Philosophy Research Seminar
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The Philosophy Research Seminar (formerly known as The Department Seminar) is central to the academic life of the School of History, Philosophy, and Digital Humanities. The seminar runs most weeks in term time.
The Philosophy Research Seminar takes place on Friday afternoons through the Autumn and Spring terms (2:30-4:30 pm) in Broad Lane, Lecture Theatre 4
Speakers present their paper (sometime shared in advance) for 45 minutes, followed by a short break and discussion.
For more information, please, contact:
Jerry Viera - g.viera@sheffield.ac.uk or Ed Matthews - e.p.matthews@sheffield.ac.uk.
All are welcome!
Upcoming events
Spring 2025
| Date | Speaker | Title of paper |
|---|---|---|
| 21st February | - The Open º£½ÇÉçÇø | The shield of Achilles and the marvellous sophist’s mirror |
| 28th February | - Stockholm º£½ÇÉçÇø | ‘The New Bigamy? Systematically Deceptive Relationships and the Law’ |
| 7th March | - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Cambridge | Forgetting to some purpose |
| 14th March | - º£½ÇÉçÇø of London | 'Not just tools, but agents: an overlooked requirement for agentive AI' - Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies' Distinguished Lecture in Cognitive Science |
| 21st March | Chris Bennett - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sheffield | Reparations for Historical Injustice: The Role of Apology |
| 28th March | - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Cambridge | Towards a History of Philosophy? Early Modern Women Philosophers and the Canon: A Case Study (change of room, please check the event page) |
| 4th April | - Durham º£½ÇÉçÇø | Don’t Worry About Me: Paternalism, Authority, and Relationships |
| 23rd May | - º£½ÇÉçÇø of California, San Diego | Desert and Liability |
| 16th May | - Northeastern º£½ÇÉçÇø | Religious Freedom, Social Status, and Fairness: Why Power and Privilege Matter When Assessing Religious Accommodations |
Past events
- Autumn 2024
Date Speaker Title of paper 11th October - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Oxford SPECIAL LECTURE - EXPANDING THE CANON
'Rethinking Responsibility'
18th October - Lancaster º£½ÇÉçÇø 'Frances Power Cobbe and Animal Ethics' 25th October - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sheffield 'The Mismeasure of Pain' 1st November - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sheffield SPECIAL LECTURE - THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISABILITY AND DIFFERENCE - 'Cripistemologies of Chronicity: A "coalition of the 'left-behinds'" 8th November - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Bristol 'Living forces and Stationary action: Leibniz at the limits of analytic mechanics' 22nd November - Cardiff º£½ÇÉçÇø 'Aesthetic Slurs' 6th December - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Edinburgh 'Pornography, Objectification, and Fungibility' 13th December - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Bristol 'Social Metaphysical Explanation' - Autumn 2023
Date Speaker Title of paper 13th October David Papineau - Kings College London The Moral Irrelvance of Consciousness 20th October - CANCELLED Rachel Fraser - Oxford º£½ÇÉçÇø - CANCELLED Open-mindedness as Curiosity - CANCELLED 27th October Ian Kidd - The º£½ÇÉçÇø of Nottingham Misanthropy 3rd November - CANCELLED Helen Frowe - Stockholm º£½ÇÉçÇø - CANCELLED (Some Nascent Thoughts on) The Moral Permissibility of Collective Defence Agreements - CANCELLED 10th November Lea Cantor - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Cambridge Ancient philosophy within a global purview: from historiography to first-order philosophical interpretation 17th November Camil Golub - Rutgers º£½ÇÉçÇø The Good, the Bad, and the Meaningful 24th November Emma Borg - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Reading Are Heuristics Unthinking Processes? The No Reasons challenge to Common-sense Psychology 1st December Richard Pettigrew - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Bristol What is the distinctive wrong of testimonial injustice? 8th December Gonzalo Velasco Arias - Universidad Carlos III On Online Virtuous Deference - Spring 2024
Date Speaker Title of paper 16th February Michael Ridge - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Edinburgh Immoral Hopes 23rd February Alexander Prescott-Couch - Oxford º£½ÇÉçÇø Against Problematization Accounts of Genealogical Critique 1st March Frederique Janssen-Lauret - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Manchester (Women in the History of Philosophy Annual Lecture) Susan Stebbing’s Philosophy of Physics 8th March Rachel Fraser - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Oxford Practical Assurance 22nd March Daniel Rothschild - º£½ÇÉçÇø College London Learning Curves: Machine and human learning 19th-20th April
(Two day conference)
Teemu Toppinen - Tampere º£½ÇÉçÇø & Vilma I Venesmaa - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Helsinki Conference title: Explaining Normativity 26th April Patrice Haynes - º£½ÇÉçÇø of Nottingham (Minorities and Philosophy Annual Lecture) TBC 3rd May Zsuzsanna Chappell The Philosophy of Disability and Difference 10th May Jonathan Parry - London School of Economics Why Paternalism is Wrong (When It is Wrong)?
