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Call for Papers
Theme: Polis, Cosmopolis and Globalisation
Type: 30th International Conference of Philosophy
Institution: International Association of Greek Philosophy (IAGP)
International Center of Greek Philosophy and Culture (ICGPC)
South African Society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities
Location: Pythagorion, Samos (Greece)
Date: 20.–26.7.2018
Deadline: 30.3.2018
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Background
The Conference aims to bring together two main areas of research and
investigation: the Hellenic philosophical heritage and modern
philosophical trends grappling with the contemporary issue of
globalisation. As such it hopes to use productively past conceptual
tools for the present, and in so doing clarify existing lines of
thought and advance new ones. It is well known that classical
Hellenic philosophy addresses the dialectic between the universal and
the particular as well as that of identity and difference. As
conceptual frameworks, these two dialectics merit consideration,
especially in the light of globalisation. Globalisation has recently
emerged vis-a-vis high-speed technologies of transportation and
communication and the gradual abolition of certain economic
boundaries (i.e. customs’ free trade, free movement of capital,
foreign outsourcing, concentration of industrial production in
certain countries etc) among remote countries. These measures have
had a strong and deep impact on reducing the industrial production of
the West and consequently on the relations both within and among
modern nations and states, as it has been more evident due to the
recent economic crisis.
It is equally well known that the model of practical human affairs in
ancient Hellenic thought was the polis and the nation. Our
understanding of the polis was reconfigured in modernity by the
challenges of the metropolis, and, more recently, it is being
transformed by the idea of the cosmopolis, what Marshall McLuhan
termed “the global village”. Even so, the notions of democratic
governance, citizenship, the good life, the common good, the just
society and the quest for happiness persist. It is these notions that
the Conference is interested in revisiting. Taking as its point of
departure the contours of ancient Greek philosophy and thought (the
Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the
Cynics, the Neo-Platonists, the Byzantine, Post-Byzantine, Medieval,
Renaissance and modern philosophers), or the ideas currently
elaborated and defended in scholarly circles, the Conference seeks to
identify the fundamental constitutive elements of the polis in
antiquity in relation to those of the cosmopolis in the age of
globalism.
Purpose
Purpose of the Conference is not simply an historical investigation
of the theme but the systematic philosophical treatment of social and
political ideas in their various contemporary enactments (the polis,
the nation-state, the union of nation-states, federalism in antiquity
and in the present, the concept of global government) as well as the
clarification of issues pertaining to the development of culture,
i.e. the forms and the ways of life of ordinary people in their local
and regional cultures. The Conference is open to all philosophers,
including specialists in Greek philosophy, classics with a
philosophical train of mind, historians of philosophy, political
theorists and political philosophers, theorists of economy, ethics,
communication, and ecology. It is also open to creative persons in
the arts and sciences who can articulate lines of inquiry regarding
the development of culture and cultural forms, the prospects for a
global community or government, the constraints upon and
responsibilities of nation-states, the flow and movement of goods,
capitals, and people, the rules and limits of the market (understood
as an economic space), and the problem of values in the cosmopolis.
Aims
The Conference encompasses a number of issues (historical, classical,
political, economic, philosophical, critical and practical,
communicational, ecological) that lend themselves to discussions of
several topics. These include but are not limited to the following:
A. The kinds of political entities and the forms and ways of life of
the citizens in antiquity and now. The rights and duties of state and
individual in the era of globalisation: Contemporary challenges and
the perspective of classical Hellenic philosophy.
B. Economy, politics and competition in a free society and the quest
for good life.
C. The quest for a good society and personal happiness (eudaimonia)
in antiquity and in the present.
D. The philosophy of the polis: The citizen, the polis and cultural
ideals; autonomy, freedom, equality, justice and the governing of the
state; justice and law within and between city states, interstate
justice; the common good virtue and normative ethics; the economic
theory of life in the polis.
E. The philosophy of the cosmopolis: The philosophical schools that
arose during the cosmopolis produced variegated visions of ways of
life stretching from Cynicism’s extreme naturalism to the Stoic
vision of a united humanity. Amongst the many reactions to the new
reality was the Epicurean {«λάθε βιώσας»-lathe biôsas (live
unnoticed)}, the Stoic’s life according to Nature, the sceptical
doctrine of living according to a logos tini that would respect
traditions and local customs - and many others. These views gave
expression to the antagonisms between the old and the new realities –
between local institutions and the global Imperium, between past
freedoms and imposed constraints under imperial rule, between the
ancestral values of nations and cultures versus the shared values of
the global whole. Hopefully the Conference can peer into these and
other antagonisms so as to shed light on the emerging conflicts of
our times. Issues that have been raised are not hard to find: Is
globalisation a threat to traditional cultures? Are the homogenised
values which are introduced by globalism, via consumerism, a gateway
to a new Imperium or to a unity that will allow the individual to be
actualized through the global whole? Does the emerging cosmopolis
pose a danger to philosophical parrhesia, to free expression
(παρρησία) for the public benefit? Is political correctness a boon to
diversity and cultural difference in the cosmopolis or is it a
potential suppression to parrhesia’s critical role? And what of the
political and ethical theories of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle? –
are these important for understanding the challenges of globalisation
or are they only applicable to the long-lost polis? Broadly speaking,
we wish to provide a forum for discussing globalism as idea and
reality by returning to one of the most challenging intellectual
phases of recorded history, the phase between polis and cosmopolis,
so that we may develop a deeper and sounder understanding of the
transformations that the world is currently living through.
F. Scholars of Greek philosophy and paideia would find much to
contribute on the matter from their reading of Hellenic ethical and
political issues concerning the polis and the cosmopolis and
contemporary philosophers would find much to contribute from their
own work in contemporary ethical and political theory. So, all papers
dealing with ethics, politics and economic theory of Greek culture
and philosophy will be considered for inclusion in the Conference
Programme.
Participation
There are five categories of presentation:
- Category A: Presentation of original academic papers by invited
speakers (30 min. duration)
- Category B: Presentation of original academic papers (20 min.
duration)
- Category C: Short presentation of papers (15 min. duration)
- Category D: Presentation of papers by graduate and postgraduate
students (10 min. duration)
- Category E: Presentation by Posters (Poster Session).
The official languages at the Conference will be Greek, English,
(French and German are also acceptable). However, due to the
prohibitively high cost of simultaneous translation, only the Greek
and English will be simultaneously interpreted and translated.
Applications for participation of whatever kind must be received by
the 30th of March 2018 or earlier. The Participant must submit
electronically the Abstract of 500 words, preferably in English.
All participants should send the full texts of their paper for
presentation to the Conference Secretariat by 30th of June 2018.
Texts in their Final version must be submitted no later than the 30th
of September 2018.
For further details, please see the First Circular of the Conference:
https://www.iagp.gr/docs/30th/EN/30th%20ICOP%20-CIRCULAR%20IN%20ENGLISH.pdf
Contact:
Professor K. Boudouris, President
Organising Committee
30th International Conference of Philosophy
Simonidou 5
17456 Alimos (Athens)
Greece
Tel: +30 210 9956955 or 7277545 or 7277502
Email: secretar...@iagp.gr
Web: https://www.iagp.gr/en/conferences.html
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