Union College Philosophy Department

05/14/2026

05/04/2026

Union College Seniors (only)

Want to Win $50 to the Union Bookstore?

Take 10 minutes to complete this survey about your experience with writing at Union.

Five $50 gift cards will be awarded to survey participants toward the end of the spring term!

Your participation will also help us better support students and faculty in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) courses at Union.

03/06/2026

All are cordially invited to the Seventh (and final of the year) Speaker for the Annual Philosophy Speakers Series

John Harfouch, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Presents
The Political Philosophy of Fayez Sayegh

Dr. Harfouch studies the history of philosophy from 1600 to the present. His 2018 book, Another Mind-Body Problem: A History of Racial Non-Being, presents a counter-history of human subjectivity in the Modern period tracing the development of race and racism through the discourse on minds and bodies. He has also written extensively on imperialism, colonialism, and orientalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His current research program focuses on Palestinian philosopher, Fayez Sayegh, who developed a unique philosophical method to advocate for justice in the Middle East. At UAH, Dr. Harfouch often teaches classes in ethics, history, and political philosophy. He is also the director of UAH’s pre-law certificate.

Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 4:30PM
Everest Lounge, Hale House

https://www.union.edu/philosophy/speaker-series

02/24/2026

All are cordially invited to the Seventh Speaker for the Annual Philosophy Speakers Series

Alison Simmons, Harvard University
Presents
Descartes on Animal Minds

Alison Simmons received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. The bulk of her teaching is in early modern philosophy, natural philosophy, and theories of mind. She also has teaching interests, however, in medieval philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of psychology.

Her research interests lie primarily at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. She works on questions about the nature of mind in general, the nature of sense perception in particular, and conceptions of the relation between mind and world as they have developed historically from the ancient through the medieval and early modern periods, and also as it is discussed today. Her most recent publications include:

"The Sense of Interoceptive Touch in Descartes" in The Sense of Touch: Medieval and Modern Debates in Philosophy and Science, eds., Chiara Benduce, Mattia Mantovani, and Denise Vincenti (Dordrecht: Springer, forthcoming).

"Modernizing the Mind" in Cartesianism and Philosophy of Mind, eds. Vili Lähteenmaki, Jani Sinokki, and Oberto Marrama (London: Routledge, forthcoming). With Matthias Somers.

“It’s Alive! Cavendish and Conway Against Dualism,” in The Routledge Handbook for Women and Early Modern European Philosophy, eds. Karen Detlefsen and Lisa Shapiro (New York: Routledge, 2023): 87-111. With Marleen Rozemond.

In 2011, Professor Simmons was named a Harvard College Professor. She is co-founder with Barbara Grosz of Embedded EthiCS @ Harvard, a program that develops ethics modules for courses in the computer science curriculum.

Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 4:30PM
Everest Lounge, Hale House

https://www.union.edu/philosophy/speaker-series

02/12/2026

All are cordially invited to the Sixth Speaker for the Annual Philosophy Speakers Series

Imogen Dickie, University of Toronto
Presents
How belief gets its content

Imogen is a professor at the University of Toronto. She did her first degree in New Zealand and her graduate work at Oxford. She works on issues at the intersection of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Her first book, Fixing Reference came out at the end of 2015. She is currently working on Dickie Vol 2 (not its real name).

Thursday, February 19, 2026 at 4:30PM
Everest Lounge, Hale House

https://www.union.edu/philosophy/speaker-series

01/14/2026

All are cordially invited to the Fifth Speaker (first of Winter Term)
for the Annual Philosophy Speakers Series

Selim Berker, Harvard University
Presents
On the Metaphysics of Voting

Selim Berker is Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. A lapsed physicist, Berker started his graduate training in physics before switching to philosophy, eventually receiving a philosophy Ph.D. in 2007 from MIT, where Judy Thomson was his primary advisor. Since then he has taught at Harvard. He works on the foundations of normativity in all of its guises, including the normative assessment of action (in ethics), of belief (in epistemology), and—increasingly—of emotions (in moral psychology and aesthetics). He is also interested in more general issues in metaphysics connected to grounding, explanation, and dependence, often—but not always—with an eye toward their application in normative contexts.

Thursday, January 22, 2026 at 4:30PM
Everest Lounge in Hale House

https://www.union.edu/philosophy/speaker-series

10/24/2025

All are cordially invited to the Fourth Speaker for the Annual Philosophy Speakers Series

Louise Daoust, Eckerd College
Presents
The Miraculous as the Marvelous: Mary Shephard on Extraordinary Occurrences as Empirical Evidence

Louise Daoust is an Associate Professor at Eckerd College, where she teaches a broad range of courses, from History and Philosophy of Mind to Environmental Ethics. Her research focuses on questions in the history and philosophy of science, with special attention to the history and philosophy of perceptual psychology. In recent years, she has been studying the philosophy of Mary Shepherd, a Scottish philosopher of science who published and was widely read in England in the 1820s.

Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 4:30PM
Everest Lounge in Hale House

https://www.union.edu/philosophy/speaker-series

10/16/2025

PHL Dept and PHL Club Fall Mixer
Mon Oct 20
12:50-1:50
Lamont Lounge (LAM 102)

10/02/2025

All are cordially invited to the Third Speaker for the Annual Philosophy Speakers Series

Victor Kumar, Boston University
Presents
The Fragmentation of America

Victor Kumar is an associate professor of philosophy and directs both the Mind and Morality Lab and the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. His research is at the intersection of ethics and social science, covering topics such as AI, LGBTQ+ prejudice, population, animal welfare, and political tribalism.

Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 4:30PM
Phi Beta Kappa Room Schaffer Library 204

https://www.union.edu/philosophy/speaker-series