About Us

Past Philosophy Today Lectures

2018-2019

  • Ian Phillips (Princeton University): “Can Sight be Blind? Untangling the Tale of Blindsight and Unconscious Vision”
  • Margaret Atherton (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee): “Where are the Women in (The History of) Philosophy?”
  • David Shoemaker (Tulane University): “Learning from Psychopaths”
  • Catherine Elgin (Harvard University): “Modeling Reality: How Science Advances Understanding of the World”

2017-2018

  • Peter Achinstein: “Simplicity: The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel”
  • Christopher Mole: “Complexity and the Explanation of Intelligence”
  • Susanna Siegel: “The Rationality of Perception”
  • Robert J. Howell: “Hell is Social Networks: Five Moral Dangers of Life Online”

2016-2017

  • Marya Schechtman: “My Whole Life Long: The Ethical Significance of a Unified Self”
  • Elizabeth Anderson: “Outlaws”
  • Andrei Marmor: “Two Rights of Free Speech”
  • Wayne Wu: “Mysteries of Consciousness: Connecting Mind and Brain”

2015-2016

  • Sahotra Sarkar: “Nature, Nurture, and The Human Genome”
  • Alyssa Ney: “What is Physicalism?”
  • William FitzPatrick: “Morality and Evolutionary Biology: Why the Science Doesn’t Settle the Philosophical Questions”

2014-2015

  • Barbara Gail Montero: “Does Thinking Interfere with Doing?”
  • Jesse Prinz: “The Moral Self”
  • Brie Gertler: “Does the Mind Extend Beyond the Body?”
  • Dorit Bar-On: “The Origins of Meaning”

2013-2014

  • Ned Markosian: “Is Time Travel Possible?”
  • Ned Block: “Do We See Less Than We Think We See?”
  • John Searle: “Consciousness, the Brain, and the Soul”
  • Pamela Hieronymi: “The Problem of Free Will and Moral Responsibility”

2012-2013

  • Simon Keller: “Understanding Skepticism about Climate Change”
  • Frank Jackson: “The Problem of Consciousness Revisited”
  • Steve Gimbel: “Einstein’s Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion”
  • William G. Lycan: “Why the Abortion Issue is So Difficult”

2011-2012

  • Jeff McMahan: “What Rights May We Defend by Means of War?”
  • Hud Hudson: “The Rabbit in the Garden: A Skeptical Theist’s Tale”
  • Rebecca Copenhaver: “Anti-Intellectualism and the Academy in American Life”
  • Alvin Goldman: “Knowledge & Democracy: How Social Epistemology Bears on the Success of Our Democracy”

2010-2011

  • Michael Huemer: “Is There a Right to Immigrate?”
  • Derk Pereboom: “Meaning in Life and the Illusion of Free Will”
  • Alison M. Jaggar: “The Philosophical Challenges of Global Gender Justice”
  • Paul Thompson: “In Defense of Genetically Modified Food”

2009-2010

  • Terry Horgan: “Mind and Brain: Philosophy of Mind in the 21st Century”
  • Amie Thomasson: “Do Tables and Chairs Really Exist?”
  • Keith Parsons: “Charles Darwin, Hammer of the Creationists”
  • Thomas Hurka: “Weighing Lives in War: When is Collateral Damage Excessive?”

2008-2009

  • Douglas N. Husak: “Four Points about Drug Criminalization”
  • Stephen Yablo: “Imagining Evil”
  • Michael P. Lynch: “Faith in Reason”
  • Alastair Norcross: “The Clone Wars: What’s Wrong With Human Cloning?”

2007-2008

  • Loren Lomasky: “The State of Political Philosophy”
  • Tyler Burge: “The State of Philosophy of Mind”
  • Geoffrey Sayre-McCord: “The State of Ethics”
  • Ted Sider: “The State of Metaphysics”
  • Jonathan Kvanvig: “The State of Philosophy of Religion”
  • Ernest Sosa: “The State of Epistemology”