Hello,

The Seoul National University Institute of Philosophy will host the 3rd Colloquium on Trends in Modern Philosophy, featuring Professor Han Sang-won from Chungbuk National University. The topic will be “Adorno’s Negativistic Moral Philosophy: The Possibility of a Wounded Life and Just Practice.” We invite everyone interested to participate.

• Date: October 28, 2024 (Monday), 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
• Location: Room 403, Humanities Building 6 (Institute of Philosophy)
• Speaker: Professor Han Sang-won (Chungbuk National University)
• Title: Adorno’s Negativistic Moral Philosophy: The Possibility of a Wounded Life and Just Practice

Lecture Overview:
This lecture aims to identify elements of negativistic moral philosophy in Adorno, navigating the space between Kant and Hegel, as well as between Kant and Nietzsche. Adorno acknowledges Hegel's critique that Kant's moral philosophy remains in vacuous formalism, while simultaneously criticizing Hegel for failing to theorize the gap between the individual and the universal that Kant raises. Adorno also accepts Nietzsche’s view that critiques Kant's moral philosophy as repressive, yet he argues that the moral questions regarding the individual’s life remain significant. In this context, Adorno attempts to reinterpret the potential of morality from the perspective of negativity.

Speaker Introduction:
Professor Han earned his Master's degree from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Seoul, focusing on Marx's concept of fetishism and ideology, and received his PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin, researching Adorno's political philosophy. His publications include The Gaze of Angelus Novus, Reading the Dialectic of Enlightenment Together, Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Democracy of the Demos, and Political Readers. His translated works include Theories of Community, Adorno: Motifs of Thought, and History and the Consciousness of Freedom: The Dialectic of Freedom in Hegel and Marx. He primarily studies critical theory and contemporary social and political philosophy and is currently a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy at Chungbuk National University.