The Department of Philosophy is pleased to invite you to our 2022/2023 colloquium series.
Join us online on October 21, 2022 to listen to our guest speaker Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal, Assistant Professor of Philosophy from Simon Fraser University, discussing “Intimate Concepts.”
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/65927660238?pwd=cUdOMWk0NFBmZlJJblRhNWhPMmhQZz09
Meeting ID: 659 2766 0238
Passcode: 121479
Abstract:
We use concepts, like city or money, to help us understand and talk about the world. But some concepts also help us understand ourselves and navigate our intimate relationships – concepts like lesbian, having sex, genderqueer, and love. These concepts raise distinctive challenges. On the one hand, we want to understand our own, widely varied, personal experiences; on the other hand, we want to be able to communicate with the wider world. The concepts that will do the best job at the first task – improved self-understanding – likely won’t be the same person to person. The conceptual frameworks that may be illuminating for one person may just be stifling or confusing for another, and maximally inclusive, general concepts might not have enough content to do the needed hermeneutical work. But piles of very specific, bespoke concepts create challenges for the second task – communicating with the wider world. For that purpose, the general concepts can have advantages – effective concepts might seem to be those that are widely understood in fairly uniform ways. So, we ask intimate concepts to perform two very different jobs – and the requirements of those jobs suggest very different ways of developing our conceptual frameworks. I explore this dilemma, look at what it can tell us about when to trust people’s claims about themselves, and suggest some ways forward.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Chelsea Rosenthal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University. Before joining the faculty at Simon Fraser, Dr. Rosenthal was an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in the Center for Bioethics at New York University and did her doctoral work in NYU’s Philosophy Department. She also holds a J.D. from the Law School there. Dr. Rosenthal’s research focuses on ethics, philosophy of law, and political philosophy, with current projects on moral uncertainty, privacy and content moderation on social media, and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers.
(For more details on her research, see her research page here.)
