Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic &

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Charles University in Prague

are pleased to announce

3^rd Colloquium on the Modalities of the Good

1^st – 3^rd August 2012

Prague, Czech Republic

The third Colloquium on the Modalities of the Good continues in the efforts began previously: to create a space for academically informed conversation and morally serious discussion between thinkers of broadly Platonic tradition in ethics, and to open it to interested public. The tradition, with its commitment to absolute value, and thus to the irreducibility of the central ethical ideas, is marked also by the belief that recognition of values involves a complex cooperation between thought and emotions such as love, joy or remorse. Internal to these concerns, and thus to the tradition itself, is the problem of how to approach them: of the relation between the what and the how in philosophical, particularly ethical, thinking. Reflection about the give-and-take between the substance and the method goes back to Socrates’ devotion to, and Plato’s exploration of, philosophical dialogue. It characterises not only thinkers who acknowledge their kinship to Plato, such as Kierkegaard or Simone Weil, but also some who do 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) in ethics, of thinking about ethics and of ethical thinking. For those same reasons, the Colloquium is emphatically a col-loquium: a conversation about issues of shared interest offered for discussion, rather than a forum for presenting ‘finished’ results.

Speakers and respondents:

Marina Barabas (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic): (TBA)

Christopher Cowley (University College Dublin): Luck in Love

Christopher Grau (Clemson University, USA): A Sensible Speciesism

David Levy (University of Edinburgh, G.B.): Seeing Something as Miracle

Camilla Kronqvist (Åbo Akademi University, Finland): A Love of Good

Tony Milligan (University of Aberdeen, G.B.): Courage & Love in Dark Times

Kamila Pacovská (University of Pardubice)

Craig Taylor (Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia) Literature & Moral Reflection

Programme here

Organisers: Marina Barabas, Christopher Cowley, Kamila Pacovská

For registration please e-mail Kamila Pacovská (kamila.pacovska@upce.cz) as soon as possible - space is limited. Final date of registration is 20^th July.

Attendance is free of charge.