News

Department of Philosophy lecturer Eduard Parhomenko will give a presentation titled "Der Raub der Europa im Lichte der Frage nach dem Anfang der Philosophie" on May 15th at the conference "The Current Crisis of Europe from the Point of View of Phenomenology. An international conference to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Jan Patočka Archives in Prague" which is taking place from 14th to 16th of May in Prague. See also conference programe.

On May 19 at 10.00 in the Senat's hall (main building of the University of Tartu), Maarja Ojamaa will defend her doctoral thesis in semiotics, «The Transmedial Aspect of Cultural Autocommunication». Supervisor Peeter Torop, oponents Nicola M. Dusi (Modena and Reggio Emilia University, Italy) and Eva Näripea (Estonian Academy of Arts).

The international consultation company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) published its QS World University Rankings by Subject 2015, which ranks the world’s universities in 36 subjects. The University of Tartu is represented in the ranking list with five subjects.

On April 29th at 19:00 professor Daniel Cohnitz will give talk at Semiosalong titled "Thought Experiments in Philosophy and Other Sciences". The Semiosalong takes place in the bar Arhiiv.

The summer camp is meant for people who wish to get to know the current work of analytic philosophers in a relaxed and informal setting. The camp will take place on June 12-14 at Kanarbiku talu, Võrumaa. While Friday and Sunday will be devoted to various topics, the talks on Saturday concentrate on this year’s Gottlob Frege Lectures in Theoretical Philosophy, „Language that Matters: Politically and Ethically Significant Speech,“ delivered by Professor Jennifer Saul, June 30–July 2.

This Friday (24.04.2015) at 14:15 in room Jakobi 2-336 professor Markus Wild (University of Basel) will give a presentation. "Adolf Portmann’s Argument for Animal Self-presentation". Abstract is below Prof. Dr. Markus Wild Chair in Theoretical Philosophy Department of Philosophy and Media Science University of Basel, Switzerland

Department of philosophy's senior researcher of theoretical philosophy Bruno Mölder will be, as a part of the Erasmus+ program, teaching in April a course titled "Philosophy of Temporal Experience" at Ruhr University Bochum. For more information about the course see the Ruhr University Bochum website.

Department of Philosophy research fellows of philosophy of science Ave Mets and Edit Talpsepp are presenting papers at the Nordic Network for Philosophy of Science conference taking place on April 23-24. The title of Ave Mets' presentation is "Normativity of scientific laws" and the title of Edit Telpsepp's presentation is " Essentialism-related reasoning patterns and the ‘Darwinian revolution’". See also the conference website.

Alexander Davies, researcher the the Department of Philosophy, will make a presentation titled "Not just tricks on a trampoline" at University of Barcelona on April 16th. The topic of the presentation is the distinction between positive and negative liberty and their relation to illocutionary silencing. The presentation takes place as a part of a series of seminars titled "Race Gender Sexuality". See also the University of Barcelona website.

The students and faculty of the Department of Philosophy are starting a Philosophical Movie Club where we will watch together all kinds of philosophically interesting movies and then discuss on the topics those movies raise. To make the discussions more lively we will be having guest speakers as well as our own students and faculty to lead the discussions.

Francesco Orsi, researcher at the department of philosophy, has written a book "Value Theory", which is being published by the prominent United Kingdom publishing house Bloomsbury.

UT Research Fellow in History of Philosophy Toomas Lott received the Marie Curie fellowship that takes him to New York University to study the treatment of intellectual authority in ancient philosophy. Lott decided to go to New York University, as its Department of Philosophy is considered one of the strongest in the world and it is currently developing a research centre for ancient philosophy. Lott believes that the University of Tartu could also have such a centre.

The Department of Philosophy of the University of Tartu is a partner in the Nordplus Network in Philosophy, which supports academic exchange mobility of students (BA and/or MA level) and teaching staff between partner universities. The Network includes 29 Nordic and Baltic partners in 9 different countries (see list below).

This Friday, 27th of February, 14:15 (@Jakobi 2 - 336) professor Martin Gak will present on Demarcating the space of the political: on legitimacy, justification and normative efficaciousness of the law Everyone is welcome! Abstract

Dear researcher! Dear PhD student! Centre for Ethics of the University of Tartu and Estonian Research Council invite you to participate in the competition of research-based ethical cases. We would like to receive cases about the everyday research practice that contain potential value conflicts or dilemmas and enable different solutions. You are very welcome to send your cases!

On Thursday, 19th of February (16:15, Jakobi 2-336) professor Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen will give a guest presentation "Peirce's Theory of Signs: A century of interpreters". Abstract:

On Friday, 13th of February (14:15, @Jaobi 2 - 336) professor Aki-Mauri Huhtinen will give a presentation "The Double Edge of Information Sword". In his presentation he addresses the history political control of information networks; the rhizomatic theory of information communication; and the new way of weaponizing ofinformation. Following these phenomenological description I asks how we should organize our social activities in thisnew “hybrid”information environment in order to take consider the both side of society, namely the private freedom and the public control.

FLFI.02.117 Social and Ethical Aspects of Engineering Kadri Simm Social and value dimensions of technologies. Overview of ethical theories. Environmental ethics and engineering. Research ethics and professional ethics.Moral relativism and cultural context of engineering.

Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu continues the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the world oldest international journal of semiotics - Sign Systems Studies - with the international, bilingualconference "Creative Continuity" taking place in December, 5-6, 2014 in Tartu, Ülikooli 18-232.