Tyler Hanck ’13 of University of Illinois at Chicago delivers lecture during fall series.

Each semester, the Philosophy Department sponsors a series of lectures by philosophers from colleges and universities around the country and world.

2023-24 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Michael Bennett McNulty, University of Minnesota
Kant’s Aethereal Hammer: When Everything Looks Like a Nail”

Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Logan Stapleton, Carnegie Mellon University
“Racial Disparities in Human-AI Decisions in the Child Welfare System”

Thursday, December 7, 2023
Robin Dembroff, Yale University
“Erecting Real Men”

Wednesday, March 6, 2023
Dwight Lewis, University of Minnesota
“Anton Wilhelm Amo: Disrupting Dominance”

2022-23 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, October 27, 2022
Sam O. Imbo, Hamline University
“Africana Contributions to World Philosophy”

Friday, November 18, 2022
Tamara Fakhoury, University of Minnesota
“Non-Normative Behavior and the Virtue of Rebelliousness”

Thursday, April 20, 2023
Troy Jollimore, California State University – Chico
“Love and Belief”

2021-22 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, November 4, 2021
Cat St. Croix, University of Minnesota
“Rumination and Wronging: The Role of Attention in Epistemic Morality”

Thursday, March 31, 2022
Greg P. Wong-Taylor, Stanford University
“Kant’s Idealist Conception of Objectivity”

2020-21 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, April 15, 2021
Henry West Speaker
Nicolas Delon, New College of Florida
“Letting Animal Agents Off the Hook”

2019-20 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 19, 2019
Katia Vavova, Mount Holyoke College
“Moral Responsibility Without Blame”

Friday, October 18th, 2019
Paddy Blanchette, University of Notre Dame
“Logic and Geometry: Why Logical Claims Aren’t Always What They Seem to Be”

2018-19 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 20, 2018
Tyler Hanck, University of Illinois at Chicago
“The Idea of Substance in Locke and Descartes”

Thursday, October 18th, 2018
Gary Gabor, Hamline University
“Harmonizing Plato and Aristotle: In Search of the Identity of an Ancient Author”

Thursday, November 8th, 2018
Carlos Núñez, University of Vienna
“I intend that everyone enjoy this talk”

Thursday, November 15th, 2018
World Philosophy Day

Thursday, February 21st, 2019
Henry West Speaker
Michael Fuerstein, St. Olaf College
“What is the Lesson of Donald Trump for Democratic Theory?”

Thursday, April 11th, 2019
Margaret Atherton, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
“Who is Hylas? Understanding the Argument Expressed in Berkeley’s Three Dialogues”

Thursday, April 25th, 2019
Silvia De Toffoli, Princeton University
“Mathematical Justification in Practice”

2017-18 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, October 5, 2017
Jason Decker, Carleton College

Thursday, November 9, 2017
Robert DiSalle, University of Western Ontario
“Laws and Necessities: On the Ineffective Reasonableness of Mathematics”

Thursday, February 22, 2018
Jessica Gordon-Roth, University of Minnesota

Thursday, March 8, 2018
Debra Satz, Stanford University

Thursday, April 5, 2018
Justin Smith, University of Paris

Thursday, April 19, 2018
Jerry Gaus, University of Arizona

2016-17 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 8, 2016
“Nietzsche’s Humean (All-Too-Humean) Theory of Motivation”
Neil Sinhababu, National University of Singapore

Thursday, September 29, 2016
“Two Types of Indeterminacy”
David Taylor, University of Minnesota

Thursday, October 10, 2016
“Magnitudes of the Soul: Kant on the Scientific Status of Empirical Psychology”
Michael McNulty, University of Minnesota

Thursday, November 17, 2016
World Philosophy Day“It’s Chomping All the Way Down: Eating, Guts and Fundamental Philosophical Categories”
Lisa Heldke, Gustavus Adolphus College

Thursday, March 2, 2017
Ishani Maitra, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Thursday, March 23, 2017
Steve Nadler, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Thursday, April 6, 2017
Larry Hickman, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

2015-16 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 17, 2015
Mary Domski, University of New Mexico
“Truth and Falsehood in Descarte’s Physics”

Thursday, November 19, 2015
World Philosophy Day
Harry Brighouse, University of Wisconsin – Madison
“Why All Schools are Public”

