Public Events
CANCELLED: Samir Okasha — Evolution, Altruism and Selfishness
Wolf Performance Hall - Central Library 251 Dundas St, London, Ontario, CanadaEVENT CANCELLED DUE TO THE EVOLVING COVID-19 SITUATION. PLEASE VISIT COVID-19 INFORMATION FOR THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY FOR MORE INFORMATION. Are animals altruistic? From eusocial animals like ants & bees, to well-documented cases of humpback whales rescuing seals from orcas, there are numerous examples of what looks like altruism in nature. Among many bird and mammal [...]
Responsibilities to Others: 2020 Philosophy Lecture Series
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Our attempts to deal with the effects of COVID-19 have revived significant interest in a question of enduring philosophical interest: what do we owe to each other? This series of public lectures will examine our responsibilities (if any) to others. It will include discussions on the evolution of altruism, on the idea that both [...]
Race and Racism
Virtual (register for Zoom link)In the past year and a half, race and racism have been at the forefront of many people’s minds because of widespread Black Lives Matter protests and the disproportionately negative impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on certain racialized communities. But the underlying phenomenon is not only recent. For centuries, racialized communities across [...]
Evan Thompson: Consciousness and Dreamless Sleep
Virtual (register for Zoom link)ABSTRACT New research suggests that deep and dreamless sleep may not be a blackout state in which consciousness is absent, but instead a state in which various kinds of conscious states may occur. This lecture will present an overview of current thinking about sleep and consciousness from the perspectives of cognitive neuroscience, the science [...]
Ann-Sophie Barwich – The Cinderella of the Senses: Smell as a Window into Mind and Brain
Room 1170 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, Ontario, CanadaJoin the Rotman Institute of Philosophy for a talk by Dr. Ann Sophie-Barwich related to her recent book, Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (Harvard University Press, 2020). Pending changes due to the evolving COVID situation, this event is planned to be hybrid, with both in-person and virtual attendance options. Please see below [...]
Time and Memory: 2022 Annual Library Lecture Series (OCT 27: CANCELLED)
Stevenson & Hunt Room A - Central Library 251 Dundas St, London, Ontario, CanadaEVENT DESCRIPTION Each year, the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and the Department of Philosophy at Western University organize a public lecture series, co-sponsored with the London Public Library. The theme for this year's lecture series is time and memory. How do we experience and measure time or form memories of the past? Across a [...]
Patrick Fafard: Is Science Enough? Science Advice, Health Essentialism, and Pandemic Decision-Making
Room 4190 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 4190, London, Ontario, CanadaAbstract: Policy decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic were commonly defended by decision-makers on the grounds they were 'following the science'. This suggested decision-makers were relying heavily on the advice of experts in public health, notably infectious disease physicians, to inform policy decisions. This raises important questions about the exact nature and role of [...]
Ethical Issues in Artificial Intelligence: 2023 Annual Library Lecture Series
Lawson Room - Central Library 251 Dundas Street - London Public Library Wolf Performance Hall, London, Ontario, CanadaEVENT DESCRIPTION Each year, the Rotman Institute of Philosophy organizes a public lecture series co-sponsored with the London Public Library and the Department of Philosophy. The theme for this year's lecture series is Ethical Issues in Artificial Intelligence. Abstract Questions about Artificial Intelligence and its appropriate use overwhelm recent discourse about technology. What is [...]
Charles Ling: Turing Test, Chinese Room, AGI, and GPTs
Room 4190 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 4190, London, Ontario, CanadaAbstract: With the rapid development of large language models such as GPTs, many fundamental and philosophical issues of intelligence and the human mind can be re-visited. In this talk, I will explore these related topics to foster potential collaboration between different disciplines. Register to Attend Turing Test, Chinese Room, AGI, and GPTs Speaker [...]
Rotman Seminar: Pleasure Fundamentalism
Room 4190 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 4190, London, Ontario, CanadaEVENT DESCRIPTION SPEAKER PROFILE: Neil Sinhababu is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. He is author of Humean Nature (2017), published by Oxford University Press; and Nietzsche on the Eternal Recurrence, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. ABSTRACT: Pleasure fundamentalism is the view that moral value is pleasure, and this explains [...]
