Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
CSSS Colloquium
Aakash Singh Rathore
(Visiting Professor, Centre for Philosophy, JNU, New Delhi)
Will be presenting a paper on
Proairesis, between agency and structure: if we
cannot be rational, can't we at least be
reasonable?
Date & Time:
September 28, 2017 (Thursday), 3.00 pm
Venue:
CSSS Committee Room (Room No: 13), SSS-II
Abstract:The paper will try to think through three sets of entangled inquiries: (1) the overturning of
the classical conception of proairesis (choice, deliberative decision), by the normative rationality
championed in the 17th-19th centuries; (2) the undermining of normative rationality by late-20th- century
cognitive science, and the concomitant degrading of ethical agency through experimental social
psychology; and, (3) new discoveries in the neuroscience of empathy, which has led to the return of the
ages-old conundrum between structure and agency in terms of the current impasse between cognitive
science and 21st-century social neuroscience research. My aim in sorting through all of this is to try to
uncover part of a solution to this present impasse by means of re-invoking proairesis, and suggesting
that, if we cannot be rational, then perhaps at least we can be reasonable.
Bio:Aakash Singh Rathore is a professor, author and an Ironman triathlete. He is Visiting Professor at
the Centre for Philosophy, JNU, New Delhi, India and Director of the International Research Network for
Religion and Democracy (www.irnrd.org). He is also an International Fellow of the Center for Ethics and
Global Politics in Rome, Italy. His most recent books include Hegel's India: A Reinterpretation, with
Texts (co-authored, Oxford, 2017) and Indian Political Theory: Laying the Groundwork for
Svaraj (Routledge, 2017). Rathore is also the Executive Editor of the journal 'Plurilogue'.