Philosophy

Research Talks and Events

• Time , Memory and Self:
  Remembering Merleau-Ponty at 100
  
  September 18-20, 2008
  
  From September 18-20, 2008, Ryerson’s Philosophy Department will host an international conference: Time, Memory and Self: Remembering Merleau-Ponty at 100 . French philosopher and phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1960) is perhaps best known for his criticisms of traditional, dualistic conceptions of mind and body, and his argument that meaning happens not within a private, individual consciousness but within an embodied engagement with the world and others. Merleau-Ponty’s conception of embodiment has far-reaching implications for how we understand freedom, selfhood, time and space, interpersonal relations, and human creativity; and it has been having a transformative effect across diverse fields of study, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, politics, architecture, art history, film studies, linguistics, and cognitive sciences.
  
  This conference, which has the special distinction of celebrating the centenary of Merleau-Ponty’s birth, will focus upon the implications of Merleau-Ponty’s thought for an understanding of Time, Memory, and Self. Some particular topics to be discussed are: the peculiar form of memory produced by trauma, the relation between memory and self-identity, the nature of time, and the ethical ramifications of our own finitude and historical situatedness. The conference features some of the world’s top scholars in continental philosophy and other internationally renowned thinkers, including Bernhard Waldenfels (Bochum, Germany), Edward Casey (Stonybrook, USA), Elizabeth Behnke (Study Project in Phenomenology of the Body, USA), Leonard Lawlor (Memphis, USA), Véronique Foti (Penn State, USA), John O’Neill (York, Canada).
  
  [  Conference Schedule ]
  
• Ryerson Philosophy Student gives talk at Oxford University
  
  Jehangir Saleh, an ACS student with a special interest in philosophy,  gave a talk at a peer-reviewed inter-disciplinary conference Making Sense of Health, Illness and Disease, at Oxford University in July 2008. Mr. Saleh’s talk was entitled: Toward and Alternative Way of Encountering Illness.
  
  [ Full Story ]
  
  
• Thinking Through the Philosophy of Right
  
  March 28th and 29th, 2008.
  
  On March 28th and 29th, 2008, Ryerson's Department of Philosophy will be holding a conference focused on 19th Century philosopher G. W. F. Hegel's great work of social and political thought, the Philosophy of Right. Over the last 10 years, there has been a growing interest in Hegel's practical philosophy, particularly among English-speaking scholars of Hegel's thought. Many have found Hegel's original analyses of such topics as human freedom, property ownership, crime and punishment, civil society, and the sources of ethical and political agency, to be invaluable for providing us with the conceptual tools needed to gain perspective on contemporary social life. This conference will provide an excellent opportunity for scholars and students to get together to re-assess Hegel's contributions. All are welcome.
  
  [Schedule and Conference Details]
  
  
• Ryle at Ryerson
  
  October 19th and 20th, 2007
  
  From October 19-20, 2007, Ryerson University will host Ryle at Ryerson, a philosophy conference inspired by Gilbert Ryle's classic mid-twentieth century book, The Concept of Mind. Ryle's criticisms of what he called the "Myth of the Ghost in the Machine," - the view that humans are fundamentally spiritual beings inside a material body -transformed the philosophical debate over the nature of the soul, human freedom, and rationality. Its influence now extends to cognitive science and the psychology of perception. We have attracted an international list of distinguished speakers, all of whose work descends from or makes contact with Ryle's. The speakers are: Robert Stalnaker (MIT), Brian Weatherson (Cornell and Rutgers), Sonia Sedivy (Toronto), Laird Addis (Iowa) and Rocky Jacobsen (Laurier).

• Tuesday, October 28th
  3-5pm, JOR 502
  Speaker:  Henry Jackman, Department of Philosophy, York University
  Title:  "Concepts, Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Methodology"
  
  Abstract:  Many philosophers take it as obvious that concepts like "knowledge", "justice" or "meaning" are candidates for a priori philosophical analysis in the way that concepts like "gold" or "water" are not. However, most accounts of semantic and conceptual content do not accommodate this difference, with standard internalist accounts of content suggesting that both sets of concepts be susceptible to a priori analysis, while standard externalist accounts suggesting that neither be so. In my talk I propose to give an account of the relation between concepts and conceptual analysis that should both underwrite the standard philosophical methodology and explain its failure to extend to more standard 'empirical' concepts.
  
  Open to the public.  For more information, please contact David Ciavatta at david.ciavatta@ryerson.ca.
  
• Thursday, October 2, 2008
  The Ryerson University Philosophy Club presents:
  The Third Annual Public Lecture in Philosophy
  "Violence and Splendor"
  by Alphonso Lingis
  6:30 p.m.
  201 Heidelberg Building 125 Bond Street,
  Toronto
  Free and open to the public. For more information contact: philclub@ryerson.ca
  416.979.5000 ext. 1-2700
  
  - Lecture Details
  - View / Print Poster (pdf format)
  
• Thursday, September 25th
  4-6pm, JOR 204
  Speaker: James Crooks, Dean of Arts, Bishop's University
  Title:  "Praise the World to the Angel"
  
  Abstract:  The paper argues that Martin Heidegger and Kenneth Schmitz share a kind of liturgical approach to philosophy.  More precisely, I claim i) that we see in the later Heidegger’s assessment of and reaction to technology an attempt to present the reality of the real as a kind of invocation and ii) that we see in Schmitz’s The Recovery of Wonder an attempt to present the reality of the real as a kind of commission.  Central to both thinkers is the question of the status of the thing.  Each holds its reality and dignity to have been eroded in modern philosophy and culture.  Each proposes a liturgical interpretation of the thing in response to that erosion.
  
  Open to the public.  For more information, please contact David Ciavatta at david.ciavatta@ryerson.ca.
• Tuesday, September 23rd
  3-5pm, JOR 502
  Speaker: Tracy Isaacs, Department of Philosophy, The University of Western Ontario
  Title: "Collective Guilt"
  
  Abstract: If collectives are the sorts of things that can be morally responsible, then there is a sense in which they can be guilty too. They are guilty when they act wrongly. I argue that collective guilt, therefore, is collective moral responsibility for blameworthy collective actions. It does not result, as some people are concerned it does, in some being held responsible for the actions of others. Instead, it addresses responsibility at the collective level, and has no immediate and direct implications for the responsibility at the individual level. I reject the view, advocated by Margaret Gilbert, that collectives can have guilt feelings. Individual members of collectives can collectively acknowledge collective guilt, but when they do, nothing is gained by claiming that this acknowledgment amounts to a feeling of collective guilt.
  
  Open to the public.  For more information, please contact David Ciavatta at david.ciavatta@ryerson.ca.
• May 9, 2008  The Second Annual Philosophy Department Symposium
  
  9:00 am- 5:00 pm, Friday May 9th, 2008
  The Arts & Letters Club
  14 Elm Street
  Toronto
  
  All are welcome!
  
  [ Schedule and Symposium Details ]
  
  
• February 26, 2008   Andrew Botterell (UWO) The Nature and Scope of the 'Incomplete Privilege to Inflict Intentional Invasions of Interest of Property and Personality'.
  
  Botterell received his Ph.D. from MIT (1998), and his JD from the University of Toronto (2006). In between he taught at Sonoma State University, and also clerked for a year at the Supreme Court of Canada for the Honourable Madam Justice Louise Charron. At UWO he is jointly appointed between the Dept. of Philosophy and the Law School where he teaches and researches in philosophy of law, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is currently thinking about the role played by reasonableness in private law, the distinction between justification and excuse, and about whether rights may be permissibly infringed.
  
  Venue:  JOR 502,  3-5pm,  All are welcome.
  
• March 4, 2008   Neil Campbell (Laurier), On Kim's Exclusion Principle
  
  Abstract: In this paper I explore Jaegwon Kim's principle of explanatory exclusion. Kim's support for the principle is clarified and I critically evaluate several versions of the dual explananda response authors have offered to undermine it. I argue that none of the standard versions of the dual explananda reply are entirely successful and propose an alternative approach that reveals a deep tension in Kim's metaphysics. I argue that Kim can only retain the principle of explanatory exclusion if he abandons his longstanding critique of nonreductive physicalism.
  
