Collaborative project brings British Academy research grant success

During the coming academic year the British Academy will be supporting a series of workshops (to be held at Oxford, Essex and here at Southampton) devoted to important themes from Division Two of Heidegger’s Being and Time.

Although this book is often cited as one of the most important philosophical works of the last century, its second division has largely been ignored, especially in commentary by philosophers from the ‘analytic’ tradition, the tradition which has dominated philosophy in the English-speaking world in recent times.

But, inspired by a growing recognition of the philosophical and theological influences that shape Heidegger’s thought, important ‘analytic’ readers have recently begun to re-examine this difficult second division and the belief is growing that there is something of real philosophical substance in its concerns; in particular, its discussion of ‘authenticity’ is coming to be seen as having significant implications for how we ought to understand, for example, intentionality and autonomy. The workshops seek to extend the fascinating inroads that are beginning to be made into the difficult hinterland of Heidegger’s magnum opus.

Organisers: Denis McManus (Southampton) and George Pattison (Oxford)

The speakers will include Clare Carlisle (Liverpool), Taylor Carman (Columbia), Steven Galt Crowell (Rice), Daniel Dahlstrom (Boston), Hubert Dreyfus (Berkeley), Charles Guignon (South Florida), Beatrice Han Pile (Essex), Stephen Mulhall (Oxford), Peter Poellner (Warwick) and Mark Wrathall (University of California, Riverside).