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Visiting Speaker Series
Every semester, our department invites several guest speakers to lecture on various topics. All lectures are free, and are open to all members of the community and to the general public.
They will take place in the Oakham Lounge, 2nd Floor, Oakham House (63 Gould St), from 3:00-5:00 on the dates listed below.
If you have questions about our speaker series, please contact this year's organizer, Dr. Pirachula Chulanon (pirachula@torontomu.ca).
Fall 2026
October 1, 3-5pm.
Keota Fields (external link) (UMass Dartmouth)
Why Read Philosophy by Problematic Philosophers?
Abstract: Many figures in the history of philosophy are problematic. They express views incompatible with the moral and rational equality, dignity, and intrinsic value of all persons. Should we stop reading, studying, or teaching those philosophers? I argue that there are potential benefits to what I call sober readings of problematic philosophers. These are readings that acknowledge a problematic philosopher’s intellectual and moral failures alongside their triumphs. Sober readings have the potential to undermine a certain form of epistemic injustice, and to promote several intellectual virtues. I use Kant as an example, arguing that obsequious readings of Kant promote a pervasive form of epistemic injustice while also thwarting the development of intellectual virtue. I briefly discuss an example of a sober reading of Kant, then conclude by rejecting several familiar defenses of obsequious readings of problematic philosophers.
October 29, 3-5pm.
Amy Levine (external link) (Harvard/UNM)
What is the Human Plight?
December 3, 3-5pm.
Christopher Yeomans (external link) (Purdue)
Hegel’s Civic Republicanism
Archive of Previous Visiting Speakers
- October 9, 2025, 3:00-5:00pm, Nabeel Hamid (external link) (Concordia University), Judgment and Interpretation in Johann Clauberg’s Logica vetus et nova (1654).
- October 30, 2025, 3:00-5:00pm, Nathan Ballantyne (external link) (Arizona State University), Bad Faith Arguments.
- November 6, 2025, 3:00-5:00pm, Kathleen Higgins (external link) (University of Texas at Austin), Music and the Regulation of Existential Feelings in Grief.
- November 13, 2025, 3:00-5:00pm, Nikolas Kompridis (Adjunct Faculty Member, TMU), Critical Theory and the Meaning of the Blues.
- November 27, 2025, 3:00-5:00pm, Alberto Toscano (external link) (Simon Fraser University), Myth, Fascism and the Dialectic.
- March 5, 2026, 3:00-5:00pm, Zachary Irving (external link) (Virginia), The Corruption of Salience: The True Digital Threat to Autonomy (Co-authored with Blake Harris).
- March 26, 2026, 3:00-5:00pm, Rachel Zuckert (external link) (Northwestern), Kant’s Cosmological Sublime.
- April 2, 2026, 3:00-5:00pm, Panos Paris (external link) (Cardiff),The Axiological Foundations of Taste (and the Aesthetic Foundations of Axiology).
- April 9, 2026, 3:00-5:00pm, Dean Zimmermann (external link) (Rutgers), The Problem of Perfectly Natural Change.
- October 10, 3:10-5:00p.m., Rajiv Kaushik (external link) (Brock University), "Speech and Body: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Phenomenology and Language in Merleau-Ponty."
- October 24, 3:10-5:00 p.m., Rebecca Rozelle-Stone (external link) (University of North Dakota), "Out of Touch: Finding Our Way with a Praxis of Sensible Attention." (Jointly hosted by the Society for Women of Ideas)
- October 31, 3:10-5:00 p.m.., Catherine Collobert (external link) (University of Ottawa), "Emptiness as a Cure in Madhyamaka Philosophy."
- November 14, 3:10-5:00 p.m., Laura McMahon (external link) (Eastern Michigan University), "The Politics of Vulnerability: Merleau-Ponty, Butler, Family Systems Theory, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."
- November 21, 3:10-5:00 p.m., Lydia Goehr (external link) (Columbia University), "Resting on a Mistake: New and Old Keys for Analysis in Philosophy and the Arts."
- March 6, 3:10-5:00 p.m., John Hacker-Wright (external link) (University of Guelph), "Heidegger’s Phronēsis and Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics."
- March 13, 3:10-5:00p.m., Miriam McCormick (external link) (University of Richmond), "Fine Attention, Broad Awareness: Avoiding the Cost of Ignorance."
- March 20, 3:10-5:00p.m., Sosseh Assaturian (external link) (University of Washington), "Forms and Concepts in Plato’s Parmenides."
- March 25, 3:10-5:00 p.m., Paolo Stellino (external link) (NOVA University of Lisbon), “'We have been the colourists': Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism."
- April 3, 3:10-5:00p.m., Gayle Salamon (external link) (Princeton University),
"Collective Phenomenology."
- October 26, 3:10-5:00pm: Bernard Collette (external link) (Université Laval). Title: "Is Ancient Stoicism Anthropocentric?"
- November 9, 3:10-5:00pm: Megan Stotts (external link) (McMaster University). Title: "Toward a Behavioral Account of Social Institutions".
- November 21, 3:10-5:00pm: Noëlle McAfee (external link) (Emory University). Title: "Racists, Fascists, and Other Dejects: Authoritarianism Reconsidered"
- November 30, 3:10-5:00 pm: Anil Gomes (external link) (University of Oxford). Title: "Transcendental Arguments and Metacritical Thinking"
- February 1, 3:10-5:00pm: Shannon Hoff (external link) (Memorial University). Title: "Hegel on Ethicality, Conscience, and Colonialism"
- February 15, 3:10-5:00pm: Susan Dieleman (external link) (University of Lethbridge). Title: "Epistemic Trust and Civil Disobedience"
- March 14, 3:10-5:00pm: Derrick Darby (external link) (Rutgers University). Title: "Armed Self-Defense"
- March 26, 3:10-5:00pm: Tom Angier (external link) (University of Cape Town). Title: "Intellectual Goods: A “Natural Perfectionist” Account"
- April 11, 3:10-5:00pm: Ted Sider (external link) (Rutgers University). Title: "Accept No Substitutes: Against Best-System Theories without Naturalness"
- April 12, 12:00-2:00pm: Dr. Taiaiake Alfred. Title: "It's All About the Land"
- Sept. 13, 3:00-5:00pm: Miguel Vatter (external link) (Deakin University). Title: "Cohen and Heidegger on Principles and Anarchy"
- Oct. 4, 3:00-5:00pm: Jonardon Ganeri (external link) (University of Toronto). Title: “Is this Me? A Story about Personal Identity from a 4th Century Mādhyamika Treatise”
- Nov. 23, 3:00-5:00pm: Dian Million (external link) (Washington). Title: "Trauma's Empty Promise"
- Nov. 30, 3:00-5:00pm: Tarek Dika (external link) (University of Toronto). Title: "Metaontology and Temporality in Heidegger: Problems and Prospects"
- Jan. 31, 3:00-5:00pm: Jill Frank (external link) (Cornell University). Title: "Weaving Politics".
- Mar. 21, 3:00-5:00pm: Thomas Pendlebury (external link) (University of Pittsburgh). Title: "The First Acts of Kantian Cognition"
- April 11th, 3:00-5:0pm: Angela Mendelovici (external link) (Western University). Title: "Facing Up to the Problem of Intentionality"
- Sept. 21, 3:10-5:00pm: Georgi Gardiner (external link) (University of Tennessee) Title: "Trauma’s Trilemma: On Self-Deception, Distraction, and Self-Respect"
- Nov. 9, 3:10-5:00: Joachim Aufderheide (external link) (King's College London). Title: "Dreaming and Idealism in Plato and Vasubandhu".
- Nov. 23, 3:10-5:00: Rauna Kuokkanen (external link) (Lapland). Title: "Indigenous Self-determination and the Norm of Integrity."
- Dec. 7, 3:10-5:00: Dale Turner (external link) (Toronto) "Listenening to Indigenous People In and On Their Own Terms."
- Mar. 8, 3:10-5:00: Katharina Nieswandt (external link) (Concordia). Title: "Why are Women Less Likely than Men to Study Philosophy?" [VIDEO (external link) ]
- Mar. 22, 3:10-5:00: Donald Ainslie (external link) (Toronto). Title: "Mundane or Sublime? Hume and Kant on Morality."
- Mar. 29, 3:10-5:00: Glen Sean Coulthard (external link) (University of British Columbia). Title: "Once Were Maoists: Third World Currents in Fourth World Anti-Colonialism."
- Oct. 27, 3:10-5:00pm: Dr. Jason Kawall (external link, opens in new window) (Colgate) Title: "Of Carts and Horses: On the Explanation of Right Action in Virtue Ethics."
- Nov. 10, 3:10-5:00pm: Dr. Daniel Conway (external link, opens in new window) (Texas A & M) Title: "When Philosophy Learns to Sing:The Case of Nietzsche’s Nachgesang"
- Nov. 24, 3:10-5:00pm: Dr. Michael Brady (external link, opens in new window) (Glasgow) "Suffering and Meaning in Life"
- March 26, 3:10-5:00pm: Dr. Mary-Louise Gill (external link) (Brown): “Exercise in Plato’s Parmenides”
- April 13, 3:10-5:00pm: Dr. Katherine Dormandy (external link) (Innsbruck), "The Loyalty of Religious Disagreement"
- April 21, 3:10-5:00pm: Dr. Gail Weiss (external link) (George Washington): "Translating Lived Experiences Across Multiple ‘Worlds of Sense’: Decolonizing and Depathologizing the Clinical Encounter"
- “After Arendt: The Stakes of Narrative in the Age of Big Data”, Dr. Ewa Ziarek, (external link) Julian Park Professor of Comparative Literature, Tuesday, March 3rd, 3:00-5:00 Watch Video
- "The Role of Order in Kant’s Justification of Morality”, Dr. Timothy Rosenkoetter (external link) (Philosophy, Dartmouth College), Tuesday, November 26, 3:00-5:00. Watch Video
- "Where the Living Live: New Questions for Phenomenology and Religion", Dr. Karl Hefty (external link) (Theology, St. Paul's University), Tuesday, November 12, 3;00-5:00, Watch Video
- “Wampum Diplomacy in the Early and Middle Encounter Period”, Dr. Douglas Sanderson (external link) (Faculty of Law, University of Toronto), Tuesday, October 22, 3:00-5:00pm.
- Tuesday, March 26, 3:00-5:00pm, Dr. Margrit Shildrick (external link) (Stockholm), “Rethinking the Temporality and Imaginaries of Death - Some Philosophical Considerations.” Watch Video
- Tuesday, March 5, 3:00-5:00pm, Dr. Jeff Noonan (external link) (Windsor), “Notes Towards a Humanism from Below.” Watch Video
- Tuesday, February 26, 3:00-5:00pm, Dr. Charles Goodman (external link) (Binghamton), “The Unfolding of Empiricism in India.” Watch Video
- Tuesday, November 20, 3:00-5:00pm: Dr. Rohit Dalvi (external link) (Brock), "Against Understanding, Or How to Refuse 'Planetary Thinking'."
- Tuesday, October 2, 3:00-5:00pm: Dr. William Clare Roberts (external link) (McGill), "Marx's Politics of Freedom".
- Tuesday, September 25, 3:00-5:00pm: Dr. Eric Sanday (external link) (Kentucky), "Myth and Concept in Ancient Greek Philosophy." Watch Video
- Tuesday, April 18, 3:30-5:00, Dominic Martin (external link) (Université du Québec à Montréal), “Artificial Intelligence and Moral Decision-Making.”
- Tuesday, April 10, 3:30-5:00, David Barnett (external link) (Toronto), "Higher-Order Evidence is the Wrong Kind of Reason."
- Tuesday, November 21, 3:00-5:00, Wolfram Gobsch (external link) (University of Leipzig, Germany): "Kant’s Theory of Radical Evil".
- Friday, November 17, 11:00am-1:00pm, Eli Diamond (external link) (Department of Classics, Dalhousie): “Goodness, Beauty, and the Tragedy of Language: How to Read Agathon’s Speech in Plato’s Symposium”. [VIDEO]
- Tuesday, October 17, 3:00-5:00pm: Catherine Chalier (external link) (Universite Paris Nanterre): "The Invisible in Secular Society: Emmanuel Levinas".
- Friday, October 13, 3:00-5:00pm: Kelly Oliver (external link) (Vanderbilt) "Detaining Refugees: Deconstructing Carceral Humanitarianism”. Watch video part 1 and part 2
- Peter van Inwagen (external link) (Notre Dame / Duke): "What Are We Talking about When We Talk about Free Will?", Friday, April 28, 2017.
- Gabriel Citron (external link) (University of Toronto): " ‘The Problem of Life’: Wittgenstein on the Difficulty of Honest Happiness", Wednesday, March 15, 2017.
- Tom Spector (external link) (Oklahoma State): "When the Better it is, the Worse it is: On Architecture and Moral Agency", Tuesday, March 7, 2017. Watch video
- Graeme Nicholson (external link) (Toronto): "The Essence of Truth", Tuesday, Feb 28, 2017. Watch video
- Joel Michael Reynolds (external link) (Emory University): "The Future of Bioethics: Ableism and the Life Worth Living", Tuesday, Feb 7, 2017. Watch video
- Timothy Stock (external link) (Salisbury): "(A Very) Weak Martyrdom: The Comic as Public Philosophy", Tuesday, Jan 24, 2017.
- Rebecca Comay (external link) (Toronto) "'Our Heritage Was Left to us Without a Testament’ — or is it the Other Way Around?”, Tuesday November 15, 2016.
- Samantha Brennan (external link) (UWO), “Ethics and Our Early Years: Making Decisions for Children as if Childhood Really Mattered", Thursday November 10, 2016. Watch video
- Eric Marcus (external link) (Auburn), "Reconciling Practical Knowledge with Self-Deception", November 1, 2016.
- Matthias Fritsch (external link) (Concordia), "Do Gifts Obligate a Return? Indirect Reciprocity in Deconstruction and Intergenerational Economics", October 4, 2016.
- Jonathan Parry (external link) (Birmingham), "Consent and the Justification of Defensive Harm", March 24th, 2016. Watch video
- Jennifer Lackey (external link) (Northwestern), "Experts and Peer Disagreement", March 22nd, 2016. Watch video
- Kirsten Jacobson (external link) (Maine), “The Living Arena of Existential Health: Space, Autonomy, and Embodiment", March 15th, 2016. Watch video
- Francisco Gonzalez (external link) (Ottawa), "The Other Plato: Heidegger's Reading of the Parmenides, the Phaedrus, and the Theatetus in the 1930s", February 9th, 2016. Watch video
- Allen Patten (external link) (Princeton), "How to Justify Religious Accommodations: A Liberal Egalitarian Approach”, February 2nd, 2016. Watch video
- Frank Cunningham (external link) (University of Toronto), “Public Space and Walter Benjamin's Philosophy of Cities”, December 1st, 2015. Watch video
- Emily Carson (external link) (McGill), “The Mathematical Method from Leibniz to Kant”, November 24th, 2015.
- Alia Al-Saji (external link) (McGill), “A Past that Lines the Present: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty and the Politics of the Past”, November 18th, 2015.
- Daniel C. Russell (external link) (Arizona), “Putting Ideals in Their Place”, November 3rd, 2015. Watch video
- Asaf Angermann (University of Toronto), "The Exile of Metaphysics: Adorno and the Language of Political Experience", April 7, 2015.
