Philosophy Speaker Series

This third lecture in the 2017-18 Philosophy Speaker Series was presented by Dr. Gordon Marino, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College. Dr. Marino writes: "The Stoic Seneca said, 'He who studies with a philosopher...should daily return home a sounder man, or on the way to becoming sounder.' I have spent much of the last three decades reading and in dialogue with Soren Kierkegaard's texts. I would like to think that this study has at least set me on a path to becoming a sounder human being. In this lecture, I will try to pass along some of the wisdom I have garnered from my long and ongoing walk with Kierkegaard."

The fifth lecture in the 2017-18 Philosophy Speaker Series was presented by Dr. Jeffrey Brower, Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University. Brower writes, "According to the traditional doctrine of divine omnipresence, God is present everywhere. But how is that possible? For God to be present everywhere, he must be located in space. But aren't material objects the only type of being that can be located in space? In this paper, I explore Aquinas's answers to these questions, as well as what they tell us about the nature of space and spatial location."

The second lecture in the 2017-2018 Philosophy Speaker Series was presented on Wednesday, October 4 by Dr. Kevin Hector, entitled “Eternal Fulfillment? Some Thoughts on the Afterlife.” Dr. Hector’s paper lays out two recent arguments raised against the desirability of eternal life, and then addresses these arguments by talking about two possible features of eternal life, namely, communion with God and what Hector calls “abundant life.” Dr. Kevin W. Hector is Associate Professor of Theology and of the Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago, and is the author of two books: Theology without Metaphysics and The Theological Project of Modernism. He worships at Wellspring Alliance Church, in Wheaton, with his wife, Krista, and two children, Simeon and Anastasia.

Dr. Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, McGill University March 13, 2017 Dr. Taylor has been awarded the 2007 Templeton Prize, the 2008 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, and the 2016 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy. Dr. Taylor has published widely in the areas of moral philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of action, philosophy of personal identity, philosophy of language, philosophy of the human sciences, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of history, and, most recently, his work has focused on the themes of religion and secularization. He is the author of numerous books, including The Explanation of Behaviour (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964); Hegel (Cambridge University Press, 1975); Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Harvard University Press, 1989); The Ethics of Authenticity (Harvard University Press, 1991); A Secular Age (The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2007); Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, co-authored with Jocelyn Maclure (Harvard University Press, 2011); and The Language Animal (The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2016).

March 2, 2017 • Dr. J Budziszewski, Professor of Philosophy (Ph.D., Saint Louis University) at University of Texas at Austin. For centuries, the natural law tradition held that the most basic principles of how to live are not only knowable, but actually known: Even the thief, the adulterer, and the God-mocker know the wrong of theft, the good of fidelity, and the duty of honoring God. Many modern thinkers spurned this tradition, holding that so-called natural law is neither truly natural nor truly law. The story might have ended there, yet as a Roman poet wrote, "You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but it always returns": Today the theory of the moral truths that we can’t not know is experiencing a renaissance.

March 1, 2016 • Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus Philosophical Theology Divinity School and Religious Studies (Ph.D., Harvard University) at Yale University. Philosophers and theorists of art have focused almost all of their attention on "high art"-- museum paintings and concert hall music -- to the neglect of other kinds of art. After offering an explanation of why this is, I will argue that we should expand the scope of our inquiries and reflect on other ways of engaging art as well. I will give some indication of what such an expanded inquiry would look like.

February 16, 2017 • Dr. Kevin Timpe, W. H. Jellema Chair in Christian Philosophy (Ph.D., Saint Louis University) at Calvin College. Dr. Timpe will focus on the role pride has played in Christian theology and philosophical theology. It will delineate several different types of pride, some positive, some negative, and some downright vicious. It will then explore the role the vice of pride has played in the lives of several influential figures, as well as ways pride bears on some central issues in Christian theology.

November 15, 2016 • Dr. Colleen McCluskey, Associate Professor of Philosophy (Ph.D., Iowa University) at Saint Louis University. Does human creativity complete a world that God left unfinished? Or do our activities of making, building, and inventing mar the goodness of creation? Thomas Aquinas helps answer these questions by reflecting on Divine creativity and its image in the human being.

Dr. Timothy Pawl, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas (MN), presents a lecture on the following: Christianity teaches that God became man. But how can that be? For, it would seem, some attributes God must have – maybe eternal existence and omnipotence - are attributes that a man can’t have. How, then, can one person be both God and man? In this talk, Dr. Pawl presents the fundamental philosophical problem for the doctrine of the incarnation, then provides some ways to respond to it. His recent work on philosophy of religion focuses on philosophical objections to the traditional, orthodox teachings of the Christian church. This lecture is the fifth in the 2015-2016 Philosophy Speaker Series at Wheaton College, and was delivered on Wednesday, March 23.

Dr. Therese Scarpelli Cory, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, delivers an address in conjunction with the Wheaton College philosophy department. Does human creativity complete a world that God left unfinished? Or do our activities of making, building, and inventing mar the goodness of creation? Dr. Cory shows how Thomas Aquinas helps answer these question by reflecting on Divine creativity and its image in the human being. This lecture was presented on Tuesday, December 1, 2015 on the campus of Wheaton College.

Dr. Michael Bergmann, Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, delivers an address in the Wheaton College philosophy department's Philosophy Speaker Series. The immense amount of horrific suffering in the world is perceived by many to be the basis for a strong argument for atheism. But is this perception accurate? Not according to skeptical theism, a view that is gaining increasing attention in the philosophy of religion. What is skeptical theism? How does it respond to the atheistic arguments based on horrific suffering? Does skeptical theism face problems of its own? This talk, delivered Thursday, November 5, 2015 on the campus of Wheaton College, addresses these questions.

Dr. Adam Wood, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, delivers a lecture on Thomas Aquinas's conception of heaven as part of Wheaton College's Philosophy Speaker Series. This talk was recorded Monday, September 28, 2015 at Wheaton College.

Dr. Steven Daskal • Thomas Pogge has argued that typical citizens of affluent nations participate in an unjust global order that harms the global poor, and that "we" therefore have stringent negative duties to reform the global order and compensate those we have harmed. In this talk, Dr. Daskal engages Pogge's provocative claims. Dr. Daskal is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University. He has questions about domestic welfare policy, duties to the global poor, and end of life ethics. This talk was recorded Wednesday, September 16th 2015 at Wheaton College.

Why should we blame the blameworthy? Wouldn't it be better to foreswear blame, embracing an ethic of unrelenting forgiveness and mercy? Christopher Franklin, assistant professor of philosophy at Grove City College (PA), discusses these questions and more during his lecture as part of the 2014-2015 Philosophy Speaker Series. Franklin argues that we should promote, enjoy, contemplate, and be for what is good. The defends the value of blame by arguing that cultivating a disposition to blame is an essential mode of being "for the good".