Philosophy

�鶹��Ѱ��librarian curates philosophy collection to elevate women’s voices

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:28:56 +0000

�鶹��Ѱ��librarian curates philosophy collection to elevate women’s voices Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/02/2026 - 14:28

Cody DeBos

Who is remembered in philosophy? A University Libraries project asks anew

Frederick Carey couldn’t ignore the pattern.

As an assistant professor and the history and philosophy librarian at the �鶹��Ѱ��, Carey frequently finds himself helping students dig into texts for class discussions. But repeatedly, even in expansive anthologies or collections covering centuries of thought, he’s noticed some voices are missing.

“I was drawn to this work after repeatedly seeing how women’s philosophical contributions were either absent or difficult to find in standard collections—even though students wanted to engage with them,” Carey says.

Frederick Carey, an assistant professor and the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder history and philosophy librarian, is curating a collection of works by women philosophers spanning centuries.

Hoping to change that narrative, Carey is now curating a collection of works by women philosophers spanning centuries. Eventually, he hopes the project will reshape how students and scholars approach philosophy.

Missing pages in the canon

Carey describes the initiative as “a sustained, intentional collection of works by women philosophers to address historical gaps in the philosophical record and improve access for teaching and research.”

The implications of having such a database available are massive.

For centuries, women’s voices in philosophy have been misattributed, ignored or erased entirely. By working to rebuild that record, Carey is shining much-deserved light on thinkers left in the margins.

In doing so, his work challenges the very structure of the philosophical canon.

“The goal isn’t to create a separate or marginal collection, but to meaningfully integrate these voices into the core philosophical record,” he says.

Curation as practice

Carey’s curation process draws on his background in medieval philosophy—particularly metaphysics. The discipline requires close attention to things like attribution and the historical context in which ideas are shaped and recorded textually. He’s found those same challenges emerging time and again while excavating the history of women in philosophy.

“I guide selection through a mix of scholarly relevance, curricular needs and equity-minded collection principles,” he explains.

Celebrate Women's Herstory Month

Since 1981, Women’s Herstory Month has been recognized in the United States, along with recognition of International Women’s Day on March 8. This is a time to celebrate women's contributions to history, culture and society. Many �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder departments have events this month for Buffs to gather, learn and celebrate together.

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That includes prioritizing works from a broad range of eras and schools of thought. The curation is made up of primary texts, critical editions, translations and influential secondary scholarship.

“My criteria emphasize significance to philosophical inquiry, evidence of scholarly engagement, instructional usefulness and how well a work helps broaden representation within the collection.”

In addition to consulting canonical texts, Carey is also working closely with faculty, academic bibliographies and scholarly networks to find philosophers whose ideas have often gone unacknowledged.

Some of the most telling examples, he notes, are figures whose intellectual labor was historically overshadowed by their male collaborators.

Harriet Taylor Mill, for instance, co-developed many of the ideas that appear in the famous works of her husband, John Stuart Mill. Yet her writings are frequently read as background rather than as theories in their own right.

Harriet Taylor Mill (right) co-developed many of the ideas that appear in the famous works of her husband, John Stuart Mill (left). Yet her writings are frequently read as background rather than as theories in their own right. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

“Because her ideas were so closely intertwined with John Stuart Mill’s work, her independent writings are often overlooked,” Carey says. “Many ideas in Mill’s major works emerged from an ongoing philosophical partnership, which Mill himself acknowledged, but the texts were largely published under his name.”

Who gets remembered?

Sadly, stories like Mill’s aren’t exceptions to the rule.

“One pattern I’ve noticed is that women’s philosophical contributions were often either anonymized, published under a male relative or mentor or framed as supplementary commentary rather than original thought,” Carey says.

When, rarely, their ideas were published, many were selectively preserved or excluded from the mainstream discourse. The result is a philosophical canon that tells a much narrower story than reality.

Carey’s curation calls attention to the mechanisms at play behind this trend. Power, name recognition and cataloging decisions have all played a role in deciding what work survived.

Recovering the voices lost to time means revisiting assumptions about whose ideas matter and why.

While that process can’t fully reverse the fallout of centuries of exclusion, Carey hopes it can open new doors for philosophical exploration.

“Recovering her contributions is likely an impossible task,” he says of Mill, “but attempting to do so challenges how credit and authority have been assigned in the canon.”

Including women philosophers in the core curriculum also does much more than diversify the reading list. Being exposed to a wider range of voices influences how students engage with the discipline.

“Engaging with these works helps students develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of philosophy and its history. It exposes them to a wider range of perspectives, ideas and approaches to key questions, which strengthens their critical thinking and analytical skills,” Carey says.

“Including these voices broadens and complicates our understanding of major philosophical movements,” he explains. “It challenges the traditional narrative that ideas emerged solely from a small, predominantly male canon, showing instead that women were active participants, critics and innovators.”

Beyond classroom learning, this more inclusive lens transforms philosophy into an urgent force for good in the real world.

“When we center voices that have historically been silenced or ignored, philosophy becomes more inclusive, relevant and socially engaged,” Carey adds.

A record worth rewriting

Ultimately, Carey hopes the collection will inspire conversations across disciplines about who shapes knowledge and how we define credibility on the path to building a more equitable academic tradition.

“I hope this collection project sparks conversations about representation, authorship and diversifying materials,” he says. “Within the �鶹��Ѱ��community, I hope it encourages faculty and students to integrate these voices into their teaching and research, rethinking whose ideas are centered and why.

“It’s only through broad collaboration that these voices and perspectives will get the attention they deserve.”

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Who is remembered in philosophy? A University Libraries project asks anew.

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"Aspasia Surrounded by Greek Philosophers," by Michel Corneille the Younger, ca. 1670s

Modesty is not a solo sport

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:21:49 +0000

Modesty is not a solo sport Rachel Sauer Wed, 01/14/2026 - 11:21

Clay Bonnyman Evans

If it doesn’t include social interaction, norms and a desire not to offend, it’s not modesty, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher Derick Hughes argues

When it comes to definition, “modesty” doesn’t seem all that modest.

Consider that Webster’s Dictionary offers nine definitions of the word, with a profusion of meanings. Modesty can denote everything from modesty in dress and appearance to the estimation or presentation of one’s abilities, the size of a house, reserve and prudishness.

Derick Hughes, a lecturer in philosophy at the �鶹��Ѱ�� who specializes in moral psychology and ethics, says the concept of modesty is less concrete than perceived virtues.

