Please join us on Friday, November 4th for our next Philosophy Department Colloquium with Professor Gideon Manning. The event will start at 3pm in room 402 of Cohen Hall, with a reception to follow.
 
Title: René Descartes and the Iconography of Action
 

Please join us on Friday, October 14th for our Philosophy Department Colloquium with Professor Vanessa Wills. The event will start at 3pm in room 402 of Cohen Hall, with a reception to follow.

Please join us on Friday, September 30th for our Philosophy Department Colloquium with Professor Brookes Brown. The event will start at 3pm in room 402 of Cohen Hall, with a reception to follow.
 
Abstract:
 

Please join us on Friday, September 16th for a Penn Philosophy colloquium featuring Professor Carlos Santana. Dr. Santana is an Associate Professor at the University of Utah specializing in the philosophy of earth and environmental science. This event will begin at 3pm in Claudia Cohen Hall 402 with a reception to follow.
 
Abstract 

Poverty has traditionally been conceived as a state of deprivation. To be poor is to lack something that is essential to human flourishing. How that something is conceived—in terms of welfare, resources, or capabilities—and how it is to be measured—in absolute terms or as relative to a social standard—has been the subject of much debate within development circles.

After 36 years of extraordinary teaching and service to the field of philosophy, Professor Samuel Freeman retired in June 2021.  
 
In recognition of his contribution to Penn Philosophy over his career, the department will be holding a colloquium in his honor, featuring a series of talks and reflections given by previous students and current colleagues. This event includes a catered reception on Friday, April 29th. 
 
Schedule of Events
Panel 1

The 6th annual MAP-Penn conference: Philosophy of Disability and Illness will be held on April 8th - 10th, 2022.  This conference focuses on aspects of Philosophy of Disability and Philosophy of Illness. This includes, but is not limited to, disability- and/or illness-related conceptual and normative issues in philosophy of law, in medical ethics, in bioethics, in general ethics, in the history of philosophy, in social and political philosophy, in social epistemology, in one’s personal experiences as a philosopher, and in teaching practices.
 

After 34 years of extraordinary teaching and service to the field of philosophy, Professor Susan Sauvé Meyer retired in December.  In recognition of her contribution to Penn Philosophy over her career, the department will be holding a colloquium in her honor, featuring a series of talks and reflections given by previous students and current colleagues. This event includes a catered breakfast, lunch, and reception on Friday, April 1st. 

Abstract: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason surprises many readers with an extended use of metaphors drawing on legal theory and practice. This talk explores the parallels between the Critique of Pure Reason and the establishment of a civil condition in natural right theory.

Abstract: In the Groundwork and all three Critiques, Kant expresses the hope of eventually unifying theoretical and practical reason in one system, with a principle common to both. But Kant never tells us what such a principle is, leaving scholars to advance different possibilities. In this talk, I elaborate a new response to this problem.