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Student Testimonials & Presentations

McGill Philosophy Students' Association

The Direct Reading Program's first cohort of DRP students took part in a personalized mentorship program between undergraduate and graduate students within McGill's Department of Philosophy. Students who participated in this 3 month long mentorship had the option to either present a presentation, or produce a paer. To check out who they are and what they researched over the course of the DRP this year, find out below!

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Student Presentations

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Beattie Bernfield-Millman

 

 

Worked with: Brandon Smith
General topics: Spinoza, Epicurus, Stoicism, Aristotle


This presentation discusses Spinozism and Epicureanism as therapeutic philosophies. In both, we may find that the act of studying metaphysics and epistemology is positioned as a mode of flourishing or seeking pleasure rationally. For Spinoza, the feeling of pleasure is an increase in causal power, which includes intellectual causal power (understanding causes). Considering metaphysics or the nature of things provokes this increase and with it, a feeling of pleasure. For Epicurus, understanding the nature of phenomena such as the soul or pleasure are means to finding a more consistent and more easily attainable state of happiness.

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Leila Espinoza

 

 

Worked with: Alexander Carty

General Topics: Free Will, Moral Responsibility ​

 

Leila Espinoza is a first-year undergraduate student majoring in philosophy. This semester, she was paired with Alex Carty, a second-year PhD student, who mentored her in the debate of free will and moral responsibility. Leila's upbringing and exposure to different cultures, religions and ways of life has allowed her to gain various perspectives on responsibility and the notion of freedom. She decided that researching this topic with Alex would allow her to gain a basic understanding of the philosophical debate of free will and the different positions that are found within. Leila entered this program with the hopes of learning more about the nature of free will and emerged with more questions and an increased desire to do learn more about this topic since she realizes there is still so much left to cover! Instead of focusing on the metaphysics of this discussion, Leila was interested in learning more about the debate within the actual framework of our lives. She decided to aim her paper and presentation on Strawson’s compatibilism and Sommer’s account of skepticism of moral responsibility since they provide a refreshing outlook on the free will debate, by drawing on personal relationships and reactive attitudes.

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Sarah LaBonte

 

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Worked with: Brandon Smith

General Topics:

 

In this semester’s Directed Reading Program Sarah LaBonte pursued the study of eudaimonism. Working with her mentor Brandon Smith, Sarah was able to develop her understanding of ancient Greek philosophy as well as moral theory. With this in-depth study of Aristotle and Epicurus’ theory on the ultimate good, Sarah hopes to continue to expand her knowledge in ancient political theory. 

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Natan Sakajiri

 

 

Worked with: Brandon Smith

General Topics:

 

Natan Sakajiri is a U1 student in the faculty of Arts and Sciences studying Mathematics and Philosophy. Throughout the winter semester, he completed readings and discussions under the supervision of Brandon Smith, a doctoral candidate in Philosophy. During the semester, they explored Stoicism and Epicureanism, touching briefly on Spinozism. With Brandon's knowledge and help, Natan learned to interpret and discuss principles of Epicurean and Stoic thought, mainly focusing on their applications in pursuing eudaemonia, a Greek term referring to happiness, flourishing, and contentment. With Brandon's diligent guidance and support, Natan explored his interest in applying Stoic and Epicurean conceptions of happiness to daily life. Curious to see if these ethical principles could help us find happiness in an existential context, Natan's presentation is a brief explication and analysis of Epicurean and Stoic principles of happiness with applications of these ideas in an existentialist metaphysical context. Dealing primarily with a lack of inherent meaning and the absence of God, Natan explores how ancient ethical principles can serve as practical guides to happiness in the present day. Natan is grateful for having had the opportunity to work with Brandon: thanks to the Philosophy Students Association and the work of Florens Souza in organizing this fantastic opportunity. Further, he is grateful for Brandon's enthusiasm and support throughout the semester. He looks forward to continuing to speak with him on philosophical ideas beyond the scope of the Directed Reading Program. 