Monday, November 23, 2015
Michel Janssen, University of Minnesota
“Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine”

Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Samuel Fletcher, University of Minnesota
“On the Alleged Imcommensurability of Netwtonian and Relativistic Mass”

Thursday, March 31, 2016
Peter Distelzweig, University of St. Thomas
Descartes on Somatic Health (and Psychosomatic Well-Being)” 

Thursday, April 7, 2016
Thomas Christiano, University of Arizona
“The Tension Between the Nature and the Norm of Voluntary Exchange” 

Monday, April 11, 2016
Emily Thomas, University of Groningen
“Samuel Clarke’s Morean Space and Time Absolutism”

2014-15 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 18, 2014
Roy Cook, University of Minnesota

Thursday, October 30, 2014
Joseph Neisser, Grinnell College

Thursday, November 20, 2014
World Philosophy Day
Emily McRae, University of Oklahoma

2013-14 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 26, 2013
Henry West Speaker
Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame

Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Eric Schliesser, University of Ghent, Belgium

Thursday, March 27, 2014
Cheshire Calhoun, Arizona State University

Thursday, April 24, 2014
David Wong, Duke University

2012-13 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, December 6, 2012
Shannon Vallor, Santa Clara University

Thursday, March 14, 2013
Henry West Speaker
David Kaplan, UCLA

Thursday, April 25, 2013
Scott Pratt, University of Oregon

2011-12 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 15, 2011
Daniel Garber, Princeton University
“Divine Laws, Divine Decrees, and the Order of Nature”

Thursday, October 20, 2011
Justin Jeffrey, University of St. Thomas
“Normative Transference”

2010-11 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 16, 2010
Dr. Tristram McPherson, University of Minnesota Duluth
“Moral Attitudes for Expressivists: Solving the Specification Problem”

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Henry West Speaker
Dale Jamieson, New York University
“The Invention of Practical Ethics”

2009-10 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, October 1, 2009
Katherine Brading, University of Notre Dame
“Epistemic Structural Realism and Poincaré’s Philosophy of Science”

Thursday, November 5, 2009
Henry West, Macalester College
“Value Realism and Moral Constructivism”

Thursday, March 4, 2010
Emily Esch, College of Saint Benedict and St. John’s University
“Making Sense of Our Selves”

Thursday, March 25, 2010
Harry Brighouse, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Thursday, April 8, 2010
Adam Briggle, University of North Texas

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Annual Engel-Morgan-Jardetzky Lecture
Michael Meaney, McGill University

2008-09 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Julian C. Cole, Buffalo State College
“Mathematics: Plentiful Province or Dependent Dominion?”

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Minnesota Philosophical Society 2008 Annual Meeting
Eugene Garver, St. John’s University
Keynote Presentation: “Philosophers, Readers, Writers”

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Valerie Tiberius, University of Minnesota
“Wisdom and Work”

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Henry West Speaker
Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, and social activist, will present a lecture entitled “The Holy Wars” at 5:00 PM in the Hill Ballroom (Kagin Commons). He will examine the Revolutionary War,  the Civil War, and World War II in trying to answer the question “Is there such a thing as a just war?”

2007-08 Philosophy Colloquium Series

Thursday, September 20, 2007
Stephen Stich, Rutgers University
“Experimental Philosophy: the Persistence of Moral Disagreement”

Thursday, October 18, 2007
Allen Buchanan, Duke University
“Human Nature: Enhancement”

Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Annual Engel-Morgan-Jardetzky Lecture
James Hughes, Trinity College
“Manimals, Cyborgs, and Gattaca: the Biopolitics of Human Enhancement Technologies”

Monday, February 11, 2008
Henry West Retirement Celebration: 50 Years of Teaching
David Lyons, Boston University
“Race and the Rule of Law”

Monday, February 18, 2008
Alan Fuchs, College of William & Mary
“Mill’s One Very Simple Principle of Liberty”

Thursday, March 6, 2008
Karen Warren, Macalester College
“Why does Traditional Philosophy need Feminism?”

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The Annual Engel-Morgan-Jardetzky Lecture
Daniel Dennett, Tufts University
“Darwin, Reason, and Creativity”