News

FLFI.00.102 Critical Thinking (3 ECTS) Faculty: Mats Volberg FLFI.02.117 Social and Ethical Aspects of Engineering (4 ECTS) Faculty: Mats Volberg, Margit Sutrop, Ave Mets, Edit Talpsepp, Francesco Orsi FLFI.02.143 History of Political Thought (6 ECTS) Faculty: Siobhan Ann Kattago FLFI.02.144 David Hume's Practical Philosophy (3 ECTS) Faculty: Francesco Orsi FLFI.03.036 Introduction to Philosophy of Language (3 ECTS) Faculty: Uku Tooming

On Monday December 7th at 16:15 in room 322 visiting PhD student Joel J. Lorenzatti will give a talk titled "Functional Ascriptions in Evolutionary Psychology"

A Research Fellow of Department of Philosophy Aaron Wendland signed a contract with the publisher Routledge to edit a book for them. The book is titled Heidegger on Technology and is set to come out on September 1st 2017.

Siobhan Kattago moderated a panel on the problem of memory with Bernhard Schlink and Eva Hoffman for the Central European Forum held 13-15 November in Bratislava. She also presented a talk, “Statelessness and the right to have rights, reflections on Hannah Arendt” at Comenius University in Bratislava on 16 November.

University of Tartu April 21-23, Tartu, Estonia The Department of Philosophy at the University of Tartu is proud to host the 4th meeting of Nordic Network for Philosophy of Science. We welcome papers on all areas of philosophy of science, including:

16.10, at 10.15, room 306 Professor Risto Heiskala will give a guest seminar centering at the crossings of semiotics, sociology, social sciences, economics. First Prof. Heiskala will deliver a lecture, then we can discuss any aching problem we have in those connections plus his text „Toward semiotic sociology: A synthesis of semiology, semiotics and phenomenological sociology“ . The seminar will be in English, and everyone is welcome to attend. --

Ave Mets is teaching a course in University of Akureyri in Iceland. The name of the course is "Seminar in Modern Studies". The visit is being funded by the Nordplus program. Also she will be presenting in the European Philosophy of Science Association 2015 conference EPSA15 taking place in Düsseldorf on 23th -26th September. The title of her talk is "Measurement theory from the point of view of practical realism: On the example of the periodic table of chemical elements".

On 15 October 2015, Tiit Remm will defend his doctoral thesis „Sociocultural Space: Spatial Modelling and the Sociocultural World“ in the Council of the Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics Supervisor: Anti Randviir, University of Tartu Opponents: Risto Kalevi Heiskala (University of Tampere) and Hannes Palang (Tallinn University) Summary

Francesco Orsi, Alex Davies, and Eve Kitsik will teach an intensive, one-week, course on "Respecting Persons and their Voices", 6 ECTS, course code FLFI.02.141, from the 9th to the 13th of November. You will be joined by students from partner universities in the Baltic Philosophy Network. Please see the course syllabus.

International philosophy of science workshop "Responsible research: social, cultural and material aspects" in the Department of Philosophy on September 10th 2015, in Jakobi 2, room 337 at 13:15.

Workshop: "Philosophy and Disagreement: Early Modern Perspectives" September 10-11, 2015 University of Tartu, Jakobi 2-114 Organised by Roomet Jakapi (University of Tartu) and Adam Grzeliński (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland)

The orientation course for new international students arriving for the autumn semester 2015 will be held from 26-28 August 2015 at Vanemuise 46-225. See more information. The opening ceremony for the 2015/16 academic year takes place at 31 August at 10 AM in St. John's Church (Jaani 5) The information meeting for new MA-students of philosophy will take place on 31 August at 2 PM at Philosophicum (Jakobi 2-336).

The 23rd annual meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology begins in Tartu tomorrow, on 14 July, with psychologists, neuroscientists, linguists, computer scientists, biologists and philosophers from 23 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, the USA and Germany. For the first time the annual meeting takes place in the Baltic states.

In memoriamRein Vihalemm 9.12.1938 – 18.07.2015 The University of Tartu and the Estonian philosophical community have suffered a huge loss with the passing of our dear colleague, the eminent philosopher of science Rein Vihalemm.

On Wednesday, August 26th at 12:15 Janar Mihkelsaar will defend at Jakobi 2-306 his PhD thesis in philosophy titled "Giorgio Agamben and Post-Foundational Political Ontology", supervisors Professor Ülo Matjus (UT), Research Fellow Jüri Lipping (UT), and Professor Mika Ojakangas (University of Jyväskylä), opponent University Lecturer Sergei Prozorov (University of Helsinki).

Frege Lectures 2015 will be given by Jennifer Saul (University of Sheffield) on the topic "Language that Matters: Politically and Ethically significant Speech".

Practical Philosophy Chair Tuesday June 30th in Jakobi 2-336 At 09.15 Heidy Meriste (MA) “Can Contempt Serve as a Morally Appropriate Form of Self-Defense against the Damage Wrought by Superbia? A Critical Analysis of Macalester Bell's Account of Contempt“ supervisor Margit Sutrop, reviewer Francesco Orsi The grade will be announced at 10:30. Everybody is welcomed Additional information: FLFI coordinator Ruth Jürjo, tel 737 5314 [email protected]

2015 marks the 100th birthday of the famous French semiotician Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes and Estonian semiotician Yuri Lotman influenced greatly the intellectual world views of the 1960s and 1970s. To commemorate the works and ideas of the two semioticians, the conference «Paris/Tartu – Barthes/Lotman» will be held in Tartu, Estonia. The conference will be organized by The French Institute in Estonia in cooperation with the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu.

On May 19 Dr Roomet Jakapi will give a presentation "George Berkeley's Account of Nature (1710-13)" at the University of Basel. On May 21 he will give a guest lecture "Berkeley on Plants in a Desert" at the University of Zurich.