Report on participation to a workshop in Lisbon
Form(s) of Life and the Nature of Experience
International Wittgenstein Workshop hosted by The Philosophy of Language Institute at the New University of Lisbon
22./23.05.2009
I was invited to speak at the International Wittgenstein Workshop hosted by The Philosophy of Language Institute at the New University of Lisbon. The theme of this year’s workshop (May, 2009) was “Form(s) of Life and the Nature of Experience.” The idea behind the annual workshop is to bring together specialists from different countries in order to open a forum for discussing the most recent innovations within - and new research avenues related to Wittgenstein scholarship, as well as provide graduate students with the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of approaches on a specific topic.
My contribution Translating Forms of Life?: Remarks on the Encounter of the Other explores the development of Wittgenstein’s use of “Lebensform” within his own work, and then attempts to link certain implications to my current research project involving the concept of translation and generation of values and norms within the current human rights discourse.
The workshop contributions will be published in a volume entitled: Form(s) of Life and the Nature of Experience, eds. Antonio Marques und Nuno Venturinha. The volume is scheduled to be released in March of 2010.
Organizers’ Description of the Workshop:
“The aim of this workshop is to explore some of the relations between Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘Lebensform(en)’ and his view of human experience. To what extent is the form of our life fixed, i.e., is there a form of life or forms of life, and how does this relate to the different fields of experience? The workshop is expected to shed light on a much exploited but rarely analysed topic in Wittgenstein’s scholarship and to contribute to the overall philosophical discussion about the nature of experience.”