Events

Mark the date! The next World Philosophy Day will be on Thursday, 21 November 2024, and our keynote talk will be at 6pm ET in the North Academic Center, room 1/203.

The keynote speaker will be Prof. Rob Colter, from the University of Wyoming, who will be giving a talk on “Philosophy in the Ivory Tower, Philosophy behind Bars.”

The question “What is philosophy?” comes up in a variety of contexts. It might come from the parents of a student taking a class, from the person sitting next to you on an airplane, or perhaps from your least favorite philosophy professor. One very popular answer, going back at least to the ancient Greeks, goes like this: Philosophy is some sort of sublime mental activity that can only be accessed by elite thinkers who are able to truly devote themselves to philosophical development, to the exclusion of all else, at least as far as possible. But there is another answer on offer in the history of philosophy – a much more humble one. We will try to articulate this conception of philosophy and see how it might be practiced among a particularly underprivileged population – the incarcerated.

Prof. Colter is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Wyoming, founder and Director of Wyoming Stoic Camp, and Co-Director of Wyoming Pathways from Prison.

Also: Pizza Forum—Roundtable discussion on The Value of Philosophy in Prison Education, with Taylor Rae Almonte (director of Just Ideas at Columbia), Larry Williams (a graduate of the Just Ideas program), and Rob Colter (U. Wyoming and Wyoming Pathways from Prison). North Academic Building, 5/144, at 12:30pm.