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DATE |
SPEAKER /
RESPONDENT |
TOPIC |
VIDEO |
Mon Sept 9, 4:00-5:30 pm,
Hemmingson Auditorium, (HEMM 004) |
Geoffrey
Bagwell, Philosophy, Spokane
Community College |
"Why
Do We Do What We Believe to Be Bad?"
Common
sense seems to suggest that our desires and emotions
sometimes drive us to do what we believe to be bad. You
may have, for instance, at least once in your life said
something hurtful to someone you love out of anger
knowing that it was wrong to do so. The idea that we
sometimes do what we believe is bad because of our
desires and our feelings has been the prevailing
explanation among philosophers for centuries. Yet, it is
not the only explanation; there is at least one
alternative. Plato argues that all people want what is
good and no one, in fact, does what he or she thinks is
bad. When we do bad things, he claims, we do it out of
ignorance and confusion about what is good and what is
bad. Philosophers have labeled this explanation
"intellectualist" and I wish to offer some reasons for
thinking that this intellectualist explanation is
preferable to the prevailing view of why we sometimes do
what we believe is bad. Dr.
Geoffrey Bagwell is an instructor of philosophy at
Community Colleges of Spokane -- teaching several
courses including the history of philosophy, ethics,
political philosophy, philosophy of religion, critical
thinking, symbolic logic, and philosophy of mind. Before
coming to SCC, Geoffrey was a visiting assistant
professor of philosophy at Xavier University in
Cincinnati, Ohio, and held various teaching appointments
before then in Pennsylvania and Maryland. He earned a
B.A. from the University of Oregon; an M.A. from St
John's College; and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Duquesne
University. He recently presented at the Gonzaga
Philosophy Department Colloquium.
|
|
Mon Oct 7, 7:00-8:30 pm, Wolff Auditorium (Jepson 114) | Brian
B. Clayton, Philosophy
Emeritus, Gonzaga University |
"
'I See Dead
People': Spiritual Quests in the Films of M. Night
Shyamalan" Cosponsored with
the Gonzaga Faith & Reason Institute as part of
their Faith, Film, & Philosophy 2024 Series,
with the theme Spiritual Film Themes in a Secular
Age:
M.
Night Shyamalan’s early films (from Wide Awake
to Lady in the Water) are notable for the
presence of spiritual themes such as faith, grace, and
hope. While the perception of Shyamalan’s films is
that they are thrillers with a twist, his most popular
and successful films often raise questions of
supernatural agency in the form of fate or even
providence. This talk will examine these films and
explore these themes in an effort to cast light on
Shyamalan’s “project” in the earlier part of his
career. This project certainly suggests that spiritual
themes have not been “dropped out completely, in
keeping with the secularism of the age.” Over against
this is the apparent counterevidence of Shyamalan’s
films beginning with The Happening, where
spiritual themes seem notably absent. The lecture will
consider this counterevidence and consider its
implications for the view that Shyamalan’s oeuvre
shows that there is still room for spiritual themes in
popular films. Brian B. Clayton (Philosophy Emeritus, Gonzaga University) taught in the Gonzaga Philosophy Department for over 30 years until his retirement in 2022. He was director of the Gonzaga Faith & Reason Institute from 2009 to his retirement. Clayton's academic interests include faith and reason, philosophy and film, and semiotics. He is coauthor (with Doug Kries) of Two Wings: Integrating Faith and Reason (Ignatius, 2018) and coeditor (with Richard McClelland) of The Philosophy of Clint Eastwood (University of Kentucky, 2014). Clayton was one of the public speakers for last years' Faith, Film, and Philosophy series, opening the series with his talk "It's a Wonderful Life in the Multiverse." |
|
Mon Nov 4, 4:00-5:30 pm, Wolff Auditorium, Jepson (JP 114) | Darian
Spearman, Philosophy, Philosophy, Gonzaga
University |
Faith as Vital for
Life: Anna Julia Cooper and William James on