  Short Bio: Neil Campbell is an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. He did his undergraduate degree in Philosophy at the University of Toronto and completed his graduate work at McMaster University in 1997. He has published in the philosophy of mind in such journals as the Philosophical Quarterly, Erkenntnis, Synthese, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. He has also published three books: Freedom and Determinism: Readings in Metaphysics (Prentice Hall, 2003), Mental Causation and the Metaphysics of Mind: A Reader (Broadview Press, 2003), and A Brief Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Broadview Press, 2005). He is currently putting the finishing touches on his monograph Mental Causation: a nonreductive approach forthcoming with Peter Lang.
  
  Venue:  JOR 502,  3-5pm,  All are welcome.
  
  

• Speaker:	Diane Enns
  Title:	"Hanna Arendt on Responsibility, Judgement and the Victim"
  When:	January 24th, 3:00 pm JOR 202

  
  This paper explores the themes of responsibility and judgment in Arendt's work with a view to understanding the current condition and status of the victim. By revisiting the controversy surrounding her notion of the "banality of evil" in Eichmann in Jerusalem - in particular the accusation that she blamed the victims and exonerated the perpetrators - I will question the meaning of innocence and guilt when the line between victim and perpetrator is indistinct. Arendt's demand for responsibility and judgment even in the face of violence and oppression, I argue, enables us to conceive of a political future in which the seemingly inevitable transition from victim to perpetrator might be suspended.
  
  Diane Enns is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, and Associate Director of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition at McMaster University. She is the author of Speaking of Freedom: Philosophy, Politics and the Struggle for Liberation (Stanford University Press, 2007) and is currently working on a book project concerning ethnopolitical conflict and victimhood, entitled, "Who is a Victim? Violence, Responsibility and Reconciliation."

• Doug Hutchinson (Toronto), Tuesday October 30th, JOR 502. Socrates in Prison Again: A Second 'Second Apology' in P.Köln205. 
• John Draeger (Buffalo State), Thursday October 18th. JOR 202. What Peeping Tom Did Wrong
• Patricia Marino (Waterloo), Friday October 5th, JOR202. Title TBA
• James Robert Brown (Toronto), Tuesday September 11th, JOR502. The Crisis of Commercialized Medical Research
• Ryerson Philosophy Department Research Symposium: An All-Day Event of Talks from Our Faculty (May 11)
• LUIS JACOB: Stretching the Social Fabric
  A talk by accomplished Toronto artist and activist
  6:00 pm Thursday, March 8, 2007
  Oakham Lounge, 63 Gould St.
  Ryerson University
  

  [View/Print PDF Flyer]

• "Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return" A lecture by Dr. Howard Adelman 6:00 pm Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Room LG06 George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre (ENG) Ryerson University [View/Print PDF Flyer]

• To celebrate UNESCO's World Philosophy Day, the Ryerson Philosophy Club presents "Film and Beers with Profs and Peers": a screening and discussion of Decalogue I, an hour-long film by acclaimed director Krzysztof Kieslowski. Thursday, Nov. 16th, 6:00pm, in the Arts Lounge, POD 349. Drinks, and discussion led by Prof. John Caruana, will follow at the Ram in the Rye at 7:30. All are welcome. View poster. View another poster.
• Congratulations to James Cunningham, one of 30 semi-finalists in TV Ontario's new search for Ontario's Best Lecturer.[Ryerson News Story] [Video clip]
• The Ryerson Philosophy Club presents "Film and Beers with Profs and Peers": a screening and discussion of the movie Memento. Thursday, Oct. 26th, 6:00pm, at the Imperial Pub. All are welcome. View poster.
• Please join us for the Music Cafe, presented by musicians from the Faculty of Arts, on Thursday, Sept. 28th, 1:00-2:00pm, in POD 372. Classical arias will be performed by Katherine Rowan, Soprano, and David Snable, Bass, with Leslie Hall, Piano. Also, Kim Chow-Morris will present traditional music on Chinese flutes.
• Professor Ted Honderich, Grote Professor Emeritus at University College London, will give a public lecture on Friday, September 29, at 5:00 p.m. in Room 204 of the Rogers Communication Centre. All those with an interest in philosophy and current events are invited to attend; faculty are asked to convey this invitation to students. Professor Honderich is widely published in many of the traditional concerns of philosophy and is one of the world's leading scholars on the intersection of philosophy and current events. Professor Honderich will discuss and defend the arguments of his recent book.