Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	Courage: A Conceptual History	Tue, 07.06.2022, 18:00	Lecture	Aner Barzilay Ludger HagedornEdward Skidelsky	Courage: A Conceptual History Tue, 07.06.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Aner Barzilay Ludger HagedornEdward Skidelsky Series: Lecture Courage has always been a central virtue in the Western ethical tradition, but its meaning has changed considerably over time. In antiquity, courage signified fearlessness in the face of bodily injury and death, whether passively endured (like Socrates and Christ) or actively risked (like Achilles and Alexander the Great). Today, however, such "physical courage", as it is called, tends to be depreciated in favour of "moral courage", defined by Sidgwick as a readiness to “face the pains and dangers of social disapproval in the performance of what one believes to be one’s duty”. Why did this shift occur, and what is its significance for the future of courage? These were the questions Skidelsky addressed in his talk. Read more
Courage: A Conceptual History Tue, 07.06.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Aner Barzilay Ludger HagedornEdward Skidelsky Series: Lecture Courage has always been a central virtue in the Western ethical tradition, but its meaning has changed considerably over time. In antiquity, courage signified fearlessness in the face of bodily injury and death, whether passively endured (like Socrates and Christ) or actively risked (like Achilles and Alexander the Great). Today, however, such "physical courage", as it is called, tends to be depreciated in favour of "moral courage", defined by Sidgwick as a readiness to “face the pains and dangers of social disapproval in the performance of what one believes to be one’s duty”. Why did this shift occur, and what is its significance for the future of courage? These were the questions Skidelsky addressed in his talk. Read more
	Philosophy, Sacrifice, and War: Problems and Ambiguities	Thu, 02.06.2022, 19:00	Lecture	James Dodd Ludger Hagedorn	Philosophy, Sacrifice, and War: Problems and Ambiguities Thu, 02.06.2022, 19:00 Speakers: James Dodd Ludger Hagedorn Series: Lecture James Dodd seeked to explore the limits of a philosophical approach to the twin problems of war and sacrifice. Is something like a true “philosophy of war”—understood as a coherent system of ideas, or a clearly articulated theoretical posture adequate to fully addressing the enduring challenges of war on a properly philosophical register—at all possible? In turn, can philosophy offer a cogent analysis of the phenomenon of sacrifice, one that captures both its paradoxical character and spiritual resonance? The suggestion was that where the two seem to fundamentally merge—when war calls for sacrifice, and sacrifice calls for war, each seeming to provide the meaning for the other—we trip on the limits of philosophy in a way that the very sense of its vocation becomes clear. Read more
Philosophy, Sacrifice, and War: Problems and Ambiguities Thu, 02.06.2022, 19:00 Speakers: James Dodd Ludger Hagedorn Series: Lecture James Dodd seeked to explore the limits of a philosophical approach to the twin problems of war and sacrifice. Is something like a true “philosophy of war”—understood as a coherent system of ideas, or a clearly articulated theoretical posture adequate to fully addressing the enduring challenges of war on a properly philosophical register—at all possible? In turn, can philosophy offer a cogent analysis of the phenomenon of sacrifice, one that captures both its paradoxical character and spiritual resonance? The suggestion was that where the two seem to fundamentally merge—when war calls for sacrifice, and sacrifice calls for war, each seeming to provide the meaning for the other—we trip on the limits of philosophy in a way that the very sense of its vocation becomes clear. Read more
	War and the Fate of Europe in Patočka’s Heretical Essays	Wed, 01.06.2022, 19:00	Lecture	David Dusenbury	War and the Fate of Europe in Patočka’s Heretical Essays Wed, 01.06.2022, 19:00 Speakers: David Dusenbury Series: Lecture Despite the effort not to repeat the mistakes and atrocities of the previous generations, the twenty-first century continues to be a century of wars and suffering. In these lectures, David Dusenbury and James Dodd reflected on Patočka’s and Derrida’s phenomenological analysis of self-sacrifice as a form of resistance in extreme situations of oppression (war or repression of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes). Read more
War and the Fate of Europe in Patočka’s Heretical Essays Wed, 01.06.2022, 19:00 Speakers: David Dusenbury Series: Lecture Despite the effort not to repeat the mistakes and atrocities of the previous generations, the twenty-first century continues to be a century of wars and suffering. In these lectures, David Dusenbury and James Dodd reflected on Patočka’s and Derrida’s phenomenological analysis of self-sacrifice as a form of resistance in extreme situations of oppression (war or repression of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes). Read more
