“Questions in Action” By Daniel Hoek (NYU, Philosophy) Date: Tuesday, 12 February, 2019 Time: 1640-1800 Place: H-232 Abstract: Choices confront agents with questions. Lost in a dark forest and coming to a fork in the road, you wonder Which path will get me out of here? The choice of how many eggs to buy at the supermarket raises the question How many eggs go into a spaghetti carbonara for four? And so […]

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Matthew Stoltz, Cornell University, German Studies Thursday, February 14th, 5:40-7:00, G-160  "Farewell to Sola Scriptura: Lessing and the Critique of Early Modern Philology."   This presentation explores the ways in which Lessing’s critique of theology during the fragment controversy (1774-1780) destabilized the doctrine of sola scriptura, which served as the backbone of Protestant hermeneutics up to the eighteenth century.  In my presentation, […]

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“Explaining Contingent Facts” By Fatema Amijee (SFU, Philosophy) Date: Friday, 15th February, 2019 Time: 1100-1230 Place: H-232 Abstract:  I argue against a widely accepted principle taken to govern metaphysical explanation. This is the principle that no necessary facts can, on their own, explain a contingent fact. I then show how this result makes available a response to a longstanding objection to the Principle of Sufficient Reason—the objection that the Principle of Sufficient […]

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Peter Ribic, University of Wisconsin, English Literature Monday, February 18th, 5:40-7:00 pm, G-160 “With All Convenient Speed: Plotting Development in Postcolonial Singapore”   During the period of decolonization after the Second World War, the meaning of economic “development” shifted from a process to a project as politicians and political economists attempted, not only to identify the stages through which national […]

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“Two conceptions of voluntary action in the Nicomachean Ethics” By Daniel Wolt (University of Colorado at Boulder, Philosophy) Date: Tuesday, 19th February, 2019 Time: 1640-1800 Place: H-232 Abstract: It is nearly universally agreed among commentators that according to Aristotle’s account of voluntary action in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), only voluntary actions are blameworthy. I argue for a qualified rejection of this assumption: some blameworthy actions do not meet the criteria for voluntariness set out in NE 3.1. However, in NE 3.5 and […]

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“Essence, Modality, and Identity” By Alexander Skiles (MIT, Linguistics and Philosophy/ University of Gothenburg, Philosophy) Date: Friday, 22nd February, 2019  Time: 1100-1230  Place: H-232  Abstract:  In this talk, I defend an essentialist account of metaphysical necessity and possibility against several recent challenges. The account differs from other essentialist approaches in the literature in two key respects. First, it is non-objectualist in that it denies that the source of […]

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Angelina Del Balzo, UCLA, Department of English Literature Monday, February 25th, 5:40-7:00 pm, G-160 "Heads and Maidenheads: Scheherazade in Eighteenth-Century England."   Description: This talk will look at adaptations of the frame tale of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, that is, the story of Scheherazade, in eighteenth-century England: Galland’s translation in English, itself an adaptation of Alf layla wa laya;  Delarivier […]

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We would like to invite you to our first Lecture of the Spring Semester on Wednesday, February 27, to listen to Dr. Lutgarde Vandeput, Director of the British Institute at Ankara, about « Pisidia (NW Turkey): Past, Present... and Future? » (« Pisidia (Türkiye'nin Güneybatısı): Geçmiş, Şimdiki Zamanı ... ve Gelecek? »). The talk will be held in the Faculty of Humanities and Letters at 17:40 in the Department of Archaeology, Room H-132. […]

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“Verbal Disputes and Variance” By Poppy Mankowitz (St Andrews, Philosophy) Date: Friday, 1st March, 2019 Time: 1100-1230 Place: H-232 Abstract:  There has been much recent interest in the idea that, when philosophers disagree over existence claims like ‘There are numbers’, ‘Chairs exist’ or ‘There are some objective moral facts’, their dispute is merely verbal: they are disagreeing about the meaning of certain words rather than about something more substantive. It is important to clearly […]

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