Every year since 1979 the St. Olaf Philosophy department has sponsored the Belgum Lectures, which honor the memory of Eunice Belgum, who graduated from St. Olaf College in 1967. The lecture series was established in the hope that Eunice’s tragic death in 1977 would not end her impact on the profession, teaching, and scholarship she loved so much. While the lectures may be on any topic, the philosophy department makes a special effort to choose topics in areas of special interest to Eunice, namely ethics, philosophy of mind, and feminism. These lectures are supported by a fund established by Eