Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92096145103 Password: 319356   Abstract The majority of both traditional and contemporary object-oriented ontologies rely on the presumption that reality has a selfsame structure that exists independently of the human mind, but nonetheless corresponds more or less exactly to the way in which human beings experience reality. In the present world, however, this view is being challenged from two sides: on the one hand, the calls for a “posthuman” or “post-anthropocentric” approach question the validity of privileging the human perspective against other living species, together with whom we are facing an ecological catastrophe, while on the other hand, the ever more intelligent forms of technology — and modes of surveillance and control that they make possible — infringe on […]

Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/98342254152 Password: 930724   Abstract Pluralistic Theism is the view that there are different and equally correct conceptions of the divine, and conjoining these varying conceptions need not imply a (logical) contradiction. I show how this view explains the contradictions implied by religious syncretism in Southeast Asia. I then compare and contrast the theoretical merits of this view with those of Ninian Smart’s Philosophy of Worldviews and John Hick’s Religious Pluralism. I conclude that the former view explains the target phenomenon better than the two latter views.   Bio Jeremiah Joven Joaquin is a Professor of Philosophy at De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines, where he is also a Founding Fellow of the Southeast Asia Research Center and Hub. […]

Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/95168727885 Password: 763390   Abstract Accusations of “sexual creepiness” appear to be on the rise. Why is this so, and are such accusations morally problematic? In this essay I will follow legal scholar Heidi Matthews in arguing that sexual creepiness is in tension with liberal and progressive moral commitments. Liberals and progressives may, as Matthews does, maintain a principled stance and reject creepiness as a category, just as they do sluttiness. But the costs of abandoning sexual creepiness may be high, and these costs should be tallied before creepiness norms are expunged. Empirical findings about what gets accused of being creepy suggest that creepiness norms may have been recruited to establish important social equilibria. It is plausible that recent […]