Speaker Series 2025-2026

ALL TALKS FRIDAYS, 4:00-5:30 pm.

October 10: Meena Krishnamurthy, Queens University

"The Emotions of Nonviolence: Revisiting Martin Luther King Jr's 'Letter from Birmingham Jail'" - Book Discussion

There is perhaps no piece by Martin Luther King, Jr. that is more widely read or more beloved than the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Countless articles and books have been written about its generation and meaning. Despite this, its broader philosophical significance has for the large part been missed. The Emotions of Nonviolence offers a novel interpretation of the Letter: it is not merely a discussion of civil disobedience – as is usually thought – but is also and perhaps even primarily an essay on political motivation. On this reading, the Letter seeks to answer a central question in democratic theory: namely, how can and ought we motivate the racially oppressed to engage in civil disobedience – in what King called nonviolent direct action? King’s answer is that we must appeal to and encourage the political emotions, both positive and negative. Fear, courage, faith, dignity, indignation, and love can together motivate nonviolent action and nonviolent action can reciprocally motivate, channel, and sustain these same emotions. It is through this continuous loop that nonviolence has the potential to transform society and its structures.

November 7: Jules Wong, Pennsylvania State University

"Felt Necessity, Becoming, and Needs"

In this talk, I explore the subjective significance of felt necessity. I ask: What does the felt experience of need, or feeling in need, mean to persons? What is the value of attending to this experience? The answers I offer to these two questions root the value of felt necessity in the combination of agency and character that I call becoming. While there are many kinds of felt necessity—including addiction, love, and attachment—I centrally consider an important but unacknowledged variety: transformative necessity, or the felt need for change. I will explain what it means to receive and listen to transformative necessity, discussing examples from trans and feminist writings. Becoming is our ability to articulate who we are by negotiating that which we cannot change directly and making a life that is truly ours, in light of the necessary and contingent ways we are dependent on things, people, and systems. Becoming is, I argue, an activity and source of reasons that is distinct from happiness, reason, and meaning in life—although it importantly overlaps with the last. My account raises challenges to the position that a person’s felt needs matter little to their actual needs in an ethical sense.

November 21: Arianna Falbo, Toronto Metropolitan University

"Shouldn't Have Inquired?"

When (if ever) is inquiry rationally impermissible? Recently, a growing number of philosophers have argued that one ought not inquire into a question, if the question lacks a true answer. I argue that this is a mistake. There are a variety of cases where one may rationally inquire into questions which lack true answers. Indeed, the pursuit of such questions can be incredibly valuable. By inquiring one may uncover false beliefs or misguided assumptions, and thereby come to have a more accurate view of the topic. These are important forms of epistemic progress that may otherwise be inaccessible, had one not inquired. Reflection on these cases reveals a deeper methodological lesson. We should not expect the semantic properties of questions, specifically, whether a question has a true answer, to determine the normative standards for inquiry. Instead, our focus should more directly concern inquirers and their evidential circumstances. From this starting point, I propose a more forgiving and permissive constraint on rational inquiry, namely: Epistemic Improvement: only inquire into Q, if it’s rational to believe that there is a chance of improving epistemically upon Q by inquiring into it.

January 23: Rachel Barney, University of Toronto - Talk cancelled

January 30: Şerife Tekin, SUNY Upstate Medical University

"Bridging Science and Testimony: The Multitudinous Self Model for a Humanist Psychiatry"

A central aim of psychiatry is to identify the properties of mental disorders to enable diagnosis and treatment. As a branch of both science and medicine, psychiatry draws on a variety of research practices to glean information about these properties, e.g., clinical drug trials, case studies, and most recently the tools powered by the Artificial Intelligence technologies. Recent work in philosophy of psychiatry has also drawn attention to the epistemic value of including first-person reports of individuals with mental disorders in investigating the properties of mental disorders and designing effective interventions. However, precisely how these standpoints will be reconciled with scientific and clinical perspectives remains underexplored. In this talk I present the Multitudinous Self Model (MuSe)that showcases how first-person reports can be integrated into research and clinical treatment in psychiatry. Engaging with the MuSe will also open doors for redefining and reimagining what kind of science psychiatry is and should be.