- 2022
Autumn 2022
Date Speaker Title of paper 13th October Expanding the Canon Annual Lecture - , º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sheffield, UK Fanon and the Body Schema 21st October , º£½ÇÉçÇø of St Andrews, UK The Tyrant and the Failure of Philia 4th November , º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sheffield, UK Getting what you "want" 4th November ​*(Online Only) - , King's College London, UK
Note change time: 6.00-8.00 pm - Zoom Link to join .Thought and Feeling: George Eliot and the Expansion of Philosophy 18th November , º£½ÇÉçÇø of Leeds, UK Truth and rationality in mindreading Postponed (Date TBC) Women in the History of Philosophy Annual Lecture - Rescheduled to 3rd March 2nd December , Cardiff º£½ÇÉçÇø, UK Commitment on-line: On taking responsibility for one’s words on social media 9th December , º£½ÇÉçÇø of Texas, Austin, USA What We Make When We Make an Effort - 2023
Spring 2023
Date Speaker Title of paper 27th January ​, Brown º£½ÇÉçÇø, USA - ICOSS Conference Room - this talk will take place at 3:30 pm Deliberation and Fetish 10th February Cancelled 17th February , King's College London, UK Knotty Promises 24th February , Tel-Hai Academic College, Israel Sentiments and personal identity 3rd March Women in the History of Philosophy Annual Lecture - , Birkbeck, º£½ÇÉçÇø of London The Theoretical and Practical Philosophy of Dr Sophie Bryant (1850-1922) 10th March , Virginia Tech º£½ÇÉçÇø, USA Humorlessness as a Moral Vice 17th March Cancelled 24th March , Vanderbilt º£½ÇÉçÇø, USA When Emotions Go Wrong: Epistemic and Ethical Distortions 31st March , The º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sydney, Australia Have You Forgiven Me? 28th April , º£½ÇÉçÇø of Warwick, UK Extremism, Radicalism, and the Politics of Labelling 5th May , º£½ÇÉçÇø College London, UK 12th May The Minorities and Philosophy Annual Lecture - , Universitat de Barcelona
Register at
​Gender Identity, First-Person Authority, and Philosophy of Mind 19th May , º£½ÇÉçÇø of Texas, Austin, USA Art and Responsibility June (Date TBC) , Georgetown º£½ÇÉçÇø, USA
- 2022
Spring 2022
Date Speaker Title of paper 25th February * (Queen’s º£½ÇÉçÇø, Canada) Martin Luther King on Fearlessness and Faith 4th March * (Northwestern º£½ÇÉçÇø) Against Irrationalism in the Theory of Propaganda 11th March (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Edinburgh) Interpersonal Reasoning 18th March (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Edinburgh) Decolonizing the Intersection: Conceptual and Empirical Evidence against the Presuppositions of Intersectional Theory 25th March (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Essex) Kierkegaard on Thoughts 29th April (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Oxford) 6th May (Open º£½ÇÉçÇø) MAP Lecture 13th May (École Normale Supérieure) Anticipating Pain - 2021
Autumn 2021
Date Speaker Title of paper 8th October * (Washington º£½ÇÉçÇø St Louis) Informational Chauvinism 15th October James Chamberlain (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Sheffield) A Humean account of moral intuitions 22nd October * (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Connecticut) Resistance isn't Futile: Fending off Toxic Speech 29th October * (Harvard º£½ÇÉçÇø) The Phenomenal Public 5th November (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Groningen) Testimonial injustice in law: Victims and witnesses of climate injustice 19th November (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Glasgow) The Reality of Colour Illusion 26th November (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Glasgow) What is Trustworthiness? 3rd December (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Edinburgh) Decolonizing the Intersection: Conceptual and Empirical Evidence against the Presuppositions of Intersectional Theory 10th December (º£½ÇÉçÇø of Birmingham) Procreative Justice: Genetic Selection and Skin Tone
Spring 2021
Date Speaker Title of paper 19th February Vanessa Wills (George Washington) The 'White Privilege' Concept in Marxism and in Critical Race Theory 26th February Stephen Darwall (Yale) Transformative Knowledge of Love and Respect: The Cases of James Baldwin and Frederick Douglass 5th March Margot Strohminger (Australian Catholic) What’s the difference between supposing and imagining? 12th March Adriana Clavel-Vasquez (Oxford) Controlling (mental) images and the aesthetic appreciation of racialized bodies 19th March Candice Delmas (Northeastern) Uncivil disobedience from Black
