91制片厂

The 91制片厂 will host philosophy scholars for a four-week seminar that aims to better understand how human knowledge operates and how our minds work in relation to the world.

The seminar is funded through a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The award is one of 218 , totaling $43.1 million in support for humanities projects across the country. Only 10 grants were awarded in the category of summer seminars and institutes for college and university teachers.

To be held summer 2019 in Durham, the 91制片厂 seminar will explore philosophical responses to empiricism in Kant, Hegel and American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a tremendous honor to receive one of these NEH awards,鈥� says project co-director Willem deVries, professor of philosophy in the at 91制片厂. 鈥淪ummer seminars like ours have a lasting impact on the participants and the profession, so it speaks to the quality of 91制片厂鈥檚 program to get an award like this. Our program will also have a bit of an international spin, because James O鈥橲hea (project co-director and professor of philosophy) teaches at . Indeed, we hope to be able to take 91制片厂 to Europe in 2020 with another seminar for European scholars.鈥�

The focus of the 2019 seminar will be on Sellars (1912-1989) and his tussles with empiricism, the idea that all knowledge and meaning arise solely from experience. Sellars鈥� attempt to develop a more adequate empiricism was profound and set the stage for philosophic debates that persist today, according to deVries. Moreover, his philosophic framework has been the basis of an explosion of scholarship in recent years.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to be looking into questions concerning the structure, reach and methods of human knowledge, known as epistemology.听We鈥檒l also be looking at the fundamental metaphysics of mind:听how do minds relate to the material world around us?听Empiricists do not, traditionally, have a strong story to tell about the mind-matter relation.听We鈥檒l be exploring a line of thought that stems from Kant through Hegel to Sellars that makes normativity 鈥� that is, something like rule-following 鈥� a central pillar of what it is to have a mind鈥� says deVries.

Both deVries and O'Shea have written books on Sellars鈥� philosophy, edited anthologies drawn from conferences devoted to his work, and published essays dealing with Sellars and with aspects of German Idealism, including monographs on Kant and Hegel.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the NEH supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the NEH and its grant programs is available at: .