Faculty of Arts and Humanities | University of Macau

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Viewing Humans and the World Through Affairs” by Prof. Yang Guorong, East China Normal University, China
2023-11-22 17:30 - 19:00 UTC | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/91442748446
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Understanding and shaping the world are always related with the transformation of the world from its original state into the actual world. The world in its original state is the world as it is of itself. It is only when humans function in the world in their various ways that the questions of understanding and shaping the world arise. The processes of people functioning in the world are also the processes of the unfolding of “affairs” (shi). Affairs (shi) are primarily interrelated with actual human activity. According to Chinese philosophy, “affairs are action” and “all affairs in the world arise from conduct.” “Affairs” also refers to the outcomes of people’s conduct and action. An outlook that sees the world in terms of affairs seeks to understand and shape the world on the basis of actual human activity and its outcomes.

Bio
Yang Guorong is a senior professor at East China Normal University, dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, director of the China Modern Thought and Culture Research Institute at the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, and director of the academic committee of the university. He is also the Dean of Ma Yifu Academy at Zhejiang University, Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education, and a member of the 5th and 6th Philosophy Discipline Evaluation Groups of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. His main research areas include Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy between China and the West, ethics, metaphysics, etc. He has published more than 20 academic works, and various works have been translated into English and Korean. He has been published in Indian University Press, Brill, and others. His academic part-time positions include the President of the International Metaphysics Society (ISM), Academician of the International School of Philosophy (IIP), Former President of the International Society of Chinese Philosophy (ISCP) (2019-2022), President of the Chinese Philosophical History Society, etc.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “The Case for Commitment” by Prof. Sarah Paul, NYU Abu Dhabi
2023-12-01 13:30 - 15:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/91741709275
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Theories of structural, instrumental rationality generally do not make reference to anything we might call ‘commitment’, beyond the sense in which all intentions are a kind of settled commitment. Some views do allow for things like commitment, resolutions, or faith to affect how we ought to reason, but these tend to be characterized as all-or-nothing notions whose role is to preserve inertia by preventing reconsideration and/or desensitizing us to new evidence. I conjecture that we’re led to this overly narrow conception of commitment by thinking of temptation as the primary cause of giving up on an end prematurely, and overlooking the importance of obstacles like procrastination and despair. In my talk, I will try to articulate a puzzle about acting in the face of uncertainty, concerning how we should navigate the tensions involved in trying hard to achieve a goal, while at the same time planning for the possibility of failure and remaining open to giving up. Such decisions are not only difficult to make, but also to live with over time. I argue that our understanding of these dynamics is deepened by bringing in a degreed notion of commitment that involves far more than merely blocking the effects of temptation.

Bio
Sarah Paul is Professor of Philosophy at NYU Abu Dhabi and a Global Network Professor of Philosophy at NYU. Before joining NYU in 2019, she was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for nine years. She is the author of Philosophy of Action: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Press 2021), as well as articles that have appeared in Ethics, Philosophers’ Imprint, the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and Philosophical Studies. She is currently working on a book titled Striving with Jennifer Morton, under contract with OUP.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Intention, Ethics, and Convention in Daoism: Guo Xiang on Ziran (self-so) and Wuwei (non-action)” by Prof. Paul J. D’Ambrosio, East China Normal University, China
2023-12-06 15:00 - 16:30 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/93533585933
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Much contemporary scholarship on ziran and wuwei views these concepts, which are often coupled, as being 1) anti-intention, effort, purpose, and self-consciousness; 2) indicative of a distinct type of ethics and/or morality; and 3) a rejection of following custom and convention. This discussion will draw largely on the philosophy of Guo Xiang to demonstrate that these widely agreed upon avenues of interpretation are limited and run contrary to other more nuanced readings of ziran and wuwei. I argue that ziran and wuwei are better appreciated as speaking to attitudes, that they should be understood in terms of degrees rather than categories, and that the Laozi and Zhuangzi offer them as advice for ways of reflecting—they are not standardizable ethical rules. In this way, we can see how ziran and wuwei include intention and effort, are anti (most forms of) ethics and morality, and are inherently intertwined with customs and convention.

Bio
Paul J. D’Ambrosio is a professor of Chinese philosophy at East China Normal University (ECNU), fellow of the Institute of Modern Chinese Thought and Culture, dean of the Center for Intercultural Research, co-director of the English language graduate program all at ECNU. In addition he serves as research fellow at the Ma Yifu Academy of Zhejiang University. He is coauthor (with Hans-Georg Moeller) of You and Your Profile (2021) and Genuine Pretending (both on Columbia University Press, 2017), author of 真假之间 (Between Genuineness and Pretense) (Kongxue tang, 2020), and editor (with Michael Sandel) of Encountering China (Harvard University Press, 2018). He has authored over 100 articles and reviews and translated almost a dozen books. Additionally, he is the founder and director of the online academic forum 四海為學 “Collaborative Learning.”

FAH/DPHIL Conference – "Spiritual Exemplars in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion"
2023-12-13 - 2023-12-14 | E21A-3118

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “State Ritual, Political Legitimacy, and Religious Practice of the Jidu in Imperial China” by Prof. Li Teng, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, China
2023-12-29 16:00 - 17:30 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92871894953
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The Jidu 濟瀆 (i.e., the Ji River 濟水), was one of the four waterways (sidu 四瀆) in imperial China. Even though it vanished a long time ago, the Jidu had always been a part of the traditional Chinese ritual system of mountain- and water-directed state sacrifices. From the Western Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty, it continuously received regular state sacrifices. However, Western scholars have failed to notice it. Some modern Chinese and Japanese scholars have studied the development of the Jidu sacrifice, but its embodied political and religious significances for the state and local society were largely ignored. To remedy this neglect, I provide here, with new discoveries and conclusions, the first comprehensive study of the Jidu sacrifice in imperial China.

In this lecture, I will analyze the ideas of state authority, political legitimacy, religious belief, and cosmology, as these underlie the ritual performance concerning the Jidu. I also argue that the Jidu was not only tightly associated with controlling water but was also a symbol and mechanism of political legitimacy. Relying on concrete official and local records, in the third section I further investigate the role that the Jidu God played in local society. I will prove that, after the Song dynasty, the Jidu God was transformed into a regional protector of local society and savior of local people in addition to an official water god.

Bio
Li Teng is now an Assistant Professor at Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, as well as post-doctor at Hebei Normal University. He got his PhD in Philosophy and Religious Studies from University of Macau in 2021. He is the coauthor of The Study of Buddhism in Modern Macau 當代澳門佛教問題研究 (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2020). He has also published over twenty articles in Chinese and English.

FAH/DPHIL: MRI Public Forum - From Matteo Ricci to the Chinese Rites Controversy: A Historical and Theological Analysis
2024-01-03 15:00 - 17:00 | Library Auditorium (G012), University Library (E2)

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Funny Games: An Analysis of Humor as Gameplay” by Prof. Tatyana Kostochka, Ashoka University, India
2024-01-10 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92487286224
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
In what he calls the “obligatory chapter” of his monograph Isn’t It Clever, Steven Gimbel surveys a number of traditional theories of humor: the superiority theory, the inferiority theory, the incongruity theory, the script-opposition theory, the cognitive-evolutionary theory, the relief theory, and, finally, the play theory. Of this last view, he says: “play theory […] is a view that virtually no philosopher holds, but which everyone includes in their obligatory cataloguing of theories of humor” (p. 31). People list the view because there is something undeniably attractive about a play theory of humor and yet, they reject it because it is also undeniable that not all humor is playful. In this talk, I will to convince you to join this virtually non-existent group of play theorists by laying out a version of the play theory—one that sees humor not just as play but as game-play. In particular, I will draw on insights from Thi Nguyen’s Games: Agency as Art to show that the gameplay view explains many of the aesthetic and ethical features of humor.

Bio
Tatyana Kostochka is an assistant professor of philosophy at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India. She completed her PhD at the University of Southern California. Tatyana’s research is divided between two areas: moral psychology and Buddhist philosophy. In moral psychology, she is primarily interested in exploring the nature of moods and how they alter the way we interact with the world. In Buddhist philosophy, she is especially concerned with medieval Chinese and Japanese discussions about the precept against killing.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Philosophical Expertise and Acquisition of Intuitions” by Prof. Kengo Miyazono and Kiichi Inarimori, Hokkaido University, Japan
2024-01-31 17:30 - 19:00
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/91382186744
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
This paper argues that there is a form of philosophical expertise that has to do with the acquisition of philosophical intuitions. In other words, there are at least some cases in which having “genuine” philosophical intuitions (i.e. philosophical intuitions that are based on the full possession of relevant concepts) requires some form of philosophical expertise; laypeople without philosophical expertise do not have genuine philosophical intuitions. As a case study, we focus on the intuitions about free will and determinism, and provide experimental evidence that philosophical expertise is necessary in order to have genuine philosophical intuitions about free will and determinism.

Bio
Kengo Miyazono is an associate professor of philosophy at Hokkaido University, Japan. His research areas are philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science.
Kiichi Inarimori is a PhD student at Hokkaido University, Japan. His research topics include free will, experimental philosophy, and philosophical methodology.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Ernst Cassirer and the Place of Myth in Scientific Culture” by Prof. Gregory Moss, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2024-02-21 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/98345879594
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Philosophers often raise the objection that Cassirer’s theory of myth appears unequipped to account for the possibility of the return of mythical consciousness within modern Western societies. I argue that Cassirer’s philosophy of myth can successfully respond to this classical objection. In his second volume, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 2: The Mythical Thinking, Cassirer draws on Schelling’s philosophy of myth in order to give a transcendental account of mythical experience. Like Schelling, Cassirer argues that myth is historically overcome by other forms of culture, such as revealed religion and scientific culture. However, in the third volume, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 3, Cassirer argues that both mythical consciousness and our consciousness of other minds are made possible by the same symbolic function. Because the symbolic function that makes myth possible is never fully absent from human experience, I argue that Cassirer’s theory of myth is fully able to account for the reappearance and transformation of mythical forms in modern life. Finally, I argue that the symbolic function that makes myth possible not only appears within the perceptual experience of other minds, but also within scientific culture itself.

Bio
Gregory S. Moss is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before joining the faculty at CUHK in 2016 he was a lecturer in philosophy at Clemson University from 2014-2016. He completed PhD in philosophy in August 2014 under Distinguished Research Professor Richard Dien Winfield and was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to study under Markus Gabriel at the University of Bonn in Germany (2013-2014). Gregory Moss’s scholarly work is mainly focused on systematic metaphysical and epistemological questions that stem from the Post-Kantian German and Ancient Greek philosophical traditions. He is the author of Hegel’s Foundation Free Metaphysics,: The Logic of Singularity, ( Routledge 2020), which won the Hegel PD prize for 2022. He has broad interests, ranging from modern Japanese philosophy (mostly the Kyoto School), to issues in the Philosophy of Culture and the Philosophy of Religion.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Why the Search for AI Safety (or Alignment) Can Be Very Dangerous" by Prof. Herman Cappelen, University of Hong Kong
2024-03-06 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-G049
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/97781274783
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
There is now a very extensive debate, both inside and outside academia, about how to make very advanced AI systems safe and ethical. Sometimes this is called the Alignment Problem. There are many proposals for how this can be done. In this talk, I argue that most (or all) of these efforts are both futile and potentially dangerous. I end with some old-fashioned suggestions for how to move forward when thinking about AI risk.

Bio
Herman Cappelen is Chair Professor of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Before moving to Hong Kong, he worked at the Universities of Oslo, St. Andrews, Oxford, and Vassar College. To name just some of his accolades, he is currently the director of AI & Humanity Lab at the University of Hong Kong, the co-director of Concept Lab at the University of Oslo and of Concept Lab Hong Kong, and holds a position on the Steering Committee of the Institute of Data Science, also at the University of Hong Kong. Formerly, he was the director of Arché Philosophical Research Center in St. Andrews for several years, and held the position of Research Director of the Center for the Study of Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo. His current research focus is on the philosophy of AI, Conceptual Engineering, the conceptual foundations of political discourse, externalism in the philosophy of mind and language, and the interconnections between all of these. However, his philosophical interests are broad – they cover more or less all areas of systematic philosophy.

FAH/DPHIL-IAS Philosophy Forum Distinguished Scholars Series – 4: "Living Chinese Philosophy: ‘Zoetology’ 生生論 as First Philosophy" by Prof. Roger T. Ames
2024-03-14 16:00 - 17:30 | E34-G011
Abstract
The classical Greeks give us a substance ontology grounded in “being qua being” or “being per se” (to on he on) that guarantees a permanent and unchanging subject as the substratum for the human experience. With the combination of eidos and telos as the formal and final cause of independent things such as persons, this “sub-stance” necessarily persists through change. This substratum or essence includes its purpose for being, and is defining of the “what-it-means-to-be-a-thing-of-this-kind” of any particular thing in setting a closed, exclusive boundary and the strict identity necessary for it to be this, and not that.
In the Yijing 易經 or Book of Changes we find a vocabulary that makes explicit cosmological assumptions that are a stark alternative to this substance ontology, and provides the interpretive context for the Confucian canons by locating them within a holistic, organic, and ecological worldview. To provide a meaningful contrast with this fundamental assumption of on or “being” we might borrow the Greek notion of zoe or “life” and create the neologism “zoe-tology” as “the art of living.” This cosmology begins from “living” (sheng 生) itself as the motive force behind change, and gives us a world of boundless “becomings:” not “things” that are, but “events” that are happening, a contrast between an ontological conception of human “beings” and a process conception of what I will call human “becomings.”

Bio
Roger T. Ames 安樂哲 is Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University, Senior Academic Advisor of the Peking University Berggruen Research Center, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Hawai’i. He is former editor of Philosophy East & West and founding editor of China Review International. Ames has authored several interpretative studies of Chinese philosophy and culture: Thinking Through Confucius (1987), Anticipating China (1995), Thinking from the Han (1998), and Democracy of the Dead (1999) (all with D.L. Hall), Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary (2011), and most recently Human Becomings: Theorizing ‘Persons’ for Confucian Role Ethics (2020). His publications also include translations of Chinese classics: Sun-tzu: The Art of Warfare (1993); Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare (1996) (with D.C. Lau); the Confucian Analects (1998) and the Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: The Xiaojing (2009) (both with H. Rosemont), Focusing the Familiar: The Zhongyong (2001), and The Daodejing (with D.L. Hall) (2003). Almost all of his publications are now available in Chinese translation, including his philosophical translations of Chinese canonical texts. He has most recently published the new Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy (2023) with its companion A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy (2021), continues to write articles promoting a conversation between world pragmatism and Confucian philosophy.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Transparency, Moore’s Paradox and the Concept of Belief " by Prof. Adam Andreotta, Curtin University, Australia
2024-04-03 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95298043328
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
In this paper, I take a closer look at the relationship between belief and judgement. I argue for the output thesis—the thesis that conscious judgements give rise to occurrent beliefs. I then go on to suggest that the output thesis provides independent support for the transparency method and an independent explanation of why Moore’s Paradox arises. My view stands in contrast to views in the literature which are sceptical of there being such a close connection between judgement and belief, and also provides a challenge to those who support the transparency method by appealing to Moore’s Paradox. Along the way I discuss some of the implications of the output thesis for current characterisations of judgement and belief. Finally, I address a significant objection to the output thesis—namely, the set of cases where subjects assert that P, but behave in ways that suggest they believe not-P. I argue that such cases do not undermine the output thesis.

Bio
Professor Adam Andreotta is a Lecturer at Curtin University in Western Australia. He received his doctoral degree in Philosophy from the University of Western Australia in July 2018. ​His main research topic is the philosophy of self-knowledge—a major topic at the intersection of epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His Ph.D. thesis, First-Person Authority and its Limits, defended a view of self-knowledge called the transparency method—a view which differs from traditional inward-looking accounts of introspection. He has continued to publish work on the transparency method and other topics pertaining to self-knowledge. Beyond this, he has published on the philosophy of artificial intelligence, specifically on the Ethics of Big Data and AI Rights, as well as the history of philosophy, with a keen interest in the philosophical works of David Hume.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Affective Basis of Cognition and Reasoning in Non-human Animals" by Prof. Sanja Srećković, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
2024-04-10 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118 or via Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/93537268512
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The talk starts by presenting what I call ‘the two problems of animal reasoning’. The first problem concerns the mainstream understanding of reasoning in philosophy of mind and epistemology, which faces significant difficulties explaining a growing body of empirical results in animal cognition research. The second problem concerns the interpretation of the same empirical results within comparative psychology, namely, whether they are best explained by appeal to (‘lower’) associative or (‘higher’) cognitive mechanisms. Some recent developments have led to a crisis of both this practice and the distinction between the ‘associative’ and the ‘cognitive’. In response to these two problems, I develop an affect-based approach to reasoning, which broadens the conception of reasoning to include the non-human cases. I also show that affective experiences exhibit both ‘associative’ and ‘cognitive’ characteristics, further challenging the strict dichotomy between them, which might more fruitfully be replaced by a continuum.

Bio
Sanja Srećković received her Ph.D. degree in Philosophy at the University of Belgrade in 2019, where she continued working as a Research Associate. During her PhD, she was a visiting scholar at York University in Toronto, where she did research on mental representation and animal cognition. In February 2024, she won an EPSA Fellowship for a research visit to the University of Geneva, to work on philosophy of emotions and philosophy of biology. In 2024 she became a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at Ruhr University Bochum, where she joined Alber Newen’s research group. Her current work combines research on mental representation, reasoning and affective experiences from a comparative and developmental perspective. The goal of her research project is to develop a framework for understanding reasoning that does not depend on linguistic capability and can include non-linguistic reasoning agents. She is also exploring the role of affective and emotional experiences in developing more abstract cognitive capacities.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Seeing the Non-existent " by Prof. Wolfgang Barz, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany
2024-04-24 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118 & Zoom
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95409920647
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
In my talk I will outline a direct-realist theory of sensory experience, i.e. a theory according to which material objects are directly given to us in sensory experience. In contrast to other versions of direct realism, however, I will not limit the scope of this claim to veridical experiences, but extend it to non-veridical cases (hallucinations, illusions, dreams) as well. The central idea of my approach is to understand non-veridical cases of sensory experience as direct awarenesses of non-existent material objects. I would like to draw on a conception of non-existent objects that was originally introduced by Alexius Meinong (1904) and later developed further by Terence Parsons (1980), Richard Routley (1980) and Dale Jacquette (1996).

Bio
Wolfgang works as a visiting professor at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Germany. His core interests lie in various areas of theoretical philosophy. Currently, he is working primarily on problems of self-consciousness and self-knowledge. However, he is also interested in the structure of phenomenal concepts, the nature of non-existent objects and metaphilosophical questions, in particular the question of what makes a topic an object of philosophical research. — Earlier, Wolfgang worked at Goethe-University Frankfurt, Duisburg-Essen University, Leibniz University Hannover, Bielefeld University, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, and Freie Universität Berlin. He lives in Berlin, together with his partner and two children.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Dialectics of Freedom in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: Keats, Hegel, Marx" by Dr. James Chambers, Hebei University, China
2024-08-28 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95244216235
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is an attractive site for mixing John Keats, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx because Hegel and Marx were both philhellenes. In Hegel and Marx, the concepts of truth and beauty intertwine with the concept of freedom. Dialectical aesthetics defines beauty in terms of truth and defines art’s truth in terms of freedom. This article’s Hegelian interpretation is oriented around subjectivity and transcendence of freedom. Its Marxian interpretation is oriented around historicity and the immanence of freedom. The “negative capability” of the ode abolishes and uplifts the best of Hegelian and Marxian interpretation in aesthetic wonder with mystery.

Bio
Dr. James Chambers teaches philosophy at Hebei University. His area of research is the philosophy of Hegel, Marx, and Laozi and interdisciplinary studies of philosophy, literature and history. His recent publications include the book Marx and Laozi: A Dialectical Synthesis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), and articles; “Dialectics of Freedom in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: Keats, Hegel, Marx” (Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History, 2023), “Hegel’s Metaphilosophy of Idealism” (Metaphilosophy, 2021), “Didactic Mimesis in Wordsworth’s ‘Simon Lee’” (Style, 2020; co-authored with Sun Shuting), and “Against Methodological Individualist Interpretation of Marxist Explanations of Social Phenomena” (International Critical Thought, 2018; co-authored with Cheng Zhihua). James is currently completing the first draft of a historical novel, writing an article on Hegel’s epistemology on the question of the relationship between representations and concepts, and working with East China Normal University Press Ltd. on a Chinese translation of his book.

Philosophy Forum: Distinguished Scholars Series - 5: "Human Agency and Human Sacrifice: A Neo-Tiantai Perspective" by Prof. Brook Ziporyn, The University of Chicago, U.S.A.
2024-08-29 14:00 - 16:00 | UM Gallery Auditorium (E1-B1002)

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “Fearing Climate-Fictions: Emotions, Persuasion, and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Cli-Fi" by Dr. Marta Benenti, University of Murcia, Spain
2024-09-11 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/99087478661
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Most literary and cinematographic narratives about climate change depict catastrophic scenarios which have a tragic impact on the stories’ characters and frequently lead to hopeless endings (Trexler 2015). Owing much to dystopian literature, such cultural products as Cli-fi (or climate fictions) present their audiences with scary, shocking, or threatening images of more or less near futures (Benenti & Giombini 2023). As a consequence, narrative engagement with these works is often accompanied by feelings of discomfort, anxiety, and fear. While these emotional states can be thought to contribute to Cli-fi’s capacity to raise recipients’ awareness concerning the environmental crisis, empirical evidence suggests that negative emotions impair rather than foster climate-friendly behaviours (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole 2009). In this talk, I (i) review the psychological literature concerning the effects of negative emotions elicited by narratives on action dispositions; (ii) introduce the hypothesis that catastrophic narratives are less likely than more positive accounts of climate change to motivate people’s engagement; (iii) suggest that the aesthetic appreciation of Cli-fi works – rather than the positive or negative valence of the emotions aroused – is crucial in determining readers’ and watchers’ disposition to actively counter climate change.

Bio
Marta Benenti received her PhD in philosophy at the University of Turin. She’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Murcia, where she carries out the project LEAP – Learning to Appreciate Aesthetic Values. Previously, she held research positions at the Italian Academy (New York), the University of Turin, and the San Raffaele University (Milan), and teaching positions at the Politecnico of Turin. From 2021 to 2023 she was postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Eastern Piedmont where she taught aesthetics and philosophy of mind, while working on a project on the persuasive power of fictional narratives about climate change. She has published on the topics of expressiveness, emotions, the aesthetics of tourism, fiction, and the perception of aesthetic values.

Philosophy Forum: Distinguished Scholars Series - 6: "Reshaping Confucianism" by Prof. Chenyang Li, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
2024-09-23 16:00 - 17:30 | E34-G011

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "Plato and Plato’s Socrates on Mythmaking" by Prof. Chloe Balla, University of Crete, Greece
2024-09-25 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95701738202
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Writing in the 1st century BCE, the Roman scholar Cicero claimed that Socrates brought philosophy down from the heavens. Cicero’s claim ties in with Xenophon’s representation of his teacher, according to which Socrates advised his students to abstain from the study of nature and instead focused on their ethical cultivation. Xenophon also attributes to Socrates the groundbreaking idea of a divine Demiurge, a Craftsman who designed the world, including of course human beings. Plato, on the other hand, who is the most famous of Socrates’ students, presents his teacher not as the author but rather as a listener of a creation story that was recounted to him by Timaeus, an otherwise unknown philosopher and statesman, reported in the later tradition as a Pythagorean. Timaeus’ teleological account of nature is often considered as an answer to the concern Plato’s Socrates expresses on the last day of his life (recounted in the Phaedo), regarding the failure of contemporary physics to grant intelligence the causal role he thinks it should play in the cosmos. Plato, however, is aware that the ambitious account of nature his teacher envisaged cannot be cast in the language of an argument (a logos: the term can be translated as speech, but also argument or reasoning) but rather of a story (in the vocabulary of the Timaeus an eikos mythos: a likely account or myth).
With this background in mind, I propose to offer a new interpretation of Socrates’ claim in the beginning of the Phaedo according to which he was not an expert in myth-making. I propose to draw attention to the contrast between (a) Socrates’ claim concerning his own lack of expertise in myth-making and (b) the mythological account that toward the end of the dialogue, he attributes to an unnamed informant. Following David Sedley, I propose to argue that the unnamed informant Socrates invokes is Plato himself, who envisages and offers to his teacher, albeit in mythical language, a ‘preview’ of the teleological account that in a later dialogue he attributes to Timaeus. Based on Sedley’s hypothesis, I go on to suggest that the author Plato intends Socrates’ claim in the beginning of the dialogue, concerning his lack of expertise in mythmaking, as a statement of the contrast but also the continuity between the teacher Socrates (who envisaged a teleological account of nature, but lacked the tools that would allow him to develop it, which included the art of mythmaking) and the student Plato, who successfully fulfilled Socrates’ dream and developed an original vision concerning natural science.

Bio
Chloe Balla is a professor of ancient philosophy at the University of Crete, Director of the Philosophical Research and Translation Lab, UCRC, and Secretary of the Centre of Greek and Chinese Ancient Civilizations (KELKIP). She has published extensively on the Sophists, the Hippocratic Corpus and Plato’s dialogues. She is the author of Platonic Persuasion: From Rhetoric to Statecraft (Athens 1997, in Greek) and The Sophists and Socrates (Athens 2023, co-authored with Kalliopi Papamanoli), and of a Modern Greek translation of Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians (Athens 2015), and co-editor of Plato’s Academy. Its Workings and Its History (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and Deaths of Philosophers in Antiquity (Athens, 2010). She has been a fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies (Harvard University), the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies (Princeton University) and at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "In Defense of Social Hierarchies in China" by Prof. Daniel Bell and Prof. Wang Pei, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2024-10-09 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/93780921652
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
Any modern society needs social hierarchies. We know which ones are unjust — based on race, sex, and class — but which ones are just? Wang Pei and Daniel Bell will draw on their book Just Hierarchy (Princeton University Press, 2022) to argue that morally justified hierarchies benefit not just those with power, but also those on the bottom of social hierarchies. They will illustrate this argument by drawing on examples of social hierarchies in contemporary China, from age-based hierarchies in the family to drinking banquets in academic settings and hierarchical relations between countries. The point is not to defend the status quo but to show how it can be improved by means of just hierarchies. Their talk will engage with such critics as Hans Georg Moeller and Lee Ting-mien.

Bio
Daniel A. Bell (貝淡寧) is Professor, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He served as Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University (Qingdao) from 2017 to 2022. His books include The Dean of Shandong (2023), Just Hierarchy (co-authored with Wang Pei, 2020), The China Model (2015), The Spirit of Cities (co-authored with Avner de-Shalit, 2012), China’s New Confucianism (2008), Beyond Liberal Democracy (2007), and East Meets West (2000), all published by Princeton University Press. He is also the author of Communitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford University Press, 1993). He is founding editor of the Princeton-China series (Princeton University Press) which translates and publishes original and influential academic works from China. His works have been translated in 23 languages. He has been interviewed in English, Chinese, and French. In 2018, he was awarded the Huilin Prize and was honored as a “Cultural Leader” by the World Economic Forum.

Wang Pei is an assistant professor at the School of Chinese, the University of Hong Kong. She completed her PhD thesis on phenomenology at department of philosophy of Tsinghua University and was a joint PhD. student in Université Paris 1. She was a post-doctoral research fellow in Tsinghua Institute of Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Science. She is the co-author (with Daniel. A. Bell) of Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World, published by Princeton University Press in 2020. She has authored over thirty academic articles in English, Chinese, and French, mainly on phenomenology, Jungian psychology and comparative philosophy. She is currently writing a book titled “The Power of Calligraphy: A Political History of Calligraphy in China.”.

FAH/DPHIL: MRI International Symposium 2024 - "Cultural Exchange between China and the West: Remembering Marco Polo"
2024-10-18 - 2024-10-19 | Auditorium, University Gallery (E1)
The travels of Marco Polo symbolise a rich tradition of cultural encounter between China and the West. On the 7th centenary of his death, this Symposium celebrates Marco Polo’s legacy by investigating the multi-faceted cultural exchange that took place along the Silk Roads and maritime trade routes connecting China and the West from the 13th century to the present day. Throughout much of this time, the city of Macao played a pivotal role in the story of mutual discovery that unfolded through the exchange of knowledge, objects, and insights in the domains of science, religion, education, and the arts. Macao still bears the imprint of centuries of intense cultural engagement. In addition to talks and discussions highlighting the intertwined histories of China and the West negotiated through the exchange of cultural goods, this Symposium provides an opportunity for a guided tour of Macao’s historical centre. It also includes a cultural event that reflects Macao’s intricate cultural identity and global significance.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "Universal Love (jian’ai) and not Loving Robbers" by Prof. Yun Wu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
2024-10-23 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/93356482056
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
The claim “although robbers are people, loving robbers is not loving people” in the Mohist Canons at first glance seems to contradict their doctrine of “jian’ai”, which is supposed to be all-inclusive. This paper explains why it does not. On the interpretation I shall propose, jian’ai is not merely proposed by the Mohists as a moral goal, but also as a side-constraint—in the sense that its minimum requirement “not to harm the innocent” serves as a moral constraint set upon all actions, including the endeavor to realize the moral goal jian’ai itself. This side-constraint makes sure that jian’ai in any case is not pursued at the cost of defeating itself.
Since “not to harm the innocent” works as the side-constraint, and robbers by definition in the Mohist texts are those who intentionally harm the innocent, the claim of opposing robbers (more concretely in the text “not loving robbers” and “punishing robbers”)—their maxim and actions—can then be understood as an equivalent articulation of the side-constraint. It thus does not contradict jian’ai, but rather sustains its logical consistency.

Bio
Yun Wu received her Bachelor degree of Philosophy from Wuhan University, and both her Master and Doctoral degrees of Philosophy from Tsinghua University in Beijing. She has joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University since 2012 and is now a professor at the Department of Philosophy. Her recent academic visiting experience includes one year at St. Antony’s College in Oxford (2021-2022), and one year at UC Berkeley’s Department of Philosophy (2016-2017).
Her academic interests focus on moral and political philosophy, Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy. She has published several papers on Mohism in recent years, with a critical reflection on ingrained and still popular views such as that Mohism is a form of consequentialism (or more particularly, utilitarianism), that the Mohist idea of “jian’ai” equals to “love without distinctions”, that the Mohist political theory promotes a kind of “despotism”, and other views.

FAH/DPHIL: The Mario Echano Prize for the Best Undergraduate Philosophy Essay
2024-10-31 - 2025-05-02
The Mario Echano Prize for the Best Undergraduate Philosophy Essay is awarded for excellence in philosophy. Students enrolled in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies undergraduate courses are eligible to enter an essay for the annual award.
Students are invited to submit an academic essay written as an assignment in one of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies’ undergraduate courses this academic year (AY2024/2025). Essays of any length are acceptable. The organisers reserve the right not to award the prize if essays are not of sufficiently high standard.
Please submit essays by e-mail with the subject line ‘Submission for the Mario Echano Prize’ to Maggie Wong at MaggieWong@um.edu.mo. Attach your essay to the message as a Microsoft Word document (other formats will not be accepted). Please give your name, student number, and the name of the course for which you wrote the essay, on the first page of the essay. The deadline for submission is Friday, 2nd May 2025.
We look forward to your submissions.

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "Reaching Addicted Minds" by Dr. Daniel Morgan, University of York, United Kingdom
2024-11-06 17:30 - 19:00 | E21A-3118
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/96566927288
Password: [REDACTED]

Abstract
One approach to the question of why addiction excuses is to focus on the question of what addiction is. In this presentation, I take a different approach, focusing on the question of what excuses are. I argued that excuses are considerations that block inferences to a morally deficient psychology. It falls out of this view of what excuses are that a relatively surface-level property of addiction – the fact when one is addicted to something, one is highly motivated by it – is sufficient to explain why addiction excuses. The view about excuses also supports a diagnosis of why the point about motivation can seem insufficient to explain why addiction excuses. Central to the diagnosis is a fact about non-addicts: non-addicts typically underestimate how motivating objects of addiction are to addicts, thought ignorance of some of the mechanisms by which those objects motivate.

Bio
Dr. Daniel Morgan received his UG, BPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford. He had post-docs at Oxford, University College London, and the University of Barcelona, and is presently a lecturer at the University of York. He is interested in Mind, Epistemology, and Moral Psychology. His PhD and postdoctoral work looked at issues at the nature and role of perspectival thought (e.g. thought about a time ‘as now’, thought about a person ‘as me’). More recently he has been interested in moral responsibility, including especially the nature of excuses in general and addiction in particular. He has a paper forthcoming on excuses in Free and Equal, and on spontaneous freedom in Ethics.

FAH/DPHIL: Philosophy Café
2024-11-20 15:00 - 16:30 | E21-G049

FAH/DPHIL: 4th International Conference on Natural Cognition - "Deception: Self, Others, and the Digital World"
2024-11-22 - 2024-11-23 | Auditorium, University Gallery (E1)
Conference website: https://naturalcognition2024.wixsite.com/academic-conference

FAH/DPHIL Conference: "Laozi's Philosophy - Heng Dao and Temporality"
2024-11-23 - 2024-11-24 | E21A-G035 / E21A-3118

FAH/DPHIL Workshop: 儒家倫理與現代性工作坊
2024-12-07 | E21A-3118

UM Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series – "Why Does Ritual Matter?: Theories from Classical China" by Prof. Michael Puett, Harvard University, USA
2025-01-10 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-G035

FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – "How Belief Functions" by Dr. Ema Sullivan-Bissett, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
2025-01-15 17:30 - 19:00 | E21-3118
Link: https://go.um.edu.mo/eds02x2h

Abstract
Our beliefs shape our understanding of the world and are key to how successful we are interacting with it. Fortunately, most of our beliefs get things (at least roughly) right, perhaps because they are constrained by evidence and not under our voluntary control. But sometimes we go wrong. We are overly optimistic, we engage in self-deception, we fail to properly update beliefs we hold dear in response to evidence, and, in perhaps the most paradigmatic case of belief gone wrong, we become deluded. How can we explain what belief is and how it behaves when faced with such a range of cases? In this talk, I argue that if we want our account of belief to be explanatorily adequate, we should separate the modal question concerning the nature of belief across possible worlds, from a more local question concerning the manifestation of its various guises in the actual world. I propose that what is necessary to belief is its motivational role, and it is this which sets the boundaries of the class of beliefs. But this unifying feature is not where our explanatory gains lie. Rather, the contingent biological circumstances of belief’s manifestation in the actual world is where we find explanations of the behaviour of garden variety beliefs, as well as the resources to accommodate various bad beliefs. If we want to explain its various operations, we must focus on how belief functions.

Bio
Ema Sullivan-Bissett is a Reader in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham. Her research concerns the nature of belief and its connection to truth, as well as delusional belief formation and implicit bias. She has recently been the Principal Investigator of two research projects: Deluded by Experience (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council), and Conspiratorial Ideation and Pathological Belief (funded by the British Academy). She is the editor of Art and Belief (Oxford University Press, 2017), Belief, Imagination, and Delusion (Oxford University Press, 2024), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Delusion (Routledge, 2024), and the author of Irrationality (Cambridge University Press, 2025). She has also published in the British Journal of Aesthetics, Erkenntnis, European Journal of Philosophy, Mind & Language, Philosophical Psychology, Philosophical Studies, Synthese, and others.
