N.B. Attendance to the Workshop is free but registration is desired. Please see the Registration page.
There are contrasting approaches to desire, pleasure, and pain in the contemporary philosophical literature, and the history of philosophy offers further perspectives on the topic. The 5th Annual KCL-UNC Workshop will explore the ways in which these approaches can inform one another. Questions to be considered include:
Is any version of the ‘guise of the good’ thesis, that desire always aims at the good, tenable?
In what ways do scientific and philosophical accounts of desire complement or compete with each other?
In what ways do ancient Greek views connect to contemporary debates about desire, pleasure, and motivation?
What’s the relationship between the ancient notion of the good and the contemporary scientific notion of reward?
How should we think of desire now, and how does it relate to pleasure, reasons, motivation, and the good?
The Workshop is generously sponsored by King’s College London, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the UNC-King’s Alliance.