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PLENARY SESSION SPEAKERS
PLENARY SESSION SPEAKERS
DR. RANDALL AUXIER
DR. RANDALL AUXIER
Randall Auxier was educated in the philosophy departments of the University of Memphis (B.A. 1986 and M.A. 1988) and Emory University (MA 1991 and Ph.D, 1992). His specialization in semiotics and symbol theory prepared him for a career spanning from extensive work in logic and metaphysics to popular culture and practical ethics, all based on symbolic and semiotic systems.
He is the author of many articles and book chapters, and has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited over twenty books. His most recent books Logic: From Images to Digits (2021); As Deep as It Gets: Movies and Metaphysics (2021); and Persuasion: The Real Process of Imaginative Thinking (2021). He has been elected President of the Illinois Philosophical Association and the Southwestern Philosophical Society, and has served as the editor of The Personalist Forum (1997-2006) and The Pluralist (2006-2012). He is currently the Deputy Chief Editor of Eidos: A Journal of the Philosophy of Culture. In 2016 he co-founded the American Institute of Philosophical and Cultural Thought, a scholarly private foundation to foster research in humanistic thought, as related especially to the United States. www.americanphilosophy.net
Politics as Knowledge? An Outline of the Main Obstacles Facing an International Democracy
According to John Dewey, democracy is not a type of politics, it is a way of life that also creates a political order. He was thinking mainly about the democratic tradition in the US, which is now very much threatened. At the time that Dewey was most concerned with this topic he had been reading Thomas Jefferson’s writings and letters. Jefferson believed that democracy was made possible by what he called “the habits of liberty” among a people. There is much to this idea. If there is to be international democracy, a democratic framework for world government, does it not depend upon developing the “habits of liberty” in the world’s population? This seems to be the work of education and of cultural development more than of politics. In fact, politics, in a certain sense, seems to be one of the greatest obstacles to the development of democracy. I will look into that problem and conclude with some remarks about the habits of liberty, as they can be developed in culture and education.
DR. JUDE CHUA
DR. JUDE CHUA
Jude Chua Soo Meng, PhD FRHistS FCollT is associate professor of philosophy and Head of the policy, curriculum and leadership academic group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is an editor for the flagship Asia Pacific Journal of Education and an associate editor with Journal of Markets and Morality, and won the Novak Award (2003) awarded by Acton Institute. He was section editor for new natural law theory of the Springer Handbook for Virtue Ethics in Business and Management, edited by Alejo Sison, and has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Business and Humanism at the University of Navarra, Spain. He was president’s graduate fellow at National University of Singapore and a visiting graduate fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame, USA (2003), and worked with John Finnis, and has been visiting scholar at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, as well as visiting academic and honorary research associate at the Institute of Education (IOE), London. Previously he was assistant dean at the graduate programmes office, programme leader for the dual award EdD offered with IOE London and programme director for the joint Masters offered with Teachers College, Columbia University, USA. He was co-awarded (with Giovanni Patriarca, Novak Award 2012) a Templeton World Charity Foundation grant (2021) to study scholastics and their relevance for ethics, economics and education. His recent interest is in Aquinas’ thought in conversation with the later Martin Heidegger, and the thought of Jacques Maritain.
Paradoxical Leadership and Aristotelian “Heresy”:
Natural Law Theory and the Mending of Nominalist Bifurcations
The deeply anti-Aristotelian notion of “paradoxical leadership”, which encourages the embrace of opposing contradictions, has gained some traction in recent years and whilst originally was aimed at guiding localised organizational leadership, has, through omitting an un-prevaricatingly complete narrative, nonetheless worryingly made its way into normative educational leadership “theorising” aimed at directing leadership at the national level, at risk of influencing systems internationally. In this paper, I point out a handful of the dire consequences of adopting such a “paradoxical leadership” theory. Such a leadership theory effectively leads to a kind of leadership positivism that conceives of ‘no necessary connection between leadership and morality’ or practical reasonableness, when instead we clearly ought to develop a focal meaning of ‘leadership’ that rejects practically unreasonable courses of actions, following John Finnis’ new natural law theory, which appropriates Aristotle and Aquinas’ Aristotelianism in this regard. Further, there is also an associated psychological theory which shames those critical intuitions that alert the theorist of possible unreasonableness in conflict with practically reasonable courses of actions, and so altogether represses and hinders the successful quest for such a focal meaning. I then point out its historical connection with the nominalist bifurcation between nature and thinking that began with William of Occam through Descartes, but which now is at a “tipping point”, being a kind of “madness” culminating in and feeding a woke culture that disregards reasons which is what follows from our nature as rational beings. I then contrast that with the Aristotelian-Thomistic and New Natural Law approach that respects the principle of non-contradiction and also ethically excludes unreasonable precepts, thus escaping the unprincipled immorality of paradoxical leadership, whilst enjoying a prudential decision making process that is open to free and playful styling given its appreciation of underdetermination in practical decision making. I further consider how attentiveness to Aristotle’s insights into the manifestness of nature (physis) under the interpretive reading by Martin Heidegger and corroborated by Jacques Maritain is relevant for facilitating our grasp of the Natural Law, and that allows us to overcome David Bentley Hart’s worries about the naturalistic fallacy and the gaps between nature, natural law and the prescriptions of public policy. Finally, I examine James G March’s leadership and organizational theory and point out how he cannot be straightforwardly characterised as endorsing paradoxical leadership, and conclude that, even if paradoxical leadership should become a dominant theory, we would still need to have, to borrow March, Aristotelian “heresy” for the reasons above.
DR. MAX LANE
DR. MAX LANE
Dr Lane has written articles and books on Indonesian politics, history, and culture for the past fifty years. He has been a Second Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and Principal Research Officer of the Senate Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. He has written hundreds of articles for newspapers and non-government organizations and is a published translator of Indonesian literary works, including works by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Rendra. He has been an academic at the University of Sydney, Victoria University (Melbourne), Murdoch University and the National University of Singapore. He has lectured at universities in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States.
He closely follows and writes about contemporary domestic Indonesian politics, with a special interest in the underlying character of elite political formations and political conflicts as well as in labor and developments in extra-parliamentary political formations. He also analyses developments that have political implications in the realm of literary and artistic endeavor.
DR. YANUAR NUGROHO
DR. YANUAR NUGROHO
DR. YANUAR NUGROHO is a social activist, senior academic, and practitioner in public policy, governance, and innovation. Co-founder and currently Senior Advisor of Centre for Innovation Policy & Governance (CIPG) Jakarta (since 2010), current Expert Coordinator in the National Secretariat of SDGs Implementation at the Ministry of National Development Planning, Senior Lecturer at Driyarkara School of Philosophy Jakarta, Visiting Senior Fellow at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute Singapore (since 2020), Senior Fellow in Public Service at Lee Kuan-Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (2021).
He is an Honorary Fellow with the University of Manchester UK (2004-now, honorary status from 2015) and was Deputy Chief of Staff to the President (Deputy Minister level) for Analysis and Oversight of Strategic Issues on Social, Cultural and Ecological Affairs at the Executive Office of the President, Republic of Indonesia (2015-Oct 2019), and interim Deputy for Human Development and Culture (Oct-Dec 2019). Previously Director and Expert Adviser (Echelon 1 level) to the Head of the President’s Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight (UKP-PPP/UKP4) (2012-2014). He is also a council member of Open Government Partnership (OGP) – the World Bank Multi Donor Trust Fund (2018-now) representing governments’ parties, OGP Global Envoy, serves as reviewer committee in UK’s Newton Fund/Newton Prize and Indonesia’s Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP).
DR. ANITA LIE
DR. ANITA LIE
Anita Lie is a professor at Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Indonesia. She teaches at the Faculty of Teacher Education and Faculty of Business. Her areas of research are teacher professional development, English education, heritage language learning. She has also been consulting projects on school improvement in Indonesia.
She was granted SEAMEO-Jasper Fellowship Award in 2000 for her research on English curriculum in Indonesia. In 2011, she was a research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016, she got a research grant from American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) Luce Fellowship for her research on heritage language learning among second generation of Indonesian-Americans in California. In 2018, she got a Dedicated Scholar Award from Kompas, a leading national newspaper in Indonesia. With her research team, she received a research grant from the British Council Gender Equality Partnership Award in collaboration with Edinburgh Napier University to conduct a study on Indonesian women in STEM in 2024. She is currently serving in the National Accreditation Agency for the period of 2023-2028.
She has published books and articles in scholarly journals as well as newspapers.
PARALLEL SESSION SPEAKERS
PARALLEL SESSION SPEAKERS
The abstracts of the Parallel Session speakers will be made available here.
Click the images below to access some of the abstracts of the parallel session speakers.
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