Philosophical thoughts on disagreement
Problems treated by philosophy have proved to be persistent and lasting over time. Diaphora, which means “disagreement” in classic Greek, is a project funded by the European Union and coordinated by the University of Barcelona (UB) which intends to think on the apparent lack of solutions for philosophical problems and the disagreements among experts. Another challenge is to train fourteen young researchers and help them regarding employment, with practical sessions in institutions and NGOs related to conflict resolution, among other initiatives.
Problems treated by philosophy have proved to be persistent and lasting over time. Diaphora, which means “disagreement” in classic Greek, is a project funded by the European Union and coordinated by the University of Barcelona (UB) which intends to think on the apparent lack of solutions for philosophical problems and the disagreements among experts. Another challenge is to train fourteen young researchers and help them regarding employment, with practical sessions in institutions and NGOs related to conflict resolution, among other initiatives.
Sven Rosenkranz, ICREA researcher from the Department of Philosophy of the UB, is leading the project which counts on the participation of the University of Munich (Germany), the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), the University of Stirling (Scotland), the University of Stockholm (Sweden), the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and the Normal School of France.
“In philosophy, there are more and more refined debates, but these are fixed debates we already had 2,000 years ago. Why are opinions always different? Why did philosophy go towards divergence instead of a general agnosticism on the candidate solutions? What are the features of the philosophical method to create this persistence in disagreement?” says Rosenkranz. To answer these questions, each of the fourteen international researchers that take part in the project to carry out their doctoral thesis on the several philosophical problems related to the understanding of disagreement. On the one hand they think on the necessary methodological aspects to come up in a debate, and on the other, they analyze several aspects on classic topics, such as the question of free will and determinism, or the paradoxes of logics.
One of the general objectives of this project is to analyze whether the dynamics of the philosophical debate, despite its theoretical nature, have similarities with the dynamics of debates on practical issues. And therefore, to see whether philosophical problems and the intention of solving them can shed a light on the used strategies in the resolution of public affairs.
Confronting theory with the real world
Apart from promoting the classic training related to philosophical research, one of the objectives in the project is to bring young researchers closer to the labour market outside the academic context. To do so, they set agreements with organizations related to conflict resolution. “The idea is to explore similarities between philosophical disagreements and practical problems these organizations have to face, and at the same time in an environment with only a few professional careers the training researchers see beyond the frontiers of their discipline and their academic field”, notes Rosenkranz.
Participation from Search for Common Ground, an NGO whose objective is to change the way conflicts are solved, a paradigmatic example of this crossroad between theoretical research on disagreements and its application in reality. The researchers in training in Diaphora value this possibility positively. Ásgeir Berg Matthíasson, who is conducting his PhD in the University of Stirling and carried out his internship in this NGO, says that having such a chance “to learn how these bodies work in this field and how they solve real conflicts” was revealing. From his previous studies, Matthíasson kept his interest in game theory, since “it is interesting to prove the way in which theory is different from how things work in the real world”.
Lisa Vogt, who is carrying out her PhD at the UB and has conducted her practical sessions in Search for Common Ground, has also valued the chance to see “a potential working area outside the academic world, with first-hand information on the current situation of several international conflicts and work methods for the construction of peace”.
In the same lines, Matheus Valente, whose thesis in the UB analyzes the communication and agreement on several themes when there are different views on concepts, remembered how his practical sessions in the NGO Ideaborn allowed him to enter fields such as transitional justice -peace transitional processes- or conflict resolution in areas where wars have taken place.
The International Catalan Institute for Peace, the United Nations University Institute on Globalisation, Culture and Mobility, and the Academia Europaea Barcelona Knowledge Hub are other organizations where the researchers carried out their practical sessions to improve their understanding of disagreement and negotiation outside the academic context.
Diaphora is a project funded by the European Union within the frame of the research and innovation program Horizon 2020, according the grant N 675415.