Belief Born into slavery in 1858, Anna Julia Cooper went on to study mathematics, literature, and history at Oberlin and the Sorbonne, becoming the fourth Black American woman to earn the Ph.D. in 1911. Cooper is recognized for scholarly contributions to the foundations of Black Feminist thought in the United States, but is less known for her work on value and belief. In the essay “The Gain from a Belief” (1892), Cooper argues for the practical benefits of faith in the face of the skepticism and agnosticism she saw as pervasive in nineteenth century positivism and naturalism. The most important of these benefits is that faith grants one the vital power necessary to live a life committed to the actualization of oneself and others. Cooper’s perspective aligns well with the arguments of William James’ “The Will to Believe” (1896) concerning the legitimacy of beliefs motivated by will and passion. This talk will explore the parallels and contrasts between their views to show the value of faith for a committed and vital life. Darian
Spearman joined the Gonzaga Philosophy Department as
Assistant Professor in Fall of 2022. He received a BA
degree in religious studies from Carleton College in
2011 and a MA in philosophy from Southern Illinois
University in 2014. A particularly valuable dimension of
Spearman’s education at Southern Illinois was mentoring
he received from Jesuit priest Fr. Joseph Brown;
Spearman could not have guessed at the time that he
would eventually teach at a Jesuit University. He
completed his education with a PhD in philosophy from
University of Connecticut in 2022. Spearman has a set of
interconnected interests with Africana philosophy as the
central core and branching out to Black collective
identity, the philosophical significance of slave
narratives, the importance of myth and mythic
narratives, the possibility of animal-human
intersubjectivity, and human connection with nature. In
his spare time Spearman enjoys hiking, gaming, anime,
and cooking. |
|
Mon Dec 2 4:00-5:30 pm, Wolff Auditorium, Jepson (JP 114) | Anthony
E. Clark, Chinese History /
Asian Studies, Whitworth University |
“Jesuit
Theater and Canonization: China, Saints, and the Western
Enlightenment” The word “China” is a
sixteenth-century Western neologism derived from the
name of China’s first imperial dynasty – the Qin 秦, which was commonly Latinized
in Jesuit epistolary exchange as “China.” Chinese
refer to their own nation as 中國,
transliterated as Zhongguo, or the “Middle Kingdom,”
and thus the division between how China and the West
view the “Middle Kingdom” begins with the fundamental
nomenclature self-identification. The Jesuit
enterprise during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing
(1644-1911) dynasties (re)presented China to the West
in contours that engendered a romanticized “China”
exalted by Enlightenment literati who helped
inaugurate the Chinoiserie movement and new modes of
intellectual discourse. By the mid-nineteenth century
the West’s intellectual and aesthetic admiration for
China transmuted into an arrogant disdain, and after
the Opium War (1839-1842) Jesuits set themselves once
again to (re)presenting China in a fashion that would
“redeem” it from the pejorative assessment then
dominant in the West. This work-in-progress seminar
considers how the Society of Jesus served to
manufacture the West’s imagination of “China” from
popularizing the Western neologism for Zhonguo in the
sixteenth century to the production of Jesuit drama in
China that wished to refashion, indeed canonize,
Chinese culture both within and beyond the Great Wall. Anthony Clark (柯學斌)
is Professor of Chinese history and was appointed the
Edward B. Lindaman Endowed Chair in 2015. His research
centers on the history of China-West (Sino-Western)
cultural exchange, conflict and confluence in China,
especially the intellectual, scientific, and religious
missionary activities during the Qing through
Republican eras (1644-1940s). His work considers
Chinese historiography, religious interaction between
China and the West, and confronts the history of
East-West cultural re-presentation during China’s
transition from empire to modern nation state. He has
published a number of scholarly books on the encounter
between Asia and the west, focusing particularly on
Christian evangelism in China by Catholic religious
orders including the Jesuits. He is also author of the
book Catholicism and Buddhism: The Contrasting
Lives and Teachings of Jesus and Buddha (Wipf and Stock,
2018). |