Derick Hughes, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder lecturer in philosophy, argues that the concept of modesty is less concrete than perceived virtues.

“No one really thinks that compassion, honesty or generosity are elusive traits. We don’t find them puzzling in any way,” he says. “But modesty and humility are much more elusive. There are so many ways to describe and interpret them, which makes them valuable.”

In his paper, “Modesty’s Inoﬀensive Self-Presentation,” published in the journal Philosophical Psychology, Hughes offers an interpersonal view of modesty “that requires an emotional disposition sensitive to causing others offense based upon one’s self-presentation.”

Following the lead of the 19th- and early-20th-century psychologist and philosopher William James, Hughes makes the case that self-contained modesty isn’t really modesty at all. It requires social interaction.

“Modesty cannot be purely internal and private,” he says. “It has to be something more deeply social and emotional. … There has to be a shared sense that some content, action or behavior could provoke offense” to another person.

For example, a person may minimize his or her talents, but if it’s not expressed somehow to at least one other person, that’s not quite modesty. “Inoffensive self-presentation,” whether in dress, behavior, estimation of one’s talents or something else, is about gauging how others will receive and perceive one’s actions.

Modesty depends on norms and therefore can vary widely within different cultures, religions, families, friendships and situations, Hughes argues.

For example, wearing flip-flops, shorts and no shirt to a job interview violates norms and could cause offense (not to mention the candidate being dismissed as unfit), as could boasting about one’s wealth in the presence of people of more—ahem—modest means, or a boxer standing over a vanquished foe and yelling about his feat.

Or consider worship ceremonies. In some traditions, silence is the norm, whereas in others, exuberant shouting, clapping and singing is expected.

Hughes observes that even seemingly similar circumstances can influence what’s perceived as modest.

“When you talk about two people sharing the same goal or directly competing to win a competition, that seems to be a case where you would temper your attitude and responses toward the other person,” he says.

Modesty is in the eye of the beholder

“No one really thinks that compassion, honesty or generosity are elusive traits. We don’t find them puzzling in any way. But modesty and humility are much more elusive. There are so many ways to describe and interpret them."

On the other hand, when not in an adversarial or competitive situation, “there is more room to poke and prod other people to keep at it, to do better. If I’m a successful author, and I know you are writing a book, I might not hold back because I want to cultivate your interest or keep [you] pursuing your goal,” Hughes says.

And modesty is often in the eye of the beholder. Russian mathematician Gregori Perelman declined the $1 million Clay Millennium Prize in 2010 and has kept himself in virtual seclusion ever since. He explained that “if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed,” noted that mathematics depends on collaboration, and declared, “I’m not interested in money or fame; I don’t want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.”

While many perceived his refusal as modesty, some thought he was engaged in “arrogant humility” and was “being braggadocious by declining participation,” Hughes says.

Norms are critical to perceptions of modesty, he notes. For example, one study found that Canadians consider concealing one’s positive contributions to society to be dishonest, whereas Chinese people did not. “Chinese adults rated deception in such situations positively while rating truth-telling in the same situations negatively,” according to the study. “These cross-cultural differences appear to reflect differential emphases on the virtue of modesty in the two cultures.”

Immodesty even can be considered virtuous in some situations. For example, women violated norms of modesty when some began driving in Saudi Arabia in contravention of societal rules and expectations. That societal “immodesty” ultimately led to women being extended the right to drive.

Though generally thought of as a virtue, modesty may not be so virtuous in the face of “problematic norms,” Hughes says.

To be truly modest, modesty requires social interaction, the acceptance of norms and “a disposition to avoid offending others,” Hughes argues.

That definition, he concludes, can account for “the variety of modesty norms concerning one’s merits and achievements, personal objects and traditional modesty norms in dress and self-presentation.”

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If it doesn’t include social interaction, norms and a desire not to offend, it’s not modesty, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher Derick Hughes argues.

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Top sculpture: "Modesty" by Giosuè Argenti (1866)

Scholar considers limits on God and freedom for humans

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 16:50:59 +0000

Scholar considers limits on God and freedom for humans Rachel Sauer Wed, 01/07/2026 - 09:50

Clay Bonnyman Evans

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosophy PhD student Nathan Huffine offers ‘limited foreknowledge’ to solve the paradox of human free will and an all-knowing deity

For many believers, squaring belief in a traditional “omni” deity—a god that is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent—with the notion that human beings possess free will poses a quandary.

Here’s how �鶹��Ѱ�� philosophy PhD student Nathan Huffine describes the paradox:

“If there is an omniscient being, such as God, who infallibly knows the truth-values of all propositions, including propositions about future human actions, then no human action can be performed freely. No human action is free, since any human action is subject to the implications of this eternal and infallible knowledge of God. Such knowledge implies that an agent cannot do otherwise than what God knows she will do.”

Nathan Huffine, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosophy PhD student, argues that belief in both divine foreknowledge and free will are necessary to address the classic theological “problem of evil,” also known as the “problem of suffering."

Huffine argues that belief in both divine foreknowledge and free will are necessary to address the classic theological “problem of evil,” also known as the “problem of suffering”—if a deity is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, why is there suffering and evil?

“If one believes there is a god, one also ought to posit that humans have libertarian free will”—individuals are free to make, and therefore must take responsibility for, all their choices—“in order to deal with the problem of evil,” Huffine says.

But in his recent paper, “Limits on God, Freedom for Humans,” published in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Huffine defends the foreknowledge-freedom problem from assertions that it’s merely a game—an intellectual bauble or “pseudo-problem” —and considers two potential solutions to the conundrum, settling on one as most viable.

“It’s an interesting subject because the ideas of God and free will are important to me, and to many other people in their daily lives,” Huffine says.

He first considers what’s commonly referred to as “the eternity solution,” which posits that an atemporal deity—one that exists “outside” of time and space—would be always and eternally aware of everything that is, was and will be. Or as he describes it, “all times are equally real.”

Huffine describes a hypothetical situation in which a woman, Ellie, skips work to go to the beach. While there, a bottle washes onshore, bearing a message predicting that she will skip work and go to the beach that day.

“Suppose Ellie does have the ability to choose otherwise, and that the prophetic statement … has existed since 102 BC. … Also suppose that Ellie actually goes to work … never visiting the beach,” he writes. “Given this, the prophetic object (the bottle) from 102 BC would be wrong, and consequently, God would be wrong.”

But if a deity is inerrant and infallible, such a “conclusion is absurd,” Huffine writes. Because under eternalism, there is no time at which the bottle and message did not exist, “Therefore, there is no moment in Ellie’s life where she can act otherwise.”

Limited foreknowledge

Huffine finds the next potential solution, that of “limited foreknowledge,” more viable and persuasive.

First, he argues, one must assume an omni-deity cannot “do the metaphysically impossible”—the classic example is that a deity cannot create a stone that is too heavy for it to lift; or, as Aquinas argued, God cannot make a circle a square.

But if one defines God as “that than which nothing greater can be ideally conceived,” Huffine writes, then “one cannot ideally conceive of any being that is capable of performing metaphysically impossible feats.”

And if it is metaphysically impossible—contradictory—to square human free will with a deity that is already is aware of every future event, then something has to give, Huffine concludes.

“Therefore, God does not know the truth-value of all propositions but only those propositions it is possible for God to know without threatening human freedom,” he writes. If that’s true, he acknowledges, then “Jesus’ prophecies had the potential to be wrong.”

Huffine acknowledges that his thesis includes complicated, debatable metaphysical arguments, such as whether a deity limited is truly omniscient or omnipotent, given that metaphysics and logic can appear to trump its abilities.

“But you have to explore all these crazy pretzels,” he says. He cites the field of quantum mechanics: “We have to try to make sense of it, and whatever the data says, we have to try to square it with macro-reality.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosophy PhD student Nathan Huffine offers ‘limited foreknowledge’ to solve the paradox of human free will and an all-knowing deity.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher building a bridge to Africa

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 22:11:46 +0000

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher building a bridge to Africa Rachel Sauer Tue, 12/09/2025 - 15:11

Cody DeBos

Associate Professor Ajume Wingo was recently appointed as a research associate at the Center for Philosophy in Africa at Nelson Mandela University, a recognition of his decades of scholarship

For a young Ajume Wingo growing up in Nso, a northwestern region of Cameroon, philosophy wasn’t a topic relegated to ancient Stoics or the halls of academia.

“Philosophy was not an abstract pursuit. It was a living practice woven in everyday life,” says Wingo, an associate professor of philosophy at the �鶹��Ѱ��. “As a child I was surrounded by elders who transmitted their wisdom to me through storytelling, through rituals, through symbols, through ceremonies. That had deep philosophic meaning.”

That early foundation shaped not just how Wingo views philosophy today, but also how he practices it. He values using lived experience as a starting point and working toward the abstract, rather than the other way around.

Ajume Wingo, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy, was recently appointed as a research associate at the Center for Philosophy in Africa at Nelson Mandela University.

“I start from life, and then I go up. That’s the way I think about philosophy as a living practice. As life,” he explains.

Looking beyond our circles

Recently, Wingo’s philosophical journey has taken a major step forward.

In October, he was appointed as a research associate at the Center for Philosophy in Africa at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. The role recognizes his decades of scholarship and offers a new platform for expanding international research collaborations between African and Western thinkers.

“At a personal level, it’s a recognition many years in the making. It gives me the opportunity to work collaboratively at the international level, to act like a bridge between Western philosophy and African philosophy,” Wingo says.

His appointment is the result of a personal connection with Nelson Mandela University that has grown over many years. Wingo had previously delivered lectures across South Africa, but his keynote speech in April 2024 at Nelson Mandela University titled “In the Shade of Power” sparked something more.

“Many of the students from the university came up to me after. They wanted to exchange numbers and work with me and all that,” Wingo recalls.

During that same visit, he also participated in many broader conversations around ethics and justice in business alongside thinkers and industry leaders from across Africa.

Wingo’s research draws on both his formal training and his cultural roots in Cameroon. That dual grounding allows him to explore concepts through multiple lenses, he says, from Western theories of justice to African communal models of governance.

“Philosophy reflects the lived experience of the people that philosophers are dealing with,” he says. “And that already gives us some kind of differentiation.”

For Wingo and the kind of political philosophy he practices, Nelson Mandela University is a natural home.

“The Nelson Mandela University is named after Nelson Mandela, who was a victim of apartheid and who came out with a lot of compassion and reconciliation,” he says.

Take the concept of freedom.

In Western political philosophy, Wingo says, freedom is often defined as the absence of interference or constraint. But he says that idea doesn’t translate well into many African contexts.

“The African perspective on freedom is the presence of the right kind of associations. The presence of the community, of belonging. The more you belong, the more you are associated with people, the more freedom you have,” Wingo explains.

He says this contrast extends to views on politics, citizenship and even the role of blood and kinship in shaping identity. Where Western models may emphasize choice, contract and individual rights, African perspectives tend to view community as organic and identity as inherited.

“Politics from the African perspective has always been about … these bounded people in this place with a story, real or imagined, deciding for themselves how they should live,” Wingo says.

By bringing these frameworks into the conversation, he hopes to “humanize” politics and offer new ways of asking questions that might help us understand global and regional challenges. However, he warns that conversation can only happen when philosophers are willing to look outward.

“Philosophy itself is a kind of death when it is inward looking,” Wingo says. “Some of the time I worry that philosophy is becoming like a ghetto … a bunch of people sitting around talking among themselves about themselves.”

“You miss a lot when you’re inward looking, when you keep asking the same thing over and over again. And you gain a lot when you open up to the rest of the world.”

He believes true philosophical vitality comes when thinkers “communicate across the mighty mountains and across the vast oceans,” adding, “That’s philosophy at its best.”

Becoming a bridge

For now, Wingo hopes his appointment at Nelson Mandela University can serve as a bridge, both for his own work and for the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder community. He’s already planning faculty and student exchanges between the two institutions as well as an international symposium and conferences in both Colorado and South Africa.

“Even just the idea of me being there is exciting. Many people will learn about �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder because of me and will get to hear a new perspective on philosophy,” he says.

That kind of cross-cultural exchange is good for the discipline, helping to shape the ideas born of those who practice it.

“To learn about your culture, you should make it foreign to you by learning about the cultures of other people,” Wingo says, paraphrasing Aristotle. “And in that way, you learn about your culture, not just the cultures of other people.”

In a world facing increasingly global challenges, Wingo believes that philosophers must rise to the moment. He says asking bold questions, ones that defy norms and societal comforts, is the only way we can overcome today’s biggest obstacles.

“You miss a lot when you’re inward looking, when you keep asking the same thing over and over again,” he says, “And you gain a lot when you open up to the rest of the world.”

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Associate Professor Ajume Wingo was recently appointed as a research associate at the Center for Philosophy in Africa at Nelson Mandela University, a recognition of his decades of scholarship.

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Top photo: Hu Chen/Unsplash

The ‘Forgotten War’ asks to be remembered

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 19:25:31 +0000

The ‘Forgotten War’ asks to be remembered Rachel Sauer Tue, 06/24/2025 - 13:25

Cody DeBos

On the 75th anniversary of the United States entering the Korean War, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder war and morality scholar David Youkey discusses the cost of the ‘forgotten war’

Seventy-five years ago this month, on June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. troops to the Korean Peninsula. North Korea had invaded the South just two days earlier, and with that decision, the United States entered a conflict that would claim millions of lives on its way to fading from the collective memory of the American public.

The Korean War, often called “The Forgotten War,” rarely features in Hollywood productions or history classrooms. But David Youkey, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate teaching professor of philosophy who teaches the course War and Morality, believes it deserves a closer look.

“Being eclipsed by Vietnam is a major factor (in why the Korean war is often overlooked), but I’m not sure it’s the whole story,” he says.

David Youkey, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate teaching professor of philosophy, studies applied ethics, including war and morality.

What makes a ‘just’ war?

In Youkey’s class, students examine centuries of moral and philosophical reasoning about when it is permissible to go to war and how wars should be conducted. One key concept, the just war theory, traces back to ancient philosophy, but its definitions were sharpened in the 20th century by the horrors of the world wars and the Geneva Conventions.

“Concerning justice of war, the idea is that only wars of defense are justified,” Youkey says, “and just war theory tends to define ‘defense’ very narrowly.”

This idea looks beyond the events preceding a conflict.

Youkey explains, “Within just war theory there is a basic distinction between justice of war, and justice in war. That is to say, the war itself might be just, but behaviors within the war might be unjust.”

Even a war that begins for morally sound reasons can turn morally questionable when boots—or bombs—hit the ground. Take the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II or the firebombing campaigns that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the preceding days. These actions may have helped end the war, specifically one the U.S. was “justly” involved in after Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, but they raise enduring moral questions.

“The most important idea is that civilians are off limits,” Youkey says. “There will be accidental civilian casualties in any war—that’s acknowledged. But civilians cannot be directly targeted, and the warring parties should do what they can to minimize civilian casualties.”

A morally gray conflict

So, how does the Korean War measure up under the framework of just war theory?

“I’d say, if we narrowly focus on South Korea defending itself from the North, that’s justified by just war theory. But the larger context is this Cold War element,” Youkey says.

North Korea’s invasion was a clear act of aggression, he notes. Therefore, South Korea’s response can be seen as just. But when it comes to U.S. intervention, the lines begin to blur. At the end of WWII, the Korean Peninsula was divided at the 38th parallel not by the Korean people, but by external powers—namely the United States and the Soviet Union.

“Were we in Korea to defend the universal human rights of the Korean people, or were we there because we didn’t like the ideologies of the Soviets and the Chinese?” Youkey asks. “Some of both, probably, but just war theory would only support the first.”

Then there’s the matter of how the Korean war was fought.

Soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division take cover behind rocks to shield themselves from exploding mortar shells, near the Hantan River in central Korea. (Photo: Library of Congress)

“Apparently, McArthur gave the order to burn North Korea to the ground, and the same firebombing tactic used against Japan in World War II was imported to Korea. Again, from the point of view of just war theory, civilians are off limits,” Youkey says.

He adds, “It’s hard to understand how to interpret the scorched earth strategy used against North Korea except as an atrocity.”

What forgetting costs us

Youkey is less interested in labeling wars as “good” or “bad” than he is in encouraging critical moral reflection. Such introspection becomes even more imperative when a war fades from public memory.

“The U.S. military is currently, and has for a long time been, involved in conflicts all over the planet, and few civilians pay attention,” he says.

“How many military conflicts have we been involved with recently in Africa where the average American citizen has no idea? That’s not history. It’s stuff going on right now.”

That same forgetfulness—or perhaps willful ignorance, Youkey says—helps explain why the Korean War receives so little attention in our national memory despite its massive human and political costs. Remembering Korea only as a footnote to Vietnam or the Cold War limits our ability to engage with its moral complexity—and to question the long-term consequences of outside intervention.

“There are plenty of movies out there about the heroic deeds of U.S. troops in World War II. And there certainly were a lot of heroic deeds. But we also intentionally murdered hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians during the firebombings, a strategy we later exported to Korea and then to Vietnam,” Youkey says.

He argues that when wars are remembered selectively, often highlighting heroism while omitting brutality, our understanding of history becomes distorted.

Memory and maturity

If there is a lesson to draw from the Korean War 75 years later, reflecting on just war theory alone won’t teach it. Rather, Youkey says he hopes to see a collective cultivation of the moral maturity needed to seek peaceful solutions before conflict happens.

“I do believe there is such a thing as just war. And the world would be better off if more of its nations paid attention to just war theory,” he says. “But we really ought to be moving toward a world where diplomatic solutions are the focus.”

Realizing that vision requires a seismic moral shift in how Americans think about global conflict, he adds. Remembering wars like Korea—those living in shadows of more iconic battles—pushes us to look beyond easy right-versus-wrong debates. It reminds us that even wars waged with justification leave behind legacies of destruction.

As Youkey suggests, the burden of memory is not to glorify the past but to help us imagine a better future where we don’t repeat—or forget—our mistakes.

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On the 75th anniversary of the United States entering the Korean War, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder war and morality scholar David Youkey discusses the cost of the ‘forgotten war.’

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Top image: Father Emil Kapaun (right) and Capt. Jerome A. Dolan (left), a medical officer, help an exhausted GI off a battlefield in Korea. (Photo: Catholic Diocese of Wichita)

Where are today’s Newton and Einstein?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 14 May 2025 20:25:08 +0000

Where are today’s Newton and Einstein? Rachel Sauer Wed, 05/14/2025 - 14:25

Iskra Fileva

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva argues that the present time is one of great achievements without outstanding achievers

We produce nothing if not academic papers. There are millions of academics in the world, and every year, they publish millions of articles. Some of the new work is good—and some, very good. Yet it is difficult to point to anyone after Einstein who has done something outstanding, something likely to be remembered for centuries. I am not the first to observe that our time can boast no Darwins, Newtons or Galileos. It is as though humanity, somehow and for some reason, can no longer birth great minds. But why? Did our talent well run dry?

