When: Monday 29 April 2024, 15-16:30 (UTC+2).
Where: Porthania Building, Room P545, University of Helsinki and on Zoom:
https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/63732440554?pwd=Z05HS3g4MjkvUi9naWJaSGdvb1I3dz09
Meeting ID: 637 3244 0554
Passcode: 331089
Title: Beyond Belief and Deeper than Argument: Character and Intellectual Historiography
Abstract: This talk explores the value of character for writing intellectual history, and in particular the history of philosophy and politics. The talk first considers the long and rich history of character - especially character writing in the rhetorical tradition - before suggesting what we might take from that history for historicising philosophy and politics. Character, on the model developed here, is a relational phenomenon: it consists in the manner or style with which a person relates with others in certain circumstances and over time. The talk illustrates this character-based intellectual historiography by showing how it can illuminate the philosophical and political life of Neil MacCormick, but also how it allows us to convey the complexity, richness, and value of the activities of philosophy and politics.
This seminar is part of the Helsinki Legal History Series in collaboration with the CoCoLaw project. In 2024 the Helsinki Legal History Series runs under the theme of "Identities and Legal Histories". We are focusing on the questions of how have collective identities shaped law, and how has law been used to affect, change or protect common identities? Does law recognize marginalized identities or is the history of law a narrative of exclusion?