- VIDEO: John Caputo (Emeritus, Syracuse University), "Augustine, Derrida and (the) True Religion", March 10, 2015.
- VIDEO: Peter van Inwagen (University of Notre Dame / Duke University), Ronald de Sousa (University of Toronto), "What Difference Would (or Does) God’s Existence Make?", March 6 2015.
- Deborah Cook (University of Windsor), "Resistance and Freedom in Adorno and Foucault", March 3, 2015.
- VIDEO: Sarah Paul (University of Wisconsin, Madison), “Good Intentions and the Road to Hell”, November 18, 2014.
- VIDEO: Richard Swinburne (Emeritus, Oxford University), “Why 'There is a God' is Good News”, November 3, 2014.
- VIDEO: Matthew Ratcliffe (Durham University), “Verbal Hallucinations, Feelings, and Intersubjectivity”, October 21, 2014.
- VIDEO: Per Galle (Danish Design School, Copenhagen), “What never was and how it might be: Can creative designers know what they are talking about?”, April 1, 2014.
- David Rondel (University of Nevada, Reno), “Luck Egalitarianism and Deweyan Pragmatism”, March 18, 2014.
- VIDEO: Richard Davis (Tyndale University College), “Theism and the Counterpossible Consensus”, March 11, 2014.
- VIDEO: Raf De Clercq (Lingnan University), “The Lazy Man's Approach to Depiction”, February 4, 2014.
- Robert Mann (Physics, University of Waterloo), “Puzzled by Particularity”, November 26, 2013.
- Lisa Guenther (Vanderbilt University), “Social Death and Living Resistance: A Critical Phenomenology of Solitary Confinement”, November 12, 2013.
- VIDEO: Robert Sinnerbrink (Macquarie University), “Cinematic Ethics: The Moral Melodrama”, October 31, 2013.
- VIDEO: Myron A. Penner (Trinity Western University), “Pro-Theism and the Added Value of Morally Good Agents”, October 22, 2013.
- Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck University of London), “On What's Intentionally Done”, April 16, 2013.
- Nathan Ballantyne (Fordham University), “Evidence We Don't Have”, April 9, 2013.
- VIDEO: Jennifer Uleman (Purchase College (SUNY)), “Occupy Reality: Hegel, Frankfurt, and Ontology at (and Beyond) Zuccotti Park”, March 26, 2013.
- VIDEO: Fanny Söderbäck (Siena College), “Time for Love: Plato and Irigaray on the Ethics of Erotic Relations”, February 22, 2013.
- VIDEO: Antonio Calcagno (University of Western Ontario), “Roberto Esposito and the Relation Between the Personal and the Impersonal”, February 13, 2013.
- VIDEO: Derek Matravers (The Open University), “Recent work on the Imagination”, November 6, 2012.
- Neera Badhwar (University of Oklahoma), “Is Realism Really Bad for You? A Realistic Response”, October 16, 2012.
- Joan Tronto (Political Science, University of Minnesota), “Democracy and Care”, March 13, 2012.
- John Lysaker (Emory University), “The Constellational Self: An Outline”, February 28, 2012.
- John Hacker-Wright (University of Guelph), “Human Nature, Virtue, and Rationality”, February 7, 2012.
- David Morris (Concordia University), “Sense, Development, and Passivity: Merleau-Ponty’s Transformations of Philosophy”, November 25, 2011.
- Adrian Haddock (Stirling University), “Self-Consciousness and Rule-Following”, November 22, 2011.
- John Turri (University of Waterloo), “Suberogatory Assertions”, October 18, 2011.
- Bruce Gilbert (Bishop’s University), “Contradiction and the Fluidity of Life: Case Studies from Logic and Ethics”, September 27, 2011.
- Sarah Stroud (McGill University), “They Can't Take That Away From Me: Restricting the Reach of Morality's Demands”, September 20, 2011.