Annabelle Level (Science Po, Paris) will be presenting her recent work at the CRÉ: “The equal right to Stand as a Candidate and the Democratic Value of Election”.  The lecture will be followed by a discussion chaired by Charles Blattberg (UdeM).

To participate via Zoom, click here.

If you plan to participate in the event and would like to receive a copy of the article that will be presented, please write to valery.giroux@umontreal.ca.

Briana Toole (Claremont McKenna College) will give a presentation entitled “Standpoint Epistemology – Social or Applied?” at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Registration is required. Information about the room and exact location of the presentation will provided after registering via the following link.

The event is co-organized by the Centre de Recherche en Éthique (CRÉ) and the Canada Research Chair on Epistemic Injustice and Agency.

Abstract

As a standpoint epistemologist, I have sometimes been called an “applied epistemologist”. But is this characterization of standpoint epistemology correct? On the surface, one might think the distinction is insignificant. But I argue that the interpretation of standpoint epistemology as an applied epistemology serves an important ideological purpose: it preserves an epistemological landscape wherein mainstream, or traditional epistemology, is the default theory of knowledge. This in turn diminishes some of the central insights of standpoint epistemology, most notably those that represent standpoint epistemology as an alternative to classical theory, or demand a revision of key components of traditional epistemology.

This paper aims to accomplish two tasks: first, to show that standpoint epistemology, though a social epistemology, is not an applied epistemology. I’ll then argue that classical epistemology is social in many of the same ways that standpoint epistemology is – it merely hides this fact. In epistemology, traditional epistemology holds pride of place. It maintains this grip on the field primarily through the devaluation of alternatives, like standpoint theory. By clarifying the relationship between the social and applied, as well as between traditional and standpoint, I hope to de-center traditional epistemology, and to reposition it as but one theory among many.

As part of the activities of the Philosophy of Work Network, Jan Kandiyali (Durham University) and Barry Maguire (University of Edinburgh) will offer a presentation entitled: “Socialism and Collective Ownership of the Means of Production”.

The activities of the Philosophy of Work Network are open to researchers and graduate students with research interests in this area. Please write to the organizers, Denise Celentano (denise.celentano@umontreal.ca) and Pablo Gilabert (pablo.gilabert@concordia.ca), to receive the zoom link.

Abstract

Historically, socialism has been identified with collective ownership of the means of production. However, in the face of the failure of central planning, and influential arguments about the necessity of markets and private ownership, many contemporary socialists have sought to sever the link between socialism and collective ownership. The socialists we have in mind define socialism exclusively in terms of a set of values, usually some form of robust equality of opportunity, and then see the question of what form of economic organisation realises those values as entirely separate. In this paper, we reject this decoupling of socialism from collective ownership. Our argument has two steps. In the first, we outline an important but nowadays underappreciated value, namely that of solidarity or mutual care, understood as the positive counterpart to productive alienation, and argue that this, rather than robust equality of opportunity, is the heart of the socialist ideal. The ideal of solidarity is one in which we all care about one another, and care that we care about one another. In the second, we show that solidarity is partly constituted by collective ownership of the means of production.