Digest Week 5 Hilary Term 2019

HT19, Week 5 (11th February - 17th February)

If you have entries for the weekly Digest, please send information to admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk by midday, Wednesday of the week before the event. 

Note that unless otherwise stated, the event will take place in the Radcliffe Humanities Building on Woodstock Rd, OX2 6GG.

Notices - Events taking place elsewhere in the university and beyond

Normative Ethics Reading Group | 14.00 - 16.00 | Ryle Room

During this group a paper within this topic is usually read and discussed, and occasionally the group has contributions from Faculty members. Organised by Tomi Francis. 

 

Why do we spend so little on preventing ill-health and so much on treating it? | 17.00 - 18.15 | Oxford Martin School 

Speaker: Chris Dye, Visiting Professor of Zoology & Visiting Fellow, All Souls College. This event will be followed by a drinks reception. 

“Prevention is better than cure”, and yet only 3% of health expenditure in OECD countries is spent on prevention and public health while more than 90% is spent on curative, rehabilitative and long-term care. How can that paradox be explained? What are the obstacles and opportunities for greater investment in staying healthy? For further details and registration, please visit https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/2657 

 

The Oxford Kant Colloquium | 17.00 - 19.00 | Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities 

Please note a change of venue: this event will no longer take place in 4.2B, at Alban's Quad, Merton College

During weeks 4-8: There is an option to present a paper on Kantian topics. Those interested in participating should email christopher.benzenberg@stx.ox.ac.uk

Safe and effective fieldwork | 13.30 - 17.00 | Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities 

This course is essential for any students or postdocs planning to undertake fieldwork as part of their research. The course is delivered by expert external trainers and covers travel planning and risk assessment; personal safety and security; crisis management; and university procedures and resources.
Booking via Bookwhen.

WEH/Ethox seminars | Archival Ethics from Below: The Case of the Uganda Cancer Institute's Records | 11.00 - 12.30 | Seminar Room 0, Big Data Institute

DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. 

Speaker: Marissa Mika, University College London (If you don’t have swipe access to the BDI and would like to attend this seminar, please email admin@ethox.ox.ac.uk)

At the Uganda Cancer Institute, lines often blur between past and present, sickness and health, life and death. Founded in 1967 as a small chemotherapy clinical trials facility in Kampala, today the Institute’s 100+ beds serve a population catchment of over 40 million living in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The Institute houses the only continuous collection of patient records documenting cancer treatment and care on the African continent. As this Institute gets torn down and built back up, so too do longstanding practices of cancer research and care. And with all of these changes at the Institute, there are major questions about what to preserve, what to discard, and what to celebrate. And in particular, what should be “done” with the institutional records and patient records at this site? This talk considers the temporal, methodological, and ethical challenges of preserving patient records at the Uganda Cancer Institute.

 

Security Ethics seminar series | The Problem of Personal Force | 17.30 | All Souls College

Speaker: Emilian Mihailov (Bucharest). This talk is only open to members of the University. Booking not required. Please visit the Oxford Talks webpage for more information.

 

Model Theory and Philosophy Reading Group | 18.00 - 20.00 | Ryle Room, Philosophy Faculty

If you would like to attend and you are not a member of the Facebook group, please email dominik.ehrenfels@stx.ox.ac.uk  

The goal is to come to understand both the proofs of central results in model theory and the philosophical discussions that are shaped by these results. Readings will be taken from Button and Walsh (2018), 'Philosophy and Model Theory', CUP. 
 

Experimental Psychology seminar | Contours & Explanations | 12.00 | Sultan Nazrin Shah Lecture Theatre, Worcester College 

Speaker: Michael Martin, Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy. Teas and coffees will be available from 11.30.

Philosophical discussion of explanation in perceptual science commonly focuses on the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’ which emphasizes the lack of an explanation of phenomenal facts in neurological and computational accounts of the brain. But here I want to look at some cases where theorists purport to have explanations of some aspects of our experience. The real puzzle here, I want to suggest, is not rejecting the purported explanations, but finding an appropriate setting for why they count as explanations.This is a wonderful opportunity to hear about Michael Martin's research and to pose questions directly to him.

 

Critical Theory Seminar | Horkheimer, Adorno and societal transformation | 17.00 - 18.30 | Old Library, All Souls College

Speaker: Maeve Cooke (UCD). Invited speakers to this series include both Critical Theorists working within the Frankfurt School tradition and researchers who take a critical approach towards social hierarchies. Speakers will give a paper for about 45 minutes before we open to questions. Graduate and undergraduate students from all disciplinary backgrounds are welcome.

 

Evolving Economic Thought lecture series | The economics of 1.5°C climate change  | 17.00 | Oxford Martin School 

Speaker: Simon Dietz, Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow & Professor of Environmental Policy, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

For further details, please visit https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/2656

 

Launch of the OUP Ian Ramsey Centre Series | New Horizons in Science and Religion | 19.30 - 20.45 | Mathematical Institute, Andrew Wiles Building 

Speakers: Peter Harrison (Queensland): 'Science Without God?' and Alister McGrath (Oxford): 'Territories of Human Reason'. The Ian Ramsey Centre invites you to the launch of the first two volumes of a new book series, 'The Ian Ramsey Centre Studies in Science and Religion'. For full information and to book a place, please visit the event webpage. 

 

Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch reading group | 20.00 - 21.30 | Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities

Organised by Elisabeth Huh and Sasha Lawson-Frost 

Feminist Thinking Seminar | Drag and Gender in Conversation | 16.00 - 18.00 | Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities 

This seminar is associated with the interdisciplinary M.St in Women's Studies, convened by Emily Cousens, Pelagia Goulimari and Claudia Pazos-Alonso, and organised by Women's Studies students. Panelists include Thom Wootton, Jessy Parker Humphreys and a member of the Oxford drag collective, Spuds; moderated by Levi Hord.