Dr. Harold D. Roth is Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of the Contemplative Studies Initiative. Dr. Roth is a specialist in Classical Chinese Religious Thought, Classical Daoism, the comparative study of contemplative practices and experiences and a pioneer of the academic field of Contemplative Studies.
Come join Dr. Harold D. Roth in this online seminar using Zoom on Monday, March 28, 2022 at 7pm.
This paper explores three ways of thinking about habit. The first is the notion of habit as a disposition that issues in behaviour marked by immediacy, automaticity and absence of mind. This is Ryle’s account, in The Concept of Mind. I find reasons to be suspicious of it, although it is not without precedent in our ordinary ways of thinking and speaking. Second, we use the term to describe the patterns of activity that structure our daily lives. Such activity does not issue from deliberation about what to do, but in rational beings it is intentional, conscious, and open to normative as
John Dewey (1859-1952) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) share the view that significant progress in philosophy is attainable by the scientific method. Yet they disagree profoundly about what scientific philosophy requires.
At first glance, any naturalistic conception of the world struggles with the kind of explanation that normativity seems to require. Roughly speaking, philosophical naturalism tends to undermine the role of normative sciences in philosophy. This view advocates descriptive sciences that depict empirical facts or daily life practices—by which they describe how things normally are.
Toute forme de naturalisme, quelle qu'elle soit, finit par se heurter à la question de la normativité, et au type particulier d'explication qu'elle requiert. De manière un peu caricaturale, on peut dire que la perspective naturaliste occulte en quelque sorte le rôle des sciences normatives en philosophie. Il s'agit d'une vision qui met de l'avant une forme purement descriptive de discours, en s'attardant plutôt aux données empiriques et aux pratiques qui caractérisent nos comportements quotidiens. Autrement dit, le naturalisme cherche à décrire comment les choses sont de manière générale.
Les gouvernements du monde entier acceptent ce que signifie travailler à une époque où les attentes des citoyens ne cessent de croître et où les nouvelles technologies offrent des possibilités de prestation de services et exercent des fonctions complètement différentes. Cette séance examinera comment ces pays ont abordé la question, ce qui a réussi et ce qui a échoué, et où est le Canada dans tout cela?
Governments around the world are coming to terms with what it means to work in an age when the expectations of citizens are constantly rising, and where new technologies offer opportunities to deliver services, and run the functions of government in completely different ways. This session will look at how have countries around the world approached this, what has succeeded and what has failed, and where is Canada in all of this?
Le conférencier Mark Kingwell est professeur de philosophie à l’Université de Toronto. Contributeur pour le Harper’s Magasine, This Magazine et le Globe and Mail notamment, ses publications visent tout autant le milieu académique que le grand public. Il a été récompensé entre autres par le Spitz Price for Political Theory, le Drummer’s General Award et par un doctorat honorifique des beaux-arts du Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.