It may be supposed that in lamenting the current state of affairs, we compare, unfairly, the output of the last several decades to that of the rest of history. If you pick at random a past 70-year period and look at who the important thinkers were, chances are you won’t find anyone you have already heard of. Why should the last 70 years be any different?

Iskra Fileva is a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy who specializes in moral psychology and issues at the intersection of philosophy, psychology and psychiatry.

My answer is that the relevant comparison is not between achievements produced over periods of equal duration but between achievements produced by equal numbers of scientists and other thinkers. While human history goes back centuries, according to current estimates, 90% of all scientists who ever lived are alive today. The fact that all the great ones may come from the ranks of the deceased 10% calls for an explanation.

Perhaps the answer is that greatness is staring us in the face, and we don’t see it. Or we refuse to see it. Marcel Proust suggested once that we are loath to call living people “great.” The reason he gave was cynical, but one that rings at least partially true: We don’t envy the dead, and it is easier to put on a pedestal those you don’t envy. I would add that the dead are not competition for awards and recognition.

There may also be a legend-like aspect to the idea of greatness, and legends require exaggeration and idealization unlikely to survive a reality check. Death helps mythmaking, here and elsewhere.

But some people in the past became living legends (think of Einstein), and at any rate, many scientists have passed away in the last several decades, yet it is difficult to think of someone who joined humanity’s Great Hall of Fame during that period.

Short attention spans

Let’s consider an alternative explanation of what seems like an intellectual-giants drought, an explanation that has to do not with envy but with desire for amusement. It is possible that our attention span has become too short for anyone’s rise to prominence to endure. We may not want to spend much time on a serious author, either. That’s a problem, because greatness status cannot be attained in a single day. Thinkers from the distant past benefit from having had generations of less-distractable people study their works. How well would the great of old fare if they came back to life?

That’s a fair question. Interestingly, Robert Musil, in his remarkable 1930s novel The Man Without Qualities, suggested that distractibility and desire for novelty would have made it impossible for people in his day and age to pay attention to Plato for more than a short period of time. If Plato walked into an editor’s office today, Musil writes, he would become an overnight sensation and receive multiple lucrative offers from news outlets. Perhaps one of his older works would be turned into a film. But the shiny new thing would lose its luster before long, even if that thing happens to be Plato. Musil writes:

“The moment his return had ceased to be news, however, and Mr. Plato tried to put into practice one of his well-known ideas, which had never quite come into their own, the editor in chief would ask him to submit only a nice little column on the subject now and then for the Life and Leisure section (but in the easiest and most lively style possible, not heavy: remember the readers), and the features editor would add that he was sorry, but he could use such a contribution only once a month or so, because there were so many other good writers to be considered.”

This prescient passage may capture the spirit of our time better than it captured Musil’s own. Yet I can’t help but think that Plato would continue to be seen as great if he came back now. His return would just, inevitably, cease to be news.

The puzzles are too difficult

Another possibility is sometimes suggested: Progress has become too difficult. The low-hanging fruit has been picked, and the remaining puzzles outmatch human cognitive capacities.

"Would any one person living today have come up with Newton’s Laws of Motion? With Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection? It is not clear," notes Iskra Fileva, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy. (Charles Darwin seen here in an 1881 portrait. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

But I don’t find this hypothesis compelling either, though there is something to it. Whatever is known tends to seem easier to discover than that which is not yet known. Would any one person living today have come up with Newton’s Laws of Motion? With Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection? It is not clear.

What, then?

I wish to suggest that we simply work differently from people in the past, and our modus operandi militates against individual greatness. We live in an age of collective incrementalism. We absorb—often thoroughly—the preceding tradition. As a consequence, the work we produce lacks the independence of thought and the unity that continue to impress us in Newton’s and Darwin’s work centuries later.

In addition, we collaborate. There are hundreds of people working together on particle accelerators, brain tissues and large language models or who jointly carry out experiments (and who team up with other groups running closely related experiments). Together, we could have come up with the Laws of Motion or the theory of evolution. It is just that no one is likely to have done it singlehandedly. If there are no lone geniuses, this is likely because no one is working alone.

But work is getting done. I suspect that while future generations may not know the names and legacies of anyone living today, the achievements of our time will attain intellectual immortality, just in a different way. Since new developments are likely to continue to absorb the preceding tradition, the future will contain the present. Our ideas will survive in the work of our descendants, but they will lose their contours. Future people will turn them into fertilizer for their own thoughts.

Life isn’t a movie script

Why would we want individual great minds anyhow? Perhaps we need to change the human psychological propensity to romanticize the idea of the lone genius (to which the Nobel Prize committee caters, insisting on giving the prize to individual scientists, not teams). Or maybe we can keep the idea but put it in its proper place. It is, after all, a trope that works well in certain kinds of fiction. We like legends and heroes. We just shouldn’t expect life to resemble a movie script.

I suspect, however, that when lamenting the perceived lack of great minds, we wish not simply for more intellectual giants but for more breakthroughs. We may relinquish the idea of the lone genius—or put it, as I suggest, in its place—but we cannot give up our desire for progress. And nor should we. What of that?

I note in response that the incrementalism of today is actually taking us farther faster than individual greatness would. There was hardly ever a time in human history when so much headway took place in a few decades as in the last few. The world we live in is vastly more advanced than the pre-internet world of my early childhood. (Ray Kurzweil went so far as to suggest that knowledge production doubles every 12 hours.)

One may thus invert the initial question and ask: How are we making progress so quickly if no one does anything outstanding? And the answer appears to be that a myriad of small steps counts for more than a few big leaps. It is a bit as though, instead of intellectual giants, we have something reminiscent of the sight gag involving three kids in a trench coat stacked on top of each other. What’s remarkable is that the trio advances more rapidly than the one tall adult. (Stephen J. Gould in Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin argues, relatedly, that while no baseball player today has Babe Ruth’s batting average, the league’s average is no worse, because the median player today is better than the median player in Babe Ruth’s time. What goes for baseball players may go for scientists.)

Slowing progress?

Still, some worry that progress has recently begun to slow down. This is the final point I wish to address. If the observation is true, don’t we, after all, need some more geniuses?

I will make two points in response. First, collective incrementalism creates a situation in which breakthroughs may be getting undercounted, because they don’t look like breakthroughs: They don’t happen all at once. Each begins as a 1.0 version and takes multiple attempts, so no new achievement goes very much further than the preceding ones.

