Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in association with the

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Charles University in Prague are pleased to announce

2^nd Colloquium on the Modalities of the Good

4^th – 6^th August 2010

Prague, Czech Republic

The second Colloquium on the Modalities of the Good continues the effort began last year: to create space for conversation and discussion between thinkers of broadly speaking Platonic tradition in ethics, and to open it to the general philosophical public. The Platonic orientation is marked by a general interest in what could be called ‘absolute’ value, centrally issues of goodness and evil; and in the role of thought and ‘emotions’ such as love, joy or remorse in their recognition. Non-accidentally connected with these concerns, and thus of equal importance to the tradition, is the question of how to approach them: of the relation between the what and the how in philosophical thinking. Reflection about the mutual give-and-take between the substance and the method goes as far back as Socrates’ and Plato’s varied and at time troubled emphasis on the importance and complexity of philosophical dialogue, and characterises not only thinkers who acknowledge their kinship to Plato, such as Kierkegaard or Simone Weil, but also those who would not, such as Wittgenstein. Contemporary ‘Platonic’ tradition, associated in English-speaking philosophy with the names of Roy Holland, Iris Murdoch, Peter Winch, Rai Gaita or Cora Diamond, is marked by this dual concern, and the Colloquium thematises to an equal extent the problem(s) of ethics, of thinking about ethics and of ethical thinking. For those same reasons, the Colloquium is emphatically a col-loquium: not a forum for presenting ‘finished’ results, but conversation about issues of shared interest, offered for discussion by the contributions of the speakers.

Speakers and respondents:

Marina Barabas (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic): Goodness and the Ethical

Michael Campbell (King’s College London): Justice and the „Indefinable Influence” of the Human

David Cockburn (University of Wales, Lampeter): Trust in Conversation

Christopher Cordner (University of Melbourne): Goodness & Love in Philosophical Thought

Christopher Cowley (University College Dublin)

Lars Hertzberg (Åbo Akademi University): Gaita on Recognizing the Human

Jakub Jirsa (Charles University in Prague): The Tragedy of Plurality

David Levy (University of Edinburgh): Dignity and Being Good

Kamila Pacovská (Charles University in Prague): Remorse and the Voluntary

• Colloquium language: English