Philosophy Today Speaker to Lecture at UA on Anti-Intellectualism

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Rebecca Copenhaver, professor of philosophy at Lewis and Clark College, will give the third lecture in The University of Alabama’s Philosophy Today Lecture Series at 7:30 p.m. March 6 in 205 Smith Hall on the UA campus.

Her talk titled, “Anti-Intellectualism and the Academy in American Life,” is sponsored by the UA College of Arts and Sciences’ department of philosophy and is free and open to the public.

Copenhaver’s lecture will focus on our culture’s hostility to intellectual, scholarly, artistic and scientific pursuits and how this hostility affects higher education, particularly student learning.

Copenhaver specializes in early modern philosophy, the philosopher Thomas Reid, and philosophy of mind with an emphasis in perception. She is co-author, with Brian P. Copenhaver, of “From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy,” coming out this month. The book is the only comprehensive examination of Italian philosophy in the 19^th and 20^th centuries written in English.

Copenhaver’s lectures, along with the others in the series, are intended for audiences with little to no background in formal philosophy. The fourth and final speaker in the series will be Alvin Goldman, who will give a lecture, “Knowledge and Democracy – How Social Epistemology Bears on the Success of our Democracy,” April 26 at 7:30 p.m. in room 205 Smith Hall on the UA campus.

The University of Alabama’s department of philosophy is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the college have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.