Kardinaal Mercierleerstoel

In 1951 vond de 100ste verjaardag plaats van de geboorte van Kardinaal Mercier, stichter van het Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte. Bij deze gelegenheid werd de Kardinaal Mercierleerstoel opgericht, “waarin vooraanstaande personaliteiten uit de philosophische wereld, ten behoeve van professoren en studenten van het Instituut, de belangrijkste resultaten van hun onderzoek uiteenzetten."

2024-2025: Elizabeth Anderson

John Dewey Distinguished University Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Monday, May 12, 2025 - 16:00 - 17:30 Public lecture
Reconsidering the Protestant Work Ethic
Cardinal Mercier Room - Followed by a reception in the Council Room

Monday, May 12, 2025 - 11:00 -13:00 Expert Seminar 1
Challenges to the Creation of an Egalitarian Society: Reflections on Moral Psychology from Rousseau to the Present
Room N

Tuesday, May 13, 2023 - 11:00-13:00 Expert Seminar 2
Local Knowledge in Institutional Epistemology
Room N

Level of attendance: BA – MA

Registration is mandatory to participate in the expert seminars

ABSTRACTS

Public Lecture "Reconsidering the Protestant Work Ethic"

The great social theorist Max Weber depicted the Puritan divines who invented the Protestant work ethic as rationalizing the consignment of workers to relentless, tedious drudgery for the sake of maximum profit. He was only half right. A deeper dive into their thinking reveals impressive normative resources for uplifting that status of workers, improving the conditions and benefits of working, and advancing an ideal of meaningful work that has yet to be surpassed. They were also astute business ethicists who criticized predatory and merely extractive business models. Their moral principles supply resources for criticizing the destructive capitalist business models that have flourished in the neoliberal era.

Seminar 1 "Challenges to the Creation of an Egalitarian Society: Reflections on Moral Psychology from Rousseau to the Present"

Rousseau postulated that the central motivation driving the creation of social hierarchy is vanity--the desire for superior esteem over others. Those seeking superior esteem manage to persuade others to go along by a series of ideological deceptions that play on biases in human psychology. The result is a domination contract--a social contract by which people erect social hierarchies under which virtually everyone loses. In these lectures, I argue that Rousseau was largely correct and consider the implications of his hypothesis for the creation of an egalitarian society. History shows that humans have been able to live in accordance with egalitarian social contracts. But such contracts are constantly vulnerable to destabilization by ideological appeals to vanity. The study of more egalitarian societies offers lessons on how to resist such destabilization.

Seminar 2 "Local Knowledge in Institutional Epistemology"

This paper discusses the importance of local knowledge for institutional epistemology—the study of the epistemic capacities and dysfunctions of institutions, and the choice and design of institutions needed to discover, correct, and transmit the information needed to solve collective action problems. Local knowledge is knowledge of particulars held by individuals and communities with deep familiarity with those particulars. Political economists in anti-authoritarian traditions have long stressed the importance of local knowledge for solving many collective action problems. Institutions capable of deploying such knowledge effectively must include the bearers of relevant local knowledge, recognize them as experts with respect to it, and respect their autonomy in deploying their local knowledge to solve such problems. I focus on mētis, a type of practical local knowledge of how to interact with particulars. I argue that the need for relevant mētis justifies three policies: (1) resisting the proletarianization of
professionals; (2) taking affirmative action to include members of marginalized groups in research and the professions; and (3) recognizing the scientific status of certain types of Indigenous knowledge and incorporating it into science curricula.

Vroegere houders van de Kardinaal Mercierleerstoel

2023: Amy Hollywood
2021: Robert Brandom
2017: Linda Zagzebski
2015: Darian Leader
2013: Jay Bernstein
2011: Christoph Schmidt (Jerusalem)
2010: Jonathan Lear (Chicago)
2009: Christine Korsgaard (Harvard)
2008: Eleonore Stump (St. Louis University)
2007: David Wiggins (Oxford)
2006: Günter Figal (Freiburg in Br.)
2005: Richard Kearney (Boston College)
2003: John McDowell (Pittsburgh)
2002: Margaret Urban Walker (Chandler, AZ)
2001: Ian Hacking (Paris/Toronto)
2000: Richard Sorabji (King’s College London)
1998 (’98-’99): Bernard Williams (Berkeley/Oxford)
1998 (’97-’98): Stanley Rosen (Boston)
1996: Stanley Cavell (Harvard)
1995: Ernan McMullin (Notre Dame)
1992 (’92-’93): Quentin Skinner (Christ’s College, Cambridge)
1992 (’91-’92): Bernard Bourgeois (Paris)
1991: Anthony A. Long (Berkeley)
1990: J.A. Aertsen (V.U.Amsterdam)
1989: J. Taminiaux (Louvain-la-Neuve)
1988: D.Z. Phillips (Wales)
1987: J.-L. Marion (Poitiers)
1986: L.M. De Rijk (Leiden)
1985: A. Kenny (Oxford)
1984: W. Kluxen (Bonn)
1981: R. Sokolowski (Washington, D.C.)
1980: J. Freund (Strasbourg)
1977: K. Hübner (Kiel)
1975: A. Delfgaauw (R.U. Groningen)
1974: O. Pöggeler (Bochum)
1973: P.F. Strawson (Oxford)
1972 (mei): J. Derrida (Ecole normale supérieure, Paris)
1972 (april): K.H. Volkmann-Schluck (Köln)
1968: J. Vuillemin (Collège de France); J. Merleau-Ponty (Parijs-Nanterre); J.M. Broekman (Amsterdam)
1966: A. Robinet (Orléans)
1965: J. Patočka (Praag)
1964: H. Gouhier (Sorbonne)
1963: R. Schaerer (Genève); F. Brunner (Neuchâtel); N. Luyten (Freiburg)
1962: P. Ricoeur (Sorbonne)
1960: T. Carreras Artau (Barcelona); Mgr T. Terrarts (Barcelona)
1959: G.C. Anawati (Kaïro)
1957: R. Klibansky (Montréal); Max Müller (Freiburg-Br.); H.G. Gadamer (Heidelberg)
1954: M.F. Sciacca (Genua); C. Fabro c.p.s. (Rome)
1953: H.I. Marrou (Sorbonne)
1952: E. Gilson (Toronto)