9th Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Conference
“Crossing Borders Within Philosophy and Across Disciplines”
Friday, March 17 and Saturday, March 18
MacOdrum Library, Room 482
Keynote Speaker:
Lorraine Code, York University
Distinguished Research Professor Emerita and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
“Who Do We Think We Are?”
Friday, March 17 at 4:00 pm
The title question of this paper is one I pose provocatively, in order to urge “us” to recognize that integral to much late-twentieth and early twenty-first century thinking are unexamined references to “we”, to “us”, to “them”. Who/what do these referents refer to? Often they seem insignificant and are spoken and heard as epistemically-ontologically neutral, easily interchangeable. My thinking is motivated by a recognition that the seemingly simple “we” often carries with it a set of uncontested assumptions, taken-for-granted ways of being that may not themselves be innocent or presupposition-free. While it would be cumbersome always to pause and contest such utterances, at times it is vital to do so, in order to understand some of the social-political implications of seemingly neutral assertions. Here I venture on such an exploration.