Lives Matter to the Capitol (2pm)26th March Laura Valentini (LMU Munich) Normative Powers 23rd April Jimmy Lenman (Sheffield) Confucius or Plato? 30th April Jules Holroyd (Sheffield) Bad Praise 7th May Muhammad Ali Khalidi (CUNY) Language & Social Ontology 14th May Jessica Leech (KCL) Martha Kneale's Necessary A Posteriori - 2020
Autumn 2020
Date Speaker Title of paper 9th October David Enoch (Hebrew º£½ÇÉçÇø) Why Care about Morality, Robustly Realistically Understood 16th October Caspar Hare (MIT) Pleasing the Crowd Within 23rd October Liz Camp (Rutgers) Perspectival Complacency, Perversion and Amelioration 30th October Justin Clarke - Doane (Columbia) Russell's Regressive Method in Mathematics and Philosophy 6th November William Paris (Wesleyan) Looking for Tomorrow in Yesterday: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Utopia of The Souls of Black Folk. 13th November No Seminar Reading Week 20th November Thi Nguyen (Utah) Value Capture and Value Collapse (4pm) 27th November Carrie Fidgor (Iowa) What Could Cognition Be, If Not Human Cognition? 4th December Komarine Romdenh-Romluc (Sheffield) Now and Then: Thinking about Time 11th December Margot Strohminger (ACU) Supposition, Imagination, and Offline Belief (Time TBC) 18th December Harjit Bhogal (Maryland) Strikingness (3pm) Spring 2020
Date Speaker Title of paper 14 February Seiriol Morgan (Bristol) On Entitlement 28 February Tom Stern (UCL) Nietzsche's Ethics 6 March Natalie Ashton (Stirling) Productive Online Environments: Why Twitter is (Epistemically) Better than Facebook
Minorities And Philosophy (MAP) Annual Lecture
Please note change of venue to Hicks Lecture Theatre 5
20 March Komarine Romdenh-Romluc (Sheffield) 'Now' Thoughts 27 March Boudewijn de Bruin (Groningen) Self-Fulfilling Epistemic Injustice 3 April Carrie Figdor (Iowa) Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Psychology 1 May Dan Watts (Essex) Kierkegaard on the Limits of Reason and the Freedom to Judge 15 May Jessica Leech (King’s College London) Martha Kneale on Why Metaphysical Necessities Are Not A Priori
Annual Women in the History of Philosophy lecture
- 2019
Autumn 2019
Date Speaker Title of paper 4 October (Barcelona) Imperative Transparency 18 October Max Hayward (Sheffield) Terrestrial Ethics 25 October (º£½ÇÉçÇø College Dublin) Fragrant Games - Playing With Perfumes 1 November (Durham) How To Be An Epistemic Constitutivist 8 November (Duisburg-Essen) The Dark Side of Forgiveness 29 November (Oxford) Skepticism About Cases in Philosophy, Near and Far 13 December (Kings College London) The Wrong of Untruthfulness Spring 2019
Date Speaker Title of paper 8 February Are the Norms of Assertion Social Norms? 22 February Epistemic Dilemmas and the Fixed-Point Thesis 1 March Minorities and Philosophy Annual lecture: Holding Resistance Hostage: When Resistance Is Futile 8 March Self-Trust and Discriminatory Speech 22 March Responding to The Negative Repugnant Conclusion 29 March Tatjana von Solodkoff (º£½ÇÉçÇø College Dublin) Cancelled 5 April Annual Women in the History of Philosophy lecture: Rose Rand (1903–1980) from the Archives: Real and Unreal 3 May Megan Blomfield (Sheffield) Epistemic injustice in asylum claim credibility assessments 10 May On biological individuality - 2018
Autumn 2018
Date Speaker Title of paper 12 October Dr Chris Marshall (Sheffield) Killing Innocent Threats and Ducking Harm 19 October Disagreement about Logic: How and When 26 October TBA 2 November Inter-temporal choice and the metaphysics of time 16 November Pluralism about moral worth 23 November Prof. Robert Stern (Sheffield) Beast or Neighbour? Logstrup and Levinas on the Relation Between Ethics and Politics 30 November Is Aesthetic Immoralism Obviously True 7 December Risk Imposition and Duties of Care Spring 2018
Date Speaker Title of paper 16 Feb Minorities and Philosophy Annual lecture: "Slaves and Tyrants: Freedom and Domination in the Vindication of the Rights of Women" 2 March Meaning Pluralism, Linguistic Register and Slurs 9 March Komarine Romdenh-Romluc (Sheffield) Homo Aestheticus 16 March Ambivalence - cancelled due to proposed UCU industrial action. 20 April From Duty for the Right Reasons 27 April Virtual Representation in Pictorial Space 4 May Annual Women in the History of Philosophy lecture: "The Republican Family in the Revolution: Adapting and Subverting Rousseau" 11 May Culpable ignorance and mental disorders