The NEIU Philosophy Colloquium Series began in 2014 and has been a regular department-sponsored event since Spring 2018. Its purpose is to give the Northeastern community access to all of the richness and diversity of contemporary professional philosophy. The Colloquium Series also provides professional philosophers with the opportunity to experience Northeastern firsthand and meet our students and faculty in an academic setting. All of the talks are free and open to the public.
Fall 2024
Nathan Wood, Ph.d., City Colleges of Chicago
"The Real Value of Anti-Realism"
3:00-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024
Bernard Brommel Hall Room 102
As younger students we were all introduced to sub-atomic particles such as protons, electrons, and neutrons. The pictures and representations of those particles as tiny orbs revolving around in space I took to be real existing things out in the world. However, while those depictions are useful, they are not accurate representations of the actual nature of those particles. This is the central question considered by philosophers of science in the debate between ‘realism’ and ‘anti-realism’. There are many curious and intriguing points made in the debate on both the realist and anti-realist sides, though, much of the focus in these arguments emphasizes the limitations of what we can logically infer from the success of any scientific theory. Anti-realist arguments offer serious challenges to any realist conception of science, but nevertheless it can be difficult to let go of the presupposition that the entities theorized within our chemistry, physics, and biology textbooks must be really existing entities out in the world. My aim in this presentation is to offer some further considerations to help facilitate an easier acceptance of the anti-realist position and how it grounds a renewed vision of the nature of scientific inquiry.
Dr. Nathan Wood received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2017 working in the area of ethics and meta-ethics. In 2021 he published his dissertation with the title Virtue Rediscovered: Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics in the Contemporary Moral Landscape (Lexington Books) and has also published articles in the journal Environmental Values and in the House of Cards and Philosophy anthology. His areas of interest include philosophy of science, environmental philosophy, 19th and 20th century German philosophy, existentialism, bioethics, and philosophy of technology. He served as Department Chair of the Philosophy, Religion, and Humanities department at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, and currently is a tenure-track instructor at Richard J. Daley College.
Upcoming Talks
- William French, Ph.D., Theology Department, Loyola University Chicago
- Stacey Goguen, Ph.D., Philosophy Program, Northeastern Illinois University
Past Talks
2023-2024
- Maren Behrensen, University of Twente, Netherlands, “Political Eschatology and Gender: Information Warfare against Queer Communities”
- Patrick O'Donnell, Oakton College, "Better Living through Pessimism."
- Ben Almassi, Governors State University, "The Fire Next Time: Prescribed Burns as Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Epistemic Reparations."
- Takunda Matose, Loyola University Chicago, "Justice and The Monty Hall Problem of Public Health."
- Will Behun, McHenry County Community College, "Not so much heretical as insane: myth in classical Gnosticism."
- Tom Carson, Loyola University Chicago, "The Problem of Misplaced Trust and Distrust."
2022-2023
- David Hilbert, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Berkeley's Political Metaphysics."
- Blake Dutton, Loyola University Chicago, "Extracting Gold from the Counterfeiter’s Bag: al-Ghazālī on the Tradition of Philosophy in Islam."
- Sophia Mihic, Northeastern Illinois University, "Freedom, Property, and Privacy: The Political Economy of Abortion and Reproduction After Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization."
- Raff Donelson, Chicago-Kent College of Law, "The Inherent Problem with Mass Incarceration."
- Tyler Zimmer, University of Chicago, "Do Billionaires Deserve Their Wealth?"
- Shireen Roshanravan, Northeastern Illinois University, "Pretending-to-be and Masterful Political Performance."
2019-2020
- B.R. George, Carnegie Mellon University, "Painfully Literal Dudes."
- Thirza Lagewaard, Free University, Amsterdam, “How Epistemic Injustice Can Deepen Disagreement.”
- Agnes Callard, University of Chicago, “Is There Such a Thing as being Good or Bad at Philosophy?"
- David Vessey, Grand Valley State University, "Collapsing Life and Art."
- Alex Adamson, Northeastern Illinois University, “Against a Single History: Luxemburg and a Decolonial Critique of Political Economy.”
2018-2019
- Jessica Gordon Roth, University of Minnesota, “Recovering Early Modern Women Writers: Some Tensions.”
- Jorge Montiel*, Marquette University, “ A Relational Analysis of Oppression: Group Injustice and Institutional Mediation.”
- Megan Hyska, Northwestern University, “Propaganda for Realists.”
- William Paris, Northwestern University, “What does it Mean to Have a Revolution in Culture? Frantz Fanon’s Speculative Method of Critique.”
- Seth Mayer, Manchester University, “Philosophy, Democracy, and Mass Incarceration.”
- David Godden, Michigan State University, “Theorizing Testimony in Argumentative Contexts.”
2017-2018
- Scott Aikin, Vanderbilt University, “The Antinomies of Meta-philosophy.”
- Desmond Jagmohan*, University of California, Berkeley, “Dominus before Domination: Harriet Jacobs and the Meaning of Slavery.”
2016-2017
- John Casey, Northeastern Illinois University, "Argument Pacifism."
2015-2016
- Morganna Lambeth, Northwestern University, "Does Everything have a Cause?"
- Raff Donelson, Northwestern University, "What is Punishment?"
2014-2015
- Scott Aikin, Vanderbilt University, "Why We Argue: A Deliberative Democratic Reply to Plato.”
*Denotes scholar as a graduate of Northeastern Illinois University
