Söyleşi: “Akrasia in the Age of Reason,” Thomas Manganaro, Duke University, G-160, 12:40 11 Mart (EN)

Dear Colleagues,

You are warmly welcomed to attend the following talk; refreshments and sandwiches will be available.

Upcoming CCI Colloquium Series Talk:

Friday, March 11th, 12:40 G-160

Thomas Manganaro, Duke University, Department of English Literature

“Akrasia in the Age of Reason”:

This talk focuses on the condition of acting against better judgment, or failing to do what you know you ought to do — a condition classically called “akrasia” by the ancient Greeks. This phenomenon becomes particularly interesting in the philosophy and literature of the eighteenth century — the “age of reason.” As philosophy in this period increasingly depicts minds and bodies like systems or machines, it has difficulty describing akrasia — namely, how someone can want to do something and yet not be able to get themselves to do it. Because it is so difficult to explain, akrasia becomes a very rich topic for literary experimentation in this period; we see this in particular in narratives by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Laurence Sterne.