Details — Visiting Scholar Dr. Irem Kurtsal--Lecture — March 27
| Date: 3/27 | Time: 7 pm |
This post has been archived. Information below may be out of date and/or relate to a past event.
Visiting Scholar Dr. Irem Kurtsal will deliver a lecture titled “Finding Our Selves” Monday, March 27, at 7 p.m. in the Tillotson Room of the Tippie Alumni Center. Refreshments provided. Background on the lecture follows.
Classical and modern philosophies of selves disagree on what we are (a soul, a body, a combination of those, a human person, an animal) but agree that all of us are essentially the same kind of being. Contemporary work in philosophy has inadvertently made room for social or individual variation on what each of us essentially is and we have reason to think that we are not all the same kind of being. Members of different communities may correctly self-identify under different subject concepts, the concept of person is merely one among them. Furthermore, I argue, since a subject concept such as person is somewhat indeterminate as regards its boundaries, individuals have the ability to determine their own boundaries and what they essentially are. I present a backdrop for empirical and philosophical claims about social and individual identity, one with interesting theological and ethical ramifications.