The NEIU Philosophy Colloquium Series began in 2014 and has been a regular department-sponsored event since Spring 2018. The purpose of this event is to give the NEIU 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 NEIU firsthand and meet our students and faculty in an academic setting. All of the talks are free and open to the public.
Spring 2023
"Berkeley's political metaphysics"
David Hilbert, University of Illinois Chicago, philosophy Department
3:05-4:15 p.m Tuesday, April 11
Main Campus, Lech Walesa Hall Room 1002
The 18th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley is best known for his attack on the concept of material substance and his defense of the claim that the only things that exist are minds and their ideas. Although Berkeley denies the existence of material things he also claims to be a defender of common sense. Berkeley was not only a metaphysician and I will argue that consideration of his attempt to found a college in Bermuda and his proposals for reforming the Irish economy will shed light on how he thought he could combine radical metaphysics with a defense of ordinary thought.
David Hilbert is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His main areas of research are color, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of mind. He also has interests in philosophy of biology, early modern philosophy (especially Berkeley) and epistemology.
Past Talks
2022-2023
- Blake Dutton, Loyola University Chicago, "Extracting Gold from the Counterfeiter’s Bag: al-Ghazālī on the Tradition of Philosophy in Islam."
- Sophia Mihic, NEIU, "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 Metaphilosophy.”
- 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
