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Colloquium Series, Winter 2003

There may be one or two additions to this schedule, in early or late March; they will be communicated as soon as possible.

Friday, Jan. 10, 2003, 2:30pm

Jonathan Lavery
Wilfrid Laurier University (Brantford Campus)
Title: Plato's 'Philosopher' and Socrates' 'Apology'
Abstract

Friday, Jan. 24, 2003, 2:30pm

Jason West
University of Waterloo
Title: Aquinas’ Commentaries on Aristotle as Philosophy
Abstract

Friday, Feb. 7, 2:30pm

Michael McNulty
University of Waterloo
Topic: On Consciousness

Friday, Feb. 28, 3:00pm

John Campbell
University of Memphis
Title: “Glen Roy, Darwin, and the triumph of invention over incommensurability”
Abstract

Tuesday*, March 18, 2003, 3:30pm

Michael McDonald, University of British Columbia
Title: “Protectionism and the Virtuous Researcher”
Abstract

***Cancelled*** 7) Friday, March 21, time TBA

Fotini Kalamara
Perimeter Institute
Title: TBA (probably something on quantum physics and non-standard logic).

***Cancelled*** Friday, March 28, time TBA

Irene Switankowsky
University of Waterloo
Topic: TBA

Friday, April 4, 2:30pm

Anne-Marie Power
University of Waterloo
Title: “Nietzsche as Isolate”

Colloquium Schedule and Abstracts for Jan. 2003

Friday, Jan. 10, 2003
2:30pm
Jonathan Lavery
Wilfrid Laurier University (Brantford Campus)

Title: Plato's 'Philosopher' and Socrates' 'Apology'

Abstract: The opening pages of Plato's 'Sophist' appear to announce the
framework for a projected trilogy: one dialogue about the nature of the
sophist, one about the nature of the statesman, and one about the
philosopher. Within this framework 'Sophist' and its sequel, 'Statesman',
would constitute the first two instalments; however, there is no record
that Plato wrote, or even began writing, a dialogue called 'Philosopher'. I
argue that 'Apology', which was composed many years before 'Sophist' and
'Statesman', fulfils the function of 'Philosopher', and that Plato indicates
this connection with a series of dramatic and conceptual allusions to
'Apology' in the later dialogues. I close with a brief examination of how,
in his defence speech in 'Apology', Socrates differentiates himself as a
philosopher from the sophist and the statesman in a manner that is
consistent with the guiding issue of the Sophist-Statesman duo.

Friday, Jan. 24, 2003
2:30pm
Jason West
University of Waterloo

Title: AQUINAS' COMMENTARIES ON ARISTOTLE AS PHILOSOPHY

Abstract: There has been considerable debate recently over the nature and
purpose of Aquinas' commentaries on Aristotle.  Some scholars see them as literal expositions of the text and, consequently, of little interest to
understanding Aquinas' personal thought.  However, in light of the fact
that the views Aquinas attributes to Aristotle at times do not fit with the
findings of contemporary historians of philosophy, others hold that Aquinas "baptizes" Aristotle, presenting Aristotle's thought in light of his own theological concerns.  Hence, it seems that either Aquinas was unable to understand Aristotle's texts or that he was dishonest in his presentation
of them.  In this paper I begin by outlining the various styles of medieval
philosophical commentaries and their respective aims.  I then examine the
introductions to Aquinas' commentaries with a view to highlighting what
they reveal about the nature and purpose of these works.  In light of this
material, I argue that both sides of the debate mentioned above fail to
understand what kind of commentary Aquinas was engaged in writing.  In
brief, for Aquinas, the study of a philosophical author is not an end in
itself, but simply a means for knowing the reality the author
discusses.  If this is the primary purpose of Aquinas' commentaries, then
it is natural to expect that he will move from exegesis of the text to a
philosophical elaboration and development of the arguments it presents.  I
conclude by briefly examining a couple of examples (probably happiness in the Ethics and providence in the Metaphysics) where Aquinas is following this philosophical approach to commentary.

Friday, Feb. 28, 3:00pm

John Campbell
University of Memphis
Title: “Glen Roy, Darwin, and the triumph of invention over incommensurability”

Abstract: “If ever two paradigms were incommensurable—built on logically incompatible assumptions —one could scarcely hope for a sharper contrast than between Lyell’s "actualist" geology and Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory of natural selection. Lyell’s Principles of Geology was explicitly anti-evolutionary, setting forth a doctrine of "non progressionism" that attempts to preclude evolution as a logical possibility and place it beyond the purview of science. Darwin (and, indeed, Wallace) was undaunted. As an intellectual project Lyell’s Principles offers an up-dated Newtonian world view in which the implications of weak causes and deep time are made relentlessly and appallingly clear: that the history of the earth, in any chronological sense, was irrecoverable, for its records were being destroyed in the earth’s shredder/furnace by further operation of the very forces that had partially preserved them. How this vision of earth history without history—for the surviving geologic column was hopelessly fragmentary, partial and offered no true picture of past events—could inspire Darwin’s evolution is unclear. Everyone in the nineteenth century read Malthus, but to arrive at evolution by natural selection (twice no less) the key is not just Malthus—whose laws of population, important as they were, receive a disproportionate amount of attention—but Malthus plus Lyell. Campbell’s talk approaches incommensurability as an artifact of a failed positivist world-project of controlling history by thought and opposes it to an open, rhetoriographic understanding of history which approaches thought from the standpoint of invention encountered through the lessons of action and experience. He argues that evolution is not, as Huxley held, a logical extension of Lyell rightly understood, but as a rhetorical reinvention of Lyell creatively misunderstood.”

Tuesday*, March 18, 2003, 3:30pm

Michael McDonald, University of British Columbia
Title: “Protectionism and the Virtuous Researcher”

Abstract: “In a recent and very insightful paper entitled “Goodbye to All That: The End of Moderate Protectionism in Human Subjects Research,” Jonathan Moreno describes a historic movement from weak to strong forms of protection for research subjects in three successive stages: (i) predominant reliance on researcher virtue (weak protectionism), (ii) then a mixture of researcher virtue and external oversight (moderate protectionism) and (iii) finally predominant reliance on external oversight (strong protectionism) and “rejection of investigator discretion” [Moreno, 2001].  With the now current move in the U.S. to strong protectionism, Moreno warns of “moral hazard” in that, “Paradoxically, the research scientist’s sense of personal moral responsibility might weaken as the official and continuous scrutiny of scientific work is strengthened” Underlying Moreno’s account is the idea of a fundamental opposition between researcher virtue and protectionism, such that the rise of third party oversight diminishes personal moral responsibility, perhaps even leading the clinical researcher to “feel justified in taking what Josiah Royce called ‘a moral holiday,’ focussing only on the science and leaving the task of protecting human subjects to those whose charge it is.” For those concerned with the governance of health research involving humans, it is a matter of considerable importance to determine whether the relationship of external oversight to individual moral virtue and to collective moral culture is either, as Moreno argues, mainly negative or, as I and others have claimed, potentially positive. To oversimplify the matter, is there a tough choice between strong protectionism and robust researcher virtue such that we are likely to imminently face hard choices as to which strategy to pursue or are there plausible “best of both worlds” strategies? 

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University of Waterloo
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