Second, even if the rate of breakthroughs is slowing down, it is at best unclear that what we need to accelerate progress is more individual great minds. Perhaps what we need, instead, is better incrementalism and a better incentive structure for scientists, one that creates conditions that favor bigger leaps forward. Working on those conditions may be our best bet. It may also be our only bet since it is at best unclear how we may possibly go about creating the next Newton.

But that bet is good enough. This is my final thought. There are great achievements without outstanding achievers, achievements behind which stand multiple people that are simply pretty darn good.

This essay was reproduced with permission from the Fake Nous Substack. Iskra Fileva is a �鶹��Ѱ�� associate professor of philosophy and hosts the Philosopher's Diaries blog at Psychology Today.

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American Philosophical Association recognizes Iskra Fileva for op-ed

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 15:31:25 +0000

American Philosophical Association recognizes Iskra Fileva for op-ed Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/03/2025 - 08:31

Fileva, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy, won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest

Iskra Fileva, an associate professor in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Philosophy, has won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest from the American Philosophical Association for her blog “Is It Hubris to Think We Matter?”

Fileva’s article was originally published in 2023 in Psychology Today, for which she is a regular contributor. With her permission, the article was later reposted on the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine website.

Iskra Fileva is a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy who specializes in moral psychology and issues at the intersection of philosophy, psychology and psychiatry.

Iskra Fileva, an associate professor in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Philosophy, has won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest from the American Philosophical Association.

Fileva specializes in moral psychology and issues at the intersection of philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. She also studies aesthetics and epistemology. Her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophical Studies and Synthese.

In addition to her academic work, Fileva writes for a broad audience, including op-eds for the New York Times. She writes a column in Psychology Today that has addressed a wide variety of topics, including perfectionism, self-sabotage, parents who envy their children, asymmetrical friendships, love without commitment, fear of freedom, death, dreams, despair and many others.

In announcing the award, the American Philosophical Association noted that winning submissions “call public attention, either directly or indirectly, to the value of philosophical thinking” and were judged in terms of sound reasoning and “their success as examples of public philosophy,” as well as their accessibility to the general public on topics of public concern.

Fileva said she’s pleased with the reception the article received and honored to be recognized by the American Philosophical Association.

“Receiving the public philosophy award was a very nice way to end the year,” she said. “It also drew attention to the essay, and I heard from people who read it and who likely would not have found it otherwise. It took me a day or so to re-read it as I don’t, in general, know what I would think of anything I’ve written several months ago, but I did re-read it, and I was happy to discover that I still agreed with what I’d written.”

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Fileva, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy, won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest.

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Diane Mayer taught philosophy and also practiced it

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 18:40:20 +0000

Diane Mayer taught philosophy and also practiced it Rachel Sauer Wed, 12/11/2024 - 11:40

To put herself through �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder graduate courses, she worked as a switchboard operator for sub-minimum wage, then became a dispatcher for campus police

Editor’s note: Diane R. Mayer, instructor emeritus of philosophy at the �鶹��Ѱ��, died Dec. 2, 2024. She was 78. Before her passing, she wrote her own obituary. The text follows:

I was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the same hospital that saw the birth of Jack Nicholson.

I spent my first 25 summers at the beach, body surfing and reading literature by folks like Jane Austen. In high school, I helped lead a student strike against the poor food options in the school cafeteria.

During high school and college, I worked as a long-distance operator for AT&T. Thanks to an alumni sponsor, I was admitted to Smith College, where I majored in religion and biblical studies.

Having been a dedicated atheist since second grade, when I got my father to confess that Santa is not real, I was curious about religion. Martin Buber’s I and Thou, with its sound moral vision, also influenced my decision.

Upon graduation, I was admitted to Duke divinity school, but felt my atheism was too strong for that to be a good idea. So, I went to work for the NYC social services department, working in Harlem to check on the well-being of those on my caseload. The only requirement to meet in order to be hired way proof of a BA.

I next the spent two years in San Francisco, working as a crew leader for the 1970 census, where I was also assigned to convince reluctant persons—like an ambassador from Turkey or a poor Italian family with no English and only a kerosene lamp for light—to complete the long form. This was a great way to see a great spectrum of folks and areas in SF.

During these years, 1966 through 1986, I took several weeklong backpacking trips in Wyoming, mainly in the Wind Rivers. I also played on the Boulder women’s softball team sponsored at the time by Tico’s Mexican Restaurant.

Despite having no undergraduate philosophy, I was admitted to the graduate program in philosophy at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. To pay for the program and living expenses, I worked first at the �鶹��Ѱ��switchboard for less than the minimum wage.

I saw a student in uniform writing parking tickets and found that she made twice as much per hour, so I applied and was hired. I worked mainly as a dispatcher for the next 10 years, during a time of social unrest, including the Los Seis bombing.

I was intent on understanding existentialism and phenomenology but ultimately wound up writing on Kant. After completing and defending my dissertation on his Critique of Pure Reason, I began to work for the department as an administrator and an instructor. Ultimately, I became the assistant chair for undergraduate studies. As an instructor, from roughly 1985 until 2011, I mainly taught courses in applied normative philosophy. They included the course Philosophy and Women. (I was recently stopped on the Bobolink trail by a woman who told me that the course “saved my life, let me find my way out of despair.”)

When George W. Bush began contemplating invading Afghanistan, I brought back the course War and Morality, with a focus both on Just War Theory and nonviolence. Students had a lab requirement that consisted of films illustrating various points in both; All Quiet on the Western Front, for example.

Environment Ethics covered both the moral status of nature and animal rights. The assigned film is a documentary: Earthlings. My other courses included Ethical Theory, Social and Political Philosophy, Intro to Ethics, Major Social Theories and Philosophy and Society. In the latter, we read key political theorists (libertarian, social contract and distributive justice) and then explored topics such as the education system, the criminal justice system and global justice (cf World Poverty and Human Rights).

The courses were designed to tie abstract ideas to the real world and to help students formulate and justify their moral visions. Some final exams consisted of students adopting a view and then forming groups to defend their view against objections made by those defending a different view.

The stupa at the Drala Mountain Center, formerly the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, at which Diane Mayer attended several month-long retreats. (Photo: Drala Mountain Center)

During these years I also volunteered at the Rocky Mountain Peace Center and was part of the planning for the Encirclement of Rocky Flats. I also planned, with others, the Mother’s Day Actions at the Nevada Test Site. (A warning at the site read “NO DANGEROUS WEAPONS ALLOWED.”)

