15
Philosophy Speaker Series: Lightning Talks
By McMaster Philosophy Department
Free Lecture
Overview
There will be five “Lightning Talks” presented in succession by faculty members from the McMaster University Philosophy Department:
Dr. Megan Stotts: “Languages and Institutions”
Dr. Mark Johnstone: “Aristotle on the Objects of Perception”
Dr. Alex Klein:“Précis of Consciousness Is Motor: Mind and Action in William James”
Dr. Allauren Forbes: “Cavendish’s Feminine Utopias: Speech, Silence, and Gendered Space”
Dr. Barry Allen: “Earth”
Speakers
Dr. Megan Stotts, Assistant Professor, Philosophy:
“My main research areas are philosophy of language and social ontology. Within philosophy of language, my research focuses on linguistic conventions, theories of meaning, metaphor, and theories of reference, among other topics. Within in social ontology, I focus on social conventions and on the metaphysics of social institutions.”
Dr. Mark Johnstone, Associate Professor, Philosophy:
“My primary field of research is ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Within ancient philosophy, I am especially interested in ancient ethics and psychology, and in points of connection between the two (e.g ancient theories of virtue and vice, desire, action, perception, pleasure, and emotion). I also have broad interests in the history of philosophy, in contemporary ethics (including virtue ethics and theories of well-being), and in some topics in philosophy of mind (e.g. perception, emotions).”
Dr. Alex Klein, Associate Professor, Philosophy:
“My research focuses on the history and philosophy of psychology, with a special emphasis on interactions with pragmatism and early analytic philosophy. William James has been a central focus. I have a monograph in press with Oxford entitled Consciousness Is Motor: William James on Mind and Action. That work has led me to an interest in Russell in his naturalistic phase as well.”
Dr. Allauren Forbes, Assistant Professor, Philosophy:
“My primary field of research is the intersection of early modern European philosophy and feminist philosophy. I am especially interested in the ways in which women and other marginalized philosophers of this time thought about projects of mutual transformation, solidarity, and resistance to oppression across epistemic and socio-political domains. My research focuses on relations – such as custom, marriage, and education – and how these are at once sites of domination and resistance.”
Dr. Barry Allen, Professor, Philosophy:
“Barry Allen is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
His work in philosophy concentrates on the concept of knowledge, which he studies from interdisciplinary and multi-cultural perspectives, addressing a wide audience in contemporary and comparative philosophy and the human sciences. His books explore the relationship of art to knowledge and knowledge to civilization, and compare Chinese and Western ideas about knowledge.”