Book Colloquium 2015

at the University of Klagenfurt

on Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures, Cambridge 1938-1941

WCL_Book_ColloquiumA book colloquium on Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures, Cambridge 1938–1941 will take place from 30 March to 1 April at the AAU Klagenfurt, Austria. The edition of these unpublished lectures is based on notes taken by Yorick Smythies (1917-1980), who served as a major source for earlier publications of Wittgenstein’s lectures. The aim of the book colloquium is, on the one hand, to contextualise the Whewell’s Court Lectures within Wittgenstein’s Nachlass and published writings, and on the other hand, to clarify their relationship to the authors discussed in the lectures, including Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, Kurt Gödel, William James, W. E. Johnson, David Hume, but also Yorick Smythies, the note-taker (see “Wittgenstein’s Reply to a Paper by Y. Smythies on ‘Understanding'”).

Wittgenstein_WCL_Contents

Programme

Monday, 30 March 2015

10:00. Welcome Address. Foll. Volker A. Munz (Klagenfurt), “Yorick Smythies and the Whewell’s Court Lectures: Foregrounds and Backgrounds”. 10:45 – 11:30. Ilse Somavilla (Innsbruck), “Wittgenstein’s Approach Towards Ethical and Aesthetic Questions Both as a Man and a Philosopher as Reflected in Smythies’ ‘Comments'”. 11:30 – 12:00. Coffee break. 12:00 – 12:45. Josef Rothhaupt (Munich), “Fly, Fly-Catcher, Fly-Glass; But not Fly-Bottle: Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures in the Context of his Gesamtnachlass“.

12:45 – 14:30. Lunch break.

14:30 – 15:15. Juliet Floyd (Boston MA), “Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures on Gödel”. 15:15 – 16:00. Felix Mühlhölzer (Göttingen), “Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures on Gödel: What is New in Them?”. 16:00 – 16:30. Coffee break. 16:30 – 17:15. Severin J. Schroeder (Reading), “Voluntary Action”. 17:15 – 18:00. Lars Hertzberg (Abo/Turku), “The Lectures on Freedom of the Will”.

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

10:00 – 10:45. Wolfgang Kienzler (Jena), “Wittgenstein and Hume on Belief – ‘If we get clearer why Hume said this, we’ll get clearer about what our problem is’ “. 10:45 – 11:30. David G. Stern (Iowa City IA), “Wittgenstein’s Use of Imaginary Examples in the Lectures on Belief”. 11:30 – 12:00. Coffee break. 12:00 – 12:45. Joachim Schulte (Zurich), “Topics from the Lectures on Description”.

12.45 – 14.30: Lunch break.

14:30 – 15:15. Gabriele Mras (Vienna), “‘Absolutely determinate’ – Wittgenstein and W. E. Johnson on Distinctions and Similarities”. 15:15 – 16:00. Bernhard Ritter (Klagenfurt), “On an Undatable Set of Notes About Meaning, Colour and Similarity”. 16:00 – 16:30. Coffee break. 16:30 – 17:15. James Klagge (Blacksburg VA), “The Thought Experiment about Seeds”.

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

10:00 – 10:45. Alois Pichler (Bergen), “The Exact, the Amorphous and the Human”. 10:45 – 11:30. Ray Monk (Southampton), “Wittgenstein, Tagore and the King of the Dark Chamber”. 11:30 – 12:00. Coffee break. 12:00 – 12:45. Round table, “What is the Significance of Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures?”. Printable_Programme

Please understand that we cannot distribute the unpublished full text of the edition to the visitors of the book colloquium. However, the speakers will give self-sustained talks and either provide slides or handouts with quotations from the Whewell’s Court Lectures.

Funding for the conference comes from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (ALWS), the AAU Klagenfurt and the Institute of Philosophy.

We recommend the following nearby accommodations to visitors of the Book Colloquium (from low-priced to four-star lodgings):

Jugendgästehaus Klagenfurt Pension Wachau Plattenwirt Seeparkhotel Lindner

The venue is room Z.1.09 in the main building of the University of Klagenfurt, Universitätsstraße 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria.

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