Climate Change & Social Justice: 2024 Annual Library Lecture Series
Lawson Room - Central Library 251 Dundas Street - London Public Library Wolf Performance Hall, London, Ontario, CanadaEVENT DESCRIPTION Each year, the Rotman Institute of Philosophy organizes a public lecture series co-sponsored with the London Public Library and the Department of Philosophy. The theme for this year's lecture series is Climate Change & Social Justice. Please join us in welcoming Professor Anna Zalik (York University), Professor Bipasha Baruah (Western University), Professor [...]
RECAP: AI for Health and Social Justice
Goodwill Industries 255 Horton St E, London, ON, CanadaRECAP-Event-Rotman Story Research Engagement Collaborative Alliance with Partners (RECAP) and the Rotman Institute of Philosophy are co-hosting an event on AI for health and social justice, bringing together Western researchers and diverse individual and organization experts from across a variety of communities, industries, governments and not-for-profits to share perspectives, find common ground, build connections, and explore [...]
Duncanson Lecture: Come with Me Inside a Black Hole
Zoom webinar or Conron Hall, University College, Western University Western University - 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON, CanadaThe Faculty of Arts & Humanities is honoured to host Carlo Rovelli for the 2025 Robert and Patricia Duncanson Lecture, held on January 30, 2025. This hybrid event can be attended in person at Conron Hall or online via Zoom. Each registrant will receive the Zoom link as part of the registration email. REGISTER HERE! In "Come with Me [...]
Rotman Visiting Speaker: Chris Letheby
Room 3000 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western University, London, Ontario, Canada"Merely Believing and Really Believing: Mental Imagery in Personal Transformation" Talk Description: As a teacher of mine once remarked, when we say that teenagers think they are immortal, we don’t mean that they would fail a biology test. Teenagers believe, truly and justifiably, that they will die, but there is also a sense [...]
Generative Artificial Intelligence & Historiography
Room 3000 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western University, London, Ontario, CanadaEVENT DESCRIPTION BIO: William J. Turkel is Professor of History at the University of Western Ontario and internationally recognized for his innovative work in digital history. He uses machine learning, text mining, and computational techniques in his study of the histories of science, technology and environment, drawing on many decades of programming experience. He [...]
Nerenberg Lecture Series: Francesca Vidotto
Conron Hall, Unversity College, Western University Western University - 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON, CanadaThe lecture is open to all members of the public and it is free. To guarantee a place, please register for the 2025 Nerenberg Lecture HERE.
Rotman Visiting Speaker: Lauren Olin
Room 4190 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 4190, London, Ontario, Canada"Housing Mirth" Talk Description: Like language and morality, humor is a species universal with evolutionary origins that displays systematic cultural variation. Unlike other distinctively human evaluative capacities, however, humor has been neglected by philosophers and cognitive scientists. Housing Mirth diagnoses some historical reasons behind this pattern of neglect, articulates a methodological framework for humor studies [...]
Rotman Visiting Speaker: Cameron Buckner
Room 1130 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, ON, Canada"LLMs as Models of Reasoning" Abstract: Recent advances in large language models that use self-prompting like GPT’s o1/o3 and DeepSeek have begun to encroach on human-level performance on “higher reasoning” problems in mathematics, planning, and problem-solving tasks. OpenAI in particular has made ambitious claims that these models are reasoning and that by scrutinizing [...]
Rotman Visiting Speaker: Eric Hochstein
Room 4190 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 4190, London, Ontario, Canada"Why Pan Pancomputationalism?" Abstract: Pancomputationalism is the view that every system in nature (e.g. brains, digestive tracts, rocks, buckets of water, etc.) can be understood as computing or running a program, effectively making everything in nature a kind of computer. In response, an increasing number of philosophers have argued that while we can [...]
Rotman Visiting Speaker: Regina Rini
Room 36 - Physics & Astonomy Building 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON, Canada"The mirage of a trustless society" Abstract: This chapter — part of a book about the power and danger of relying on others for knowledge — explores the concept of trust. It argues for a revival and reinterpretation of philosopher Annette Baier’s influential framing of trust as accepted vulnerability to the will of [...]