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?

Christine Korsgaard (1996; 2009) begins her influential argument for Kantian constructivism from the “human plight”: that we are “condemned to choice and action” (2009: 1). She vindicates normative objectivity and authority as a solution to this problem: we need reasons in order to act. I identify a tension in Korsgaard’s presentation of the “human plight”: on the one hand, normativity is grounded in the practical point of view, so characterized; on the other hand, the view entails that this it is not a problem we ever face. This means that normativity is grounded in an agent’s answer to a question, for which there is no answer by constructivism’s lights: the question which way of living to appropriate as her own and endorse as a source of reasons for action. I argue that this tension should lead us to seek an alternative analysis of the “human plight” as anxiety, a concept drawn from post-Kantian philosophy. My proposal suggests a new, Kierkegaardian or Heideggerian direction for post-Kantian constructivism. 

 
December 3, 3-5pm.
Christopher Yeomans (external link)  (Purdue)
Hegel’s Civic Republicanism