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Fion Zhen

Worked with: Dallas Jokic

General Topics: Political Philosophy, Settler Colonial Studies, Indigenous Studies

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Fion is a third-year honours history and philosophy student. Methodologically, she is interested in the relationship between theory and practice. In part, her directed reading with Dallas Jokic has explored this relationship through recent transdisciplinary work blending the insights of political economy, intellectual history, political philosophy, settler colonial studies and Indigenous studies. Her DRP project has broadly surveyed the relationship between extra-economic violence, liberalism, and colonial capitalism in the North American settler colonial context. Fion has approached this relationship through histories of property formation and dispossession and primarily, theories of primitive accumulation. Primitive accumulation, whether disaggregated or extended beyond the “prehistory of capital,” is insufficient alone to explain the dispossession of Indigenous land. Unless if we take John Locke for his word about the universally open New World commons, primitive accumulation falls short as both an analytic and explanatory tool because the notorious ‘enclosure of the commons’ was hardly the most destructive mode of dispossessing the Indigenous populations in New France and New England. What we can take from Locke, however colonialist or historically inaccurate he was, is that any meaningful theory of freedom must develop a theory of property alongside it. Critics of liberalism often point out contradictions between its promises and practices, but I ask, is this ‘hypocrisy’ not its precise logic? The troubled but necessary reliance of liberalism on extra-economic violence has long been an issue since its inception, tacitly in Locke’s instantiation of consent legitimating rule and explicitly in the English parliament’s 1820s Colonial Reform Debates. Perhaps, by rummaging through these fragments of the past, we can recover one for our purposes of defending the land, labour, and life. As the project remains in its nascent stage, she is still searching.

Student Papers

Sabrina Savoia

Developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) present ambiguous moral implications for
humanity. This paper explores the risks to human happiness that AI can pose, detailing what
we ought to do when technological advancements in AI hinge on the flourishing and well-
being of future generations. I argue that we should not focus on maximizing the amount of
years future civilizations can have, rather we should aim to provide the best quality of life for
future people for as long as possible. Once the quantity of years to come outweighs the
quality of years to come, we have failed morally, and we ought to allow human extinction.

James Risk

James's research focused on responses to the epistemic regress problem in contemporary analytic epistemology. The regress problem is often presented as an argument for skepticism. We can get to the regress problem by first noticing that, for any proposition you assert, whether you really know that proposition depends on whether you're able to give reasons for it (assuming that knowledge requires justification). But any reason you introduce also requires a further reason capable of justifying it. The problem is that each new reason you introduce requires a reason, and thus this chain continues ad infinitum. Epistemic foundationalism---the claim that chains of belief end in autonomously justified, basic beliefs---is the most popular response to the regress problem. James focused on epistemic infinitism, one of the less established responses to the regress problem. Infinitism suggests that the propositional content of a belief is justified for a believer just in case it belongs to an infinite and non-repeating chain of reasons, which is available to (but not necessarily known by) the believer. A believer is more or less justified in believing that proposition depending on how far along this chain of reasons they're able to travel, and whether they're able to satisfy the contextually determined standards of justification. Part of infinitism's appeal depends on the alleged inadequacy of alternative responses. James specifically focused on whether infinitism successfully eliminates all versions of foundationalism (specifically, non-dogmatic foundationalism). 

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James is U3 Honours philosophy student from Ottawa, Ontario.

Jeremy Jasmin

Worked with: Alex Carty

Jeremy Jasmin is a second-year honours philosophy student. He is also doing a political science minor. During the directed reading program, he worked with Alex Carty on the theories of emotions. More precisely, the subject studied was the debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism. In the first part of the program, some non-cognitive theories were presented such as William James’ conception of emotions as bodily feelings. In the second part, cognitivism was discussed through some early evaluative theories. One notable author covered in that part was John Deigh. In the third part, hybrid views presenting emotions as evaluative perceptions were understood through authors like Michael Brady. In the last part, hybrid views presenting emotions as evaluative feelings were considered notably through papers by Bennett Helm and Peter Goldie. All throughout the directed reading program, Christine Tappolet’s book called Philosophy of Emotions was referred to in order to get a bigger picture of each view. Jeremy chose to study this subject in order to learn about an area of philosophy that interested him, but in which he had no prior experience. Even more, he chose to study the debate on cognitivism and non-cognitivism to better understand how emotions play a role in the background of political ideas. In his paper, Jeremy will give a brief overview of cognitive and non-cognitive theories of emotion and their problems. Two hybrid views will be presented as an attempt to solve the problems of these traditional views. The first one is Bennett Helm’s theory which presents emotions as intentional feelings of import. The second one is Christine Tappolet’s theory which introduces emotions as perceptual experiences of evaluative properties. Both of these views will be compared with one another in order to determine which one addresses better the problem of recalcitrant emotions.

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