About the Institute
The history of philosophy is essential to the study and practice of philosophy itself. In our discipline, to think historically is to think philosophically.
The Emory University Institute for the History of Philosophy was founded in 2006 to support the study of the history of philosophy at all levels: undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and faculty. It welcomes all research methods and approaches to the study of the history of philosophy. As a place of interaction among the disciplines, the Institute will host visiting scholars from institutions across the country and around the world.
Throughout the academic year, the Institute will invite Emory faculty and distinguished experts in different fields in the history of philosophy to give public lectures and conduct seminars and workshops for Emory students and faculty. Starting in 2008, it will organize a summer seminar for faculty and advanced graduate students from other universities. Future plans include publishing collected papers arising out of the lectures and seminars, as well as the establishment of post-doctoral fellowships for scholars with recent PhDs in the history of philosophy.
The institute emerged from the emphasis placed upon the history of philosophy by the Emory Philosophy Department, which grew to prominence under the leadership of Leroy E. Loemker (1904-85), the noted American Leibniz scholar and educator, who helped found EmoryÕs graduate philosophy program fifty years ago. Today, most of our faculty members specialize in the history of philosophy, and their expertise covers all of its canonical fields: ancient, medieval, Renaissance, early modern, modern, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This makes the Emory Philosophy Department a natural home for the Institute for the History of Philosophy, the only institute of its kind in the United States. Along with strengthening EmoryÕs graduate and undergraduate programs, the Institute also seeks to augment, enhance and revitalize the study of the history of philosophy within the broader academic community.
Summer Workshops
Every summer an Emory professor, frequently with a visiting faculty member, will conduct an intensive seminar on an advanced topic in the history of philosophy. These workshops provide a forum for philosophical research and collaboration across departments and universities. Each seminar will also establish an alumni network of participants to facilitate the subsequent development of the historical field in question. The following programs are now scheduled or in planning:
religion and
philosophy: neoplatonism in 2008
the late ancient and early
medieval period
Steven Strange
Kevin Corrigan (Institute of
the Liberal Arts)
the issue of history: 2009
nietzsche and heidegger
Andrew J. Mitchell
Peter Trawny
(Universitt Wuppertal)
the origins of modernity: montaigne, 2010
machiavelli, descartes, and hobbes
Ann Hartle
Speaker
Series
The Institute hosts a number of speakers throughout the year on coordinated topics in the history of philosophy. In addition to public lectures, speakers are invited to lead text-based seminars for graduate students on salient readings from the history of philosophy. Besides Emory faculty, Institute guests during its first year included John McCumber (UCLA) and Franois Noudelmann (College International de Philosophie, Paris). Speakers scheduled for 2007-08 include Eckart Frster (Johns Hopkins University), John Dillon (Trinity College, Dublin), Allen Wood (Stanford University), and Miguel de Beistegui (Warwick University).
Website
Contacts
and information: www.philosophy.emory.edu/ihp