I also volunteered at the Boulder Safehouse and served on the boards of RMPC, the Safehouse and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the late ‘80s, a time of emotional upheaval, I began a Buddhist practice. I completed the eight-week “warrior” training and attended several “dathuns” (month-long retreats) at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center west of Fort Collins.

My library is full of inspiring texts by contemporary Buddhist thinkers. I also went with Christian Peacemaker Teams to accompany indigenous folks in Chiapas Mexico during the Zapatista uprising. I turned 50 on that trip. I realized that it was silly not to know Spanish, so I made several trips to Spanish-speaking countries over the years:

First to Cuba, which I visited several times—once for a philosophy meeting, where I delivered a paper on non-violence. Then to Guatemala, the least expensive place to have one-on-one tutoring in Spanish. I would live with a local family for a month, often in Quetzaltenango, and once joined a project there to work with girls in their schools in the remote mountain villages.

Upon retiring, I took up the task of relearning the game of bridge, which I had played extensively in high school and college. It took 19 years to feel competent at the game. After attending many tournaments in places like San Francisco and New Orleans, I wound up a “Ruby” Life Master.

I also wrote about 500 letters and op eds published in the Daily Camera, using multiple pen names.

Having no longer any contribution to make to the world, and despairing at the horror (imo) of this century with its wars, its destruction of nature, our elimination of many species and our new (anti-) “social media” bringing destruction to human community and well-being, and its recent rise in and acceptance of misogyny, I choose now to shuffle off this mortal coil.

To put herself through �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder graduate courses, she worked as a switchboard operator for sub-minimum wage, then became a dispatcher for campus police.

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Loving the art but not the artist

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:45:24 +0000

Loving the art but not the artist Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/21/2024 - 13:45

Adamari Ruelas

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller

The transition from summer to fall—trading warm days for cool evenings—means that things are getting … spookier. Witchier, maybe. For fans of the series, the approach of Halloween means it’s time to rewatch the Harry Potter movies.

This autumn also marks the 25^th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in author J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series about a boy wizard defeating the forces of evil with help from his friends. Many U.S. readers of a certain age cite Azkaban as the point at which they discovered the magic of Harry Potter.

However, in the years since the series ended, Rowling has gained notoriety for stating strongly anti-trans views. Harry Potter fans have expressed disappointment and feelings of betrayal, and asked the question that has shadowed the arts for centuries, if not millennia: Is it possible to love the art but dislike the artist? Can the two be separated?

Iskra Fileva is a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of philosophy who specializes in moral psychology and issues at the intersection of philosophy, psychology and psychiatry.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that, "Even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

“In principle, you can try to focus on the purely aesthetic properties of an artwork. This is the aestheticist attitude,” says Iskra Fileva, a �鶹��Ѱ�� assistant professor of philosophy who has published on topics of virtue and morality. “But even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

The Impact of Knowing

Fileva offered as an example the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro. In a short story called “Wild Swans,” Munro depicts a young girl on a train who is sexually assaulted by an older man sitting beside her, but who pretends to be asleep and does nothing because she is curious about what would happen next.

Munro’s daughter came forward several months after Munro’s death in May to say she’d been abused by her stepfather and that her mother, after initially separating from her stepfather, went back to live with him, saying that she loved him too much.

Fileva points out that in light of these revelations, it is reasonable for readers of “Wild Swans” to reinterpret the story. Whereas initially they may have seen it as a psychologically nuanced portrayal of the train scene, they may, after learning of the daughter’s reports, come to read the story as an attempt at victim-blaming disguised as literature.

Fileva contrasts Munro’s case with cases in which an author may have said or done reprehensible things, but not anything that bears on how their work should be interpreted—as when Italian painter Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, but the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

Fileva points out also that the question of whether the art can be separated from the artist may seem particularly pressing today, because modern audiences know so much more about artists than art consumers in the past may have. If no one knows facts about the author’s life, art consumers would be unable to draw parallels between an artwork and biographical information about the author.

“These are things that, historically, few would have known about—the origin of a novel or any other kind of artwork. Art might have looked a little bit more magical, and there may have been more mystery surrounding the author and in the act of creation,” says Fileva, explaining how the personal lives of artists have begun to seep into the minds of their consumers, something that has recently become common.

"The Crowning of Thorns" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (ca. 1602-1607). Philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that even though Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

In 1919, poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “I have assumed as axiomatic that a creation, a work of art, is autonomous.” And in his essay “The Death of the Author,” literary theorist Roland Barthes criticized and sought to counter “the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person.”

However, early 20th-century movements such as New Criticism, which considered works of art as autonomous, have given way to more nuanced considerations of art in relation to its artist.

“I do think that if you want to understand what work literature does in the world, starting with its historical moment is an important step,” Amy Hungerford, a Yale University professor of English, told author Constance Grady in a 2019 story for Vox. “But I also am fully committed to the idea that every generation of readers remakes artworks’ significance for themselves. When you try to separate works of art from history, whether that’s the moment of creation or the moment of reception, you’re impoverishing the artwork itself to say that they don’t have a relation.”

Too many tweets

The growth of social media has added a new layer to the issues of art and the artists who create it. According to Fileva, social media have made it more difficult to separate the two because of how much more the consumer is able to know, or think they know, about the artist: “Artists are often now expected to have a public persona, to be there, to talk to their fans, to have these parasocial relationships, and that might make it difficult to separate the art from the artist,” she says.

In Fileva’s view, all this creates a second way in which facts about the author seem to bear on the public’s perception of an artwork. While learning about the revelations made by Munro’s daughter may lead some readers to reinterpret “Wild Swans,” other readers and viewers may feel disappointed and “let down” by the author even without reinterpreting the artwork or changing their judgment about the work’s qualities.

This fall marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which many U.S. readers of a certain age cite as their entry point into the series.

This is another way in which it may become difficult to separate the art from the artist: The work becomes “tainted” for some audience members because of what they have learned about its creator.

It may have always been the case, Fileva suggests, that people who really loved a work of art, even when they knew nothing about its creator, imagined that they were connected to the artist, but this is truer today than ever. Fans are able to follow their favorite artists on social media and feel that they know the artist as a person, which creates expectations and the possibility for disappointment.

Perhaps inevitably, greater knowledge of the artist as a person affects how consumers interact with his or her art—whether it’s Ye (formerly Kanye) West’s music, Johnny Depp’s films or Alice Munro’s short stories.

