News and Events
News
Read stories and articles for and about current and prospective students and faculty in the Philosophy program.
Get the latest Philosophy news
You can also browse an archive of books published by program faculty and scholars.
Events
Our Event Series
- Philosophy Colloquium
Download the full schedule for Spring 2023
Each colloquium (unless noted below or circumstances change) will be IN PERSON 4:15 P.M. to 6:15 P.M, room 9205/9206 - Cognitive Science Speaker Series
- Logic and Metaphysics Workshop
- Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Conference
Center Events
In addition, many of our associated centers run events as well, most are listed in our upcoming events list, but you can also check their websites:
Recent News
Dec 26, 2022
Make 2023 Productive and Fulfilling with These Academic Resolutions
From securing funding to taking time to enjoy the music, the Graduate Center offers support to help you reach your goals in 2023.
Dec 14, 2022
People We’ve Lost in 2022
The faculty, administrators, and friends of the Graduate Center who died this year left indelible marks and are deeply missed.
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- In Memoriam
Dec 7, 2022
Here are the Grad Center Stories YOU Were Most Interested in This Year
These are the stories that our community read the most in 2022.
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Dec 1, 2022
Holiday Books: 9 Illuminating Reads from Graduate Center Faculty and Alumni
These memorable books make great gifts.
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Recent Books
View all Philosophy books
Plato's Exceptional City, Love, and Philosopher
This book reconnoiters the appearances of the exceptional in Plato: as erotic desire (in the Symposium and Phaedrus), as the good city (Republic), and as the philosopher (Ion, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman). It offers fresh and sometimes radical interpretations of these dialogues.
Those exceptional elements of experience - love, city, philosopher - do not escape embodiment but rather occupy the same world that contains lamentable versions of each. Thus Pappas is depicting the philosophical ambition to intensify the concepts and experiences one normally thinks with. His investigations point beyond the fates of these particular exceptions to broader conclusions about Plato's world.
Plato's Exceptional City, Love, and Philosopher will be of interest to any readers of Plato, and of ancient philosophy more broadly.
Published February 2021
Routledge, 2020

Spinoza
Justin Steinberg and Vatteri Viljanen
Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker.
In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise and up-to-date account of Spinoza’s thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza’s ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza’s impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers.
Accessible and compelling, Spinoza is the go-to text for anyone seeking to understand the thought of one of history’s most fascinating thinkers.
Published January 2021
Polity, 2020

Hungry Ghosts
Monsoon, 2020 SINGAPORE SAGA, VOL.3
Set against the development of Singapore in the years 1852-1869, Hungry Ghosts (Singapore Saga, Vol 3) continues the vivid portrayal of the lives of the early pioneers, including Tan Kim Ching, W. H. Read, Habib Noh, Tan Kim Seng, Mother St Mathilde, Syed Ahmed Alsagoff and Whampoa as well as an array of fictional characters who bring nineteenth-century Singapore to life.
A female refugee from the Taiping Rebellion is kidnapped in Amoy and sold as a concubine in Singapore; an enterprising Indian convict converts his training as a metalworker into the more lucrative business of counterfeiting; a terror-filled secret society soldier is led down to the ten courts of hell on the night of the hungry ghosts; Duncan Simpson meets with the Heavenly King in Nanking and is tortured in a Chinese prison; an English wife escapes a loveless marriage when the ‘ghost ship’ CSS Alabama puts into Singapore.
As the fates and fortunes of its protagonists play themselves out against the backdrop of the Indian Mutiny, the Second Opium War and the last years of the Taiping rebellion, Singapore becomes a Crown colony and celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its founding.
Hungry Ghosts is volume three in the Singapore Saga, a series of historical fiction covering the early years of Singapore, and follows Forbidden Hill and Chasing the Dragon.
Published November 2020