180027 SE Factual and actual animals (2022W)

This seminar focuses on current Wittgensteinian approaches to ethics and what they can offer for debates in animal ethics. It will be dealt with basic concepts of Wittgensteinian ethics, its background and its application to ongoing debates in animal ethics as a field in applied ethics. Through the focus on application, philosophical methodology in a Wittgensteinian tradition will be part of the discussions as well. This includes interdisciplinary research directions, that can be traced back to Wittgensteinian concepts, such as frame-semantics and affordances.
After a first introductory session, that gives an overview of the topics and the organization of the seminar, we will have weekly blocked sessions of three hours until the Christmas break. Each session will have to be intensively prepared by reading a text and submitting a literature reflection in advance. Therefore, this seminar requires most of the work within the first two months of the semester but as the discussion sessions will be finished in December, there will be plenty of time to write the final extended abstract (3-4 pages).