Below is the audio recording of Christia Mercer’s Presidential Address, given at the 2019-2020 Eastern Division Meeting. The talk is titled “Empowering Philosophy”, and in it she argues for a reconceptualization of the history of Western philosophy so as to allow a retrieval of important work, hitherto unrecognized. She notes how an emphasis on “Great Men,” like beads on a string, has overlooked the seminal ground out of which their views had arisen, and entailed a concealment of certain prejudices which warrant a deeper reexamination. She argues, therefore, that a “new narrative project” is requisite for an inclusion that would both recognize important and overlooked contributors and bring about a less prejudicial account of our shared philosophical endeavor.
The audio of the address is available here:
Christia Mercer is the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, the Founder and Director of the Center for New Narratives in Philosophy, and the President of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, 2019-20. She has been at Columbia University since 1991. Since publishing Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development in 2001, she has published papers on early modern Platonism and its centrality in early modern thought. Her most prominent recent awards include Resident Scholar, American Academy in Rome (2013), Guggenheim Fellowship (2012-13), Visiting Senior Professor at Harvard’s Villa I Tatti in Florence (2015), ACLS Fellowship (2015-16), Folger Library Fellowship (2016), and Radcliffe Institute Fellowship (2018-19).
About this series: The Blog of the APA is pleased to publish the Presidential Addresses and John Dewey Lectures given at the Eastern, Central, and Pacific APA Division Meetings which communicate the ideas and experiences that the renowned philosophers who delivered them felt are most important for people in the field to know. The series starts with the Presidential Address given at the 2017-18 Eastern Division APA Meeting and will continue on a bi-weekly basis. Each speech will be available on the Blog for one month from publication. The Blog wishes to thank the APA leadership and Jeremy Cushing for their support and assistance in making these recordings available.
Emily Rose Ogland is a postgraduate student at the University of Warwick, currently studying the philosophy of literary translation and working on her own translations of current philosophical texts. Follow Emily Rose on Twitter @er_ogland.