	Civilisations, Barbarity, Conquest, Legitimacy and Crimes of War	Tue, 31.05.2022, 18:00	Lecture	John Dunn Misha Glenny	Civilisations, Barbarity, Conquest, Legitimacy and Crimes of War Tue, 31.05.2022, 18:00 Speakers: John Dunn Misha Glenny Series: Lecture The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year has cast a glaring new light on a very old but ever more urgent question. In his lecture John Dunn asked, if there are any terms on which the human population of the world could still hope to live with one another in peace and personal freedom into a future of many generations? Could we still create together a modus vivendi of real duration? We know now, as we did not yet know in the year 1940, in which John Dunn was born, that any future generational horizon is in ever starker jeopardy because of the colossal and ever less controllable harm we are inflicting as a species on our global habitat. We know, as we could have known in much of Europe for at least three centuries, that the world was then, as it mercilessly remains, a vast distance from realising those terms and that it could not in principle realise them at all rapidly. We still have only a tiny repertoire of forms through which to try to act collectively on any scale: international agencies, civilisations, states, peoples (or, if you prefer, nations) – each of doubtful efficacy and eminently questionable legitimacy. Which of these forms could still take how much of the strain and how and why could war still feature as anything but grounds for despair within that ever more desperate struggle? We have never had any clear idea of how the world could be made a just world for its human inhabitants. Do we still have any rational horizon for collective hope over time? Read more
Civilisations, Barbarity, Conquest, Legitimacy and Crimes of War Tue, 31.05.2022, 18:00 Speakers: John Dunn Misha Glenny Series: Lecture The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year has cast a glaring new light on a very old but ever more urgent question. In his lecture John Dunn asked, if there are any terms on which the human population of the world could still hope to live with one another in peace and personal freedom into a future of many generations? Could we still create together a modus vivendi of real duration? We know now, as we did not yet know in the year 1940, in which John Dunn was born, that any future generational horizon is in ever starker jeopardy because of the colossal and ever less controllable harm we are inflicting as a species on our global habitat. We know, as we could have known in much of Europe for at least three centuries, that the world was then, as it mercilessly remains, a vast distance from realising those terms and that it could not in principle realise them at all rapidly. We still have only a tiny repertoire of forms through which to try to act collectively on any scale: international agencies, civilisations, states, peoples (or, if you prefer, nations) – each of doubtful efficacy and eminently questionable legitimacy. Which of these forms could still take how much of the strain and how and why could war still feature as anything but grounds for despair within that ever more desperate struggle? We have never had any clear idea of how the world could be made a just world for its human inhabitants. Do we still have any rational horizon for collective hope over time? Read more
	We Have to Talk about Power	Wed, 25.05.2022, 18:00	Panels and Discussions	Martin Krygier Stephen Holmes	We Have to Talk about Power Debating Liberalism, the State, and the Rule of Law Wed, 25.05.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Martin Krygier Stephen Holmes Series: Panels and Discussions Partisans of political constitutions and the so-called “rule of law” insist that they are devices meant primarily to curtail abuses of power. Some among us - the decisive American certainly and the vacillating Antipodean partly - argue that this idea is both theoretically misleading and historically baseless; perhaps indeed powerless. So how should we be discussing the complicated relations between power (public and private) and the legal and institutional arrangements that have evolved in aspirationally liberal societies to cope with the main challenge of human coexistence in a domestically diverse and internationally unforgiving environment? Read more
We Have to Talk about Power Debating Liberalism, the State, and the Rule of Law Wed, 25.05.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Martin Krygier Stephen Holmes Series: Panels and Discussions Partisans of political constitutions and the so-called “rule of law” insist that they are devices meant primarily to curtail abuses of power. Some among us - the decisive American certainly and the vacillating Antipodean partly - argue that this idea is both theoretically misleading and historically baseless; perhaps indeed powerless. So how should we be discussing the complicated relations between power (public and private) and the legal and institutional arrangements that have evolved in aspirationally liberal societies to cope with the main challenge of human coexistence in a domestically diverse and internationally unforgiving environment? Read more
