The Philosophy in the Community
Lecture & Discussion Series
@ The Refinery

Professor Emer O’Hagan

Assumptions about human nature are prevalent and greatly influence the shape inquiry takes in numerous disciplines. Yet it is not entirely clear what we mean when we use the phrase “human nature”. In this talk I will consider several different views of what “human nature” could mean and possibly be, as well as objections to these views. I will frame my discussion of the concept by posing two questions: If we were to understand human nature, what good would it do us? If we failed to understand human nature, how might we be disadvantaged?

Professor Ria Jenkins
(Department of Philosophy, St Thomas More College)

Professor Len Findlay
(Department of English, University of Saskatchewan)

In this talk I will explore the philosophical underpinnings of the Occupy Movement with three goals in mind:

To see how this Movement stands up to philosophical scrutiny, bearing in mind that there are many forms of such scrutiny;

To explore how philosophy stands up to activist scrutiny, bearing in mind Marx’s celebrated stricture in his Theses on Feuerbach: “The philosophers have in their various ways merely interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it”;

And to suggest how philosophy and social activism face a common enemy--that neoliberalism currently working so hard in Canada to discourage both the kind of independent reflection that philosophy demands and nourishes and that kind of critically engaged citizenship the Occupy Movement seeks to model and propagate.