So, where does that leave Harry Potter fans who have been disappointed by Rowling’s public statements?

Different books by Rowling illustrate the two different ways in which biographical information about the author may affect readers’ interpretation of the work, Fileva says. Rowling’s book (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) The Ink Black Heart, featuring a character accused of transphobia, is an example of the first way: Facts about the author’s life may bear directly on the interpretation of the work.

When, by contrast, a transgender person who loved Harry Potter in her youth and loved Rowling feels saddened by statements Rowling made about gender, the reader may experience the book differently without reinterpreting it, Fileva says. Such a reader may think that the book is just as good as it was when she fell in love with it; it’s just that she can no longer enjoy it in the same way.

Some art consumers are more inclined to be what Fileva calls “aestheticists”—Barthes’ account of the death of the author resonates with them. Aestheticists may find it easier to separate the art from the artist in cases in which biographical information about the author is irrelevant to understanding and interpreting the work.

Whether any reader, whatever their sympathies, can separate facts about Munro’s life from the story “White Swans” or Rowling’s public pronouncements on gender from the interpretation of her book The Ink Black Heart, Fileva says, is a different question.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller.

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Scholar challenges rigid boundaries in African philosophical thought

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Scholar challenges rigid boundaries in African philosophical thought Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/30/2024 - 00:00

Cody DeBos

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD candidate Idowu Odeyemi argues that African philosophy should not be limited to a single definition

“To define African philosophy is to limit it,” argues Idowu Odeyemi, a PhD candidate in philosophy at the �鶹��Ѱ��. “And to limit it is to conserve it.”

Odeyemi, whose article “African Philosophy Cannot Be a Thing” was published in the journal Metaphilosophy this month, argues that African philosophy, like Western philosophy, should not be limited to a single definition but instead be seen as a vast array of concepts and traditions.

Odeyemi’s insights push for a reconsideration of what philosophy is, who defines it and how it affects people’s lives.

Idowu Odeyemi, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD candidate in philosophy, argues that to define African philosophy is to limit it.

To live is to wonder

“Everyone, at the first-order level, can be said to qualify as a philosopher,” Odeyemi says. “Everyone wonders.”

Whether it’s a neighbor’s peculiar morning routine or a sibling’s attitude at a family gathering, everyone has something to wonder about at nearly every point in life. Yet what sets philosophers apart, according to Odeyemi, who was recently awarded a fellowship with the Center for African and African American Studies, is that they ask where their wonder comes from.

Philosophical wonder, says Odeyemi, does not exist in a vacuum. It is curated by the society in which one grows up. “Philosophical concerns are usually an element of what the social world allows philosophers to gain interest in.”

Citing the work of �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Associate Professor of Philosophy Ajume Wingo, who recently explored the political modesty of Nelson Mandela, and the late Ghanaian philosopher Kwesi Wiredu, who advocated for consensual democracy over Western representative democracy, Odeyemi emphasizes that African philosophers, like their Western counterparts, are deeply influenced by their social context.

However, Odeyemi is cautious with the term “African philosophy,” given its monolithic connotations. African philosophy, he says, cannot be confined to a single narrative or definition. Rather, it encompasses a multitude of voices and ideas, all rooted in the experiences and social contexts born of various cultures, languages and histories across the vast continent.

The unwritten richness of African philosophy

Much of African philosophical thought has been passed down from generation to generation through myths, proverbs and oral traditions. This unwritten heritage challenges popular, though misguided, Western notions that valuable philosophy must be documented in writing.

In his paper, Odeyemi draws a parallel to Socrates, one of the most revered figures in Western philosophy.

“Socrates left no philosophical writings. It is Plato, his follower, who contextualized some of Socrates’ dialogue, and thus, the philosophies accorded to Socrates today,” Odeyemi points out. “How is this any different from when a wise man in an African village offers philosophical insights, and this is carried on to the next generations until somebody else writes about it?”

Of course, this isn’t to say African societies rely solely on oral traditions to pass knowledge between one generation and the next. Countries like Egypt have an extensive history of writings that offer a glimpse into their thinking.

Odeyemi also reflects on his own life and Yoruba heritage, sharing how metaphor and oral traditions affect philosophy and daily communication.

“The Yoruba language is deeply metaphorical,” he says. “For instance, instead of telling you that you are stubborn, a Yoruba person might say ‘you have a coconut head,’ meaning your character is not easy to crack.”

The rich use of language and metaphor in African cultures illustrates how philosophy can be woven into the fabric of everyday life. To Odeyemi, that’s an important hallmark of good philosophy.

A philosophy that can be easily neglected by the people it should be speaking to—a philosophy that has no bearing on its people—cannot be said to be a good philosophy.”

He also reiterates the evolution of written tradition, particularly across generations. Compared to novels by such writers as Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart), Buchi Emecheta (The Joy of Motherhood) and Wole Soyinka (The Trial of Brother Jero), novels published by African authors in the past two decades illustrate a significant shift in language use.

Odeyemi also notes that older generations of African writers and thinkers frequently engaged with myths, proverbs and oral traditions in their writings. By contrast, many contemporary African writers don’t emphasize these elements.

“I think it is the people that are influencing the philosophy rather than vice versa,” Odeyemi says.

Connecting philosophy with everyday life

For many people, philosophy belongs squarely in the realm of academic discourse. Odeyemi notes that this is a challenge shared by African and Western philosophy. He also believes the opposite should be true.

“A philosophy that can be easily neglected by the people it should be speaking to—a philosophy that has no bearing on its people—cannot be said to be a good philosophy,” he says.

Part of a philosopher’s job is to examine the systems people rely on and try to correct them so people can live a better life, Odeyemi notes. Of course, it’s not the philosopher’s job to make people lead a better life—it is the people’s duty to make that choice.

Even so, philosophers must make their ideas accessible and meaningful to ordinary individuals before they can have a widespread impact. Odeyemi argues that workshops and public discussions can play an important role in encouraging broader engagement with philosophical ideas.

Furthermore, Odeyemi challenges society to embrace philosophical discourse in the mainstream.

“I think the only step that can be taken is to stop defunding philosophy departments and make the public see why reading and studying philosophy is important for their daily lives,” he says.

“Non-African philosophers contributing to African philosophical discourse is as important as Africans contributing to non-African philosophical discourses. We all need to be in dialogue with one another to understand each other better.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD candidate Idowu Odeyemi argues that African philosophy should not be limited to a single definition.

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