	Limits of Machines, Limits of Humans	Tue, 24.05.2022, 17:30	Lecture	Edward Lee Ludger HagedornStefan Woltran, Gerti Kappel, Michael Wiesmüller	Limits of Machines, Limits of Humans Tue, 24.05.2022, 17:30 Speakers: Edward Lee Ludger HagedornStefan Woltran, Gerti Kappel, Michael Wiesmüller Series: Lecture "Rationality" in Simon’s "bounded rationality" is the principle that humans make decisions based on step-by-step (algorithmic) reasoning using systematic rules of logic to maximize utility. "Bounded rationality" is the observation that the ability of a human brain to handle algorithmic complexity and data is limited. Bounded rationality, in other words, treats a decision maker as a machine carrying out computations with limited resources. In this talk, Edward A. Lee argued that the recent breakthroughs in AI demonstrate that much of what we consider "intelligence" is not based on algorithmic symbol manipulation, and that what the machines are doing more closely resembles intuitive thinking than rational decision making. Under this model, the goal of "explainable AI" is unachievable in any useful form. Read more
Limits of Machines, Limits of Humans Tue, 24.05.2022, 17:30 Speakers: Edward Lee Ludger HagedornStefan Woltran, Gerti Kappel, Michael Wiesmüller Series: Lecture "Rationality" in Simon’s "bounded rationality" is the principle that humans make decisions based on step-by-step (algorithmic) reasoning using systematic rules of logic to maximize utility. "Bounded rationality" is the observation that the ability of a human brain to handle algorithmic complexity and data is limited. Bounded rationality, in other words, treats a decision maker as a machine carrying out computations with limited resources. In this talk, Edward A. Lee argued that the recent breakthroughs in AI demonstrate that much of what we consider "intelligence" is not based on algorithmic symbol manipulation, and that what the machines are doing more closely resembles intuitive thinking than rational decision making. Under this model, the goal of "explainable AI" is unachievable in any useful form. Read more
	‘Patriotic Science’: The COVID 19 Pandemic and the Politics of Indigeneity and Decoloniality in Sri Lanka	Mon, 23.05.2022, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Harshana Rambukwella Ludger Hagedorn Saurabh Dube	‘Patriotic Science’: The COVID 19 Pandemic and the Politics of Indigeneity and Decoloniality in Sri Lanka Mon, 23.05.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Harshana Rambukwella Ludger Hagedorn Saurabh Dube Series: Seminars and Colloquia This paper uses the Sri Lankan case to argue that decoloniality, which has become a global theoretical trend, is insufficiently self-reflexive of how its sharp East-West binary can be politically disabling for on-the-ground struggles in postcolonial societies. The fetishization of indigeneity can have devastating consequences. Read more
‘Patriotic Science’: The COVID 19 Pandemic and the Politics of Indigeneity and Decoloniality in Sri Lanka Mon, 23.05.2022, 16:00 Speakers: Harshana Rambukwella Ludger Hagedorn Saurabh Dube Series: Seminars and Colloquia This paper uses the Sri Lankan case to argue that decoloniality, which has become a global theoretical trend, is insufficiently self-reflexive of how its sharp East-West binary can be politically disabling for on-the-ground struggles in postcolonial societies. The fetishization of indigeneity can have devastating consequences. Read more
	South Asian Labour Migration and Maritime Migrants	Sat, 21.05.2022, 18:00 - Mon, 23.05.2022, 17:15	Conferences and Workshops		South Asian Labour Migration and Maritime Migrants Sat, 21.05.2022, 18:00 - Mon, 23.05.2022, 17:15 Speakers: Series: Conferences and Workshops The Calcutta Research Group and the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna [under its project 'Justice, Protection and Government of the People: A Two Year Research and Orientation Programme on Protection and Democracy in a Post-COVID World (2021-2023)] in collaboration with the Nepal Institute of Peace and Alliance for Social Dialogue have conceptualised this three-day summer camp in a dialogue-workshop pattern where activists associated with NGOs, INGOs, human rights activists, human rights defenders for migrants and refugees at sea, migrant labour union activists, legal activists, scholars, from different parts of South Asia in addition to Europe, and the Indo-Pacific region will be joining the Meet on 'South Asian Labour Migration and Maritime Migrants' in Kathmandu from May 21-23, 2022. The focus of this summer camp will be to frame a policy draft through the consultative and interactive meet on the governance of the labour migration scenario and protection offered to the returnee labour migrants etc. Read more
South Asian Labour Migration and Maritime Migrants Sat, 21.05.2022, 18:00 - Mon, 23.05.2022, 17:15 Speakers: Series: Conferences and Workshops The Calcutta Research Group and the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna [under its project 'Justice, Protection and Government of the People: A Two Year Research and Orientation Programme on Protection and Democracy in a Post-COVID World (2021-2023)] in collaboration with the Nepal Institute of Peace and Alliance for Social Dialogue have conceptualised this three-day summer camp in a dialogue-workshop pattern where activists associated with NGOs, INGOs, human rights activists, human rights defenders for migrants and refugees at sea, migrant labour union activists, legal activists, scholars, from different parts of South Asia in addition to Europe, and the Indo-Pacific region will be joining the Meet on 'South Asian Labour Migration and Maritime Migrants' in Kathmandu from May 21-23, 2022. The focus of this summer camp will be to frame a policy draft through the consultative and interactive meet on the governance of the labour migration scenario and protection offered to the returnee labour migrants etc. Read more
	Time to Decide Europe Summit	Fri, 20.05.2022, 08:00	Conferences and Workshops	Dimitar Bechev Gerald Knaus Heather Grabbe Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Ivana Dragičević Karolina Wigura Maxim Trudolyubov Nathalie Tocci Nikola Dimitrov Olivia Lazard Serhii Plokhii Stefan Lehne Stephen Holmes Zsuzsanna Szelényi Misha Glenny Sławomir SierakowskiFranziska Brantner, Marina Davydova, Florence Gaub, Anna Jermolaewa, Marta Pardavi, Susanne Scholl, Želimir Žilnik	Time to Decide Europe Summit Fri, 20.05.2022, 08:00 Speakers: Dimitar Bechev Gerald Knaus Heather Grabbe Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Ivana Dragičević Karolina Wigura Maxim Trudolyubov Nathalie Tocci Nikola Dimitrov Olivia Lazard Serhii Plokhii Stefan Lehne Stephen Holmes Zsuzsanna Szelényi Misha Glenny Sławomir SierakowskiFranziska Brantner, Marina Davydova, Florence Gaub, Anna Jermolaewa, Marta Pardavi, Susanne Scholl, Želimir Žilnik Series: Conferences and Workshops In the early hours of 24 February 2022, Europe woke up to a grave new world. Something considered unthinkable after WWII had happened, and the European security order was blown up. Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine put an end to the “end of history” era, which had begun in 1989. This attack has triggered events in Europe that had been previously unimaginable. We want to look ahead and think about the consequences of these dramatic events for Ukraine, for Europe and the EU, and for Russia. ERSTE Foundation and the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) have invited some of the brightest minds to start a debate on the difficult questions that Europe is facing today and the answers that will determine the future. Read more
Time to Decide Europe Summit Fri, 20.05.2022, 08:00 Speakers: Dimitar Bechev Gerald Knaus Heather Grabbe Ivan Krastev Ivan Vejvoda Ivana Dragičević Karolina Wigura Maxim Trudolyubov Nathalie Tocci Nikola Dimitrov Olivia Lazard Serhii Plokhii Stefan Lehne Stephen Holmes Zsuzsanna Szelényi Misha Glenny Sławomir SierakowskiFranziska Brantner, Marina Davydova, Florence Gaub, Anna Jermolaewa, Marta Pardavi, Susanne Scholl, Želimir Žilnik Series: Conferences and Workshops In the early hours of 24 February 2022, Europe woke up to a grave new world. Something considered unthinkable after WWII had happened, and the European security order was blown up. Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine put an end to the “end of history” era, which had begun in 1989. This attack has triggered events in Europe that had been previously unimaginable. We want to look ahead and think about the consequences of these dramatic events for Ukraine, for Europe and the EU, and for Russia. ERSTE Foundation and the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) have invited some of the brightest minds to start a debate on the difficult questions that Europe is facing today and the answers that will determine the future. Read more
	Democracy and Demography	Tue, 17.05.2022, 18:00	Panels and Discussions	Ivan KrastevRainer Münz	Democracy and Demography Rainer Münz in discussion with Ivan Krastev Tue, 17.05.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Ivan KrastevRainer Münz Series: Panels and Discussions The interactions between demographic structures and democracy are often overlooked, but they work two ways. On the one hand, the demographic composition of societies and demographic change have implications for the way elected governments address issues, allocate fiscal resources and represent interests of their constituencies. Demographic ageing obviously has an impact. The same is true for settled as well as emerging diasporas. On the other hand, democratically elected governments backed by a parliamentary majority can influence part of their polity via citizenship and naturalization policies as well as inclusive or exclusive electoral regimes targeting specific demographically defined groups. Gerrymandering in the process of redesigning electoral districts is just one of several examples. The discussion between Rainer Münz and Ivan Krastev explored such interactions and discussed their implications for the future of democracies. Read more
Democracy and Demography Rainer Münz in discussion with Ivan Krastev Tue, 17.05.2022, 18:00 Speakers: Ivan KrastevRainer Münz Series: Panels and Discussions The interactions between demographic structures and democracy are often overlooked, but they work two ways. On the one hand, the demographic composition of societies and demographic change have implications for the way elected governments address issues, allocate fiscal resources and represent interests of their constituencies. Demographic ageing obviously has an impact. The same is true for settled as well as emerging diasporas. On the other hand, democratically elected governments backed by a parliamentary majority can influence part of their polity via citizenship and naturalization policies as well as inclusive or exclusive electoral regimes targeting specific demographically defined groups. Gerrymandering in the process of redesigning electoral districts is just one of several examples. The discussion between Rainer Münz and Ivan Krastev explored such interactions and discussed their implications for the future of democracies. Read more