderá ser melhor compreendida e fundamentada com o auxílio de uma antropologia que detecte as máscaras, sombras e misturas com que, nas sociedades humanas, o poder se costuma revestir. Nesta perspetiva, se, na esteira de Frazer, Hocart e Girard, as origens do poder político parecem remeter ao rei sagrado, também este é imediatamente remetível a outras figuras ou tipos. Sendo rei sagrado já de si potencial vítima (ou vítima adiada, e aí a sua proximidade com o homo sacer e o deuotus) com cariz microcósmico (o que acontece ao seu corpo acontece ao cosmos, ao reino), encontra-se na vizinhança antropológica do que tentaremos perceber como o bobo judicial (no âmbito do riso fertilizante e assassino, apontado, com a criança e o louco, à verdade tão violenta quão inocente) e o carrasco executivo (a também fertilizante execução mortal da de-cisão que o pode assegurar como soberano). Os tabus imobilizadores, a gravitas do rei (ou, hoje, do líder) fazem mais do que moderar os seus movimentos e decisões, sempre perigosos, mais do que conter nele o ambíguo sagrado antropológico (tão salvífico quanto violento): mantêm com ele, aquilo que tentaremos perceber como os outros três vértices da soberania, a vítima microcósmica, o bobo judicial e o carrasco executivo, a distância segura. Contudo, o progressivo colapso destas distâncias e interdições, liberta o sagrado que o rei, em sim deve conter; transborda-se para o palco, senão já para a rua, o trono, o altar, o circo e o patíbulo. Que tudo se acelera e precipita, mais as quatro figuras se aproximam esboçando a figura do soberano grotesco. Quando, desde os fundamentos do poder soberano, este caos sagrado emerge, assistimos a uma perigosa degradação do poder. À medida que, no lugar do poder, ante o avançar do espectáculo igualizado em que se torna a política, se assiste à queda de barreiras e limites, o soberano grotesco e os seus perigos parecem regressar, à direita e à esquerda, na forma do que usamos chamar de populismo. Talvez por esta via, se possa compreender melhor a atracção, aparentemente contemporânea, deste e do líder que lhe dá rosto.

Physicalist, Reductive Definitions of Concepts

Arvid Båve (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

29 November 2024, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: I have previously argued that Bealer’s argument against reductive functionalism does not affect a version of the latter which incorporates a functionalist (or conceptual role) view of contents. That response raises questions about the nature of contents, however. Reductive functionalists clearly cannot take them to be physical, on grounds of multiple realizability. It seems the only option is therefore for them to take contents to be “second-order” entities, i.e., merely token-identical with physical entities but, type-wise, definable in physical terms in some way analogous to the way ordinary mental states are. The big question is then how such definitions might read. To explain how, I first make some assumptions about the nature of contents (propositions and their constituents, which I take to be concepts). They have been defended and discussed in detail in other work. On the basis of these assumptions, reductive definitions of concepts (including propositions) are proposed. A potential problem arises but I argue that there are many satisfying responses to it.

What is it to Use a Word?

Indrek Reiland (University of Viena)

29 November 2024, 12:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: What is it, in producing a noise (mark, bodily movement), to use a word, sentence, or other expression? The most common suggestion is that this has something to do with the speaker’s articulatory intentions: the intention to repeat a previous use (Kaplan 1990) or simply the intention to use a word (Hawthorne & Lepore 2011). On some versions of the view, intention isn’t wholly constitutive; the product (noise etc.) also has to satisfy some conventional standards specifying the canonical articulation, within limits of toleration (Hawthorne & Lepore 2011). In this talk I will offer two ways of working out this idea in detail and defend one of them over the other. On the offered view, to use a word is to intend, in making a noise, to put a rule in force that requires the noise to match the canonical articulation. I will end by showing how this view enables us to make sense of LLM-based chatbots like ChatGPT as using words, even if they lack intentions and other mental states.