Call for Papers
Cave Hill Philosophy Symposium 2009
Conversations V: Theories of Knowledge
November 19 and 20, 2009
Hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy, University of the
West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
The broad theme for the fifth Cave Hill Philosophy Symposium (CHiPS)
will be epistemology. This area of philosophy has seen some dramatic
changes especially in the past three decades, with the alternative
approaches offered to traditional mainstream epistemology by social
epistemology and naturalized epistemology. These developments have
brought about a shift in the old ordering of perception, memory and
testimony as sources of knowledge<where perception and memory usually
ranked as the best and most secure sources, and testimony as a distant
third. Several works over the past two decades have pointed to
testimony being an increasingly urgent and interesting topic of
epistemological analysis. These works also open space to consider<as
feminist and other post-colonial theorists have long been doing<the
extent to which the epistemic authority of testimony varies across
situations and circumstances of social and political inequality.
Likewise they call into question earlier lack of concern for the ways
of conceiving the knower and his or her being in the world.
CHiPS V will therefore focus on these developments, examining themes
such as testimony, epistemic authority, objectivity/subjectivity,
knowledge and power, and related issues. The Symposium welcomes
papers that offer philosophical explorations of these and related
topics. The tradition that has developed in our philosophical
conversations at CHiPS is one where views from varying philosophical
traditions and regional philosophies are welcome, and the hope is that
the contributions for Conversations V will continue this trend. The
Symposium also welcomes papers of a theoretical nature in the
disciplines that share a boundary with philosophy; disciplines such as
critical theory, cultural studies, gender studies, law, linguistics,
political theory, theology, and others. Papers with such an
orientation should grapple with the social dimensions of epistemology
within their respective disciplines.
Our keynote speaker will be Dr Lorraine Code. She is Distinguished
Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University
in Toronto Canada, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Dr
Code specializes in Epistemology, Feminist Epistemology and the
Politics of Knowledge; Epistemic Responsibility; Twentieth-century
French Philosophy (Foucault, Beauvoir, Le Doeuff); Ecological Theory
and Post-Colonial Theory. Her books include: Epistemic Responsibility
(1987), What Can She Know? (1991), Rhetorical Spaces (1995), and
Ecological Thinking (2006); she was editor of the Routledge
Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories (2000), and Feminist Interpretations
of Hans-Georg Gadamer (2003); and co-translator of Michèle Le Doeuff
The Sex of Knowing (2003).
CHiPS V, and its successors, will be held in the third week of
November to coincide with UNESCO World Philosophy Day (this year
November 19th). While the Symposium itself will address the
profession, we hope to include activities that will carry philosophy
to a wider audience.
In an effort to ensure well-prepared, quality presentations, abstracts
(300-500 words) are due by August 31, 2009. Participants whose
abstracts are accepted by the vetting committee will then be required
to submit their completed papers via email as an attachment in Open
Office, Word or Wordperfect by the firm deadline of October 19, 2009.
(These papers will then be posted on-line for other participants to
consult prior to the conference with the intention that time at the
Symposium can be devoted much more to discussion than to exposition of
the written papers.) We hope that revised papers will continue to be
available online: those from the earlier symposia can be accessed from
<http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/Philosophy/ChiPS/>http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/Philosophy/ChiPS/
<http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/Philosophy/ChiPS/> .
Contact persons:
Dr Frederick Ochieng¹-Odhiambo: (frederick.ochieng-odhiambo /at/ cavehill.uwi.edu)
<<mailto:(frederick.ochieng-odhiambo /at/ cavehill.uwi.edu)>mailto:(frederick.ochieng-odhiambo /at/ cavehill.uwi.edu)>
Mr Ed
Brandon: (edbrandon /at/ gmail.com)
<<mailto:(edbrandon /at/ gmail.com)>mailto:(edbrandon /at/ gmail.com)>
Ms Roxanne Burton: (roxanneeburton /at/ gmail.com)
<<mailto:(roxanneeburton /at/ gmail.com)>mailto:(roxanneeburton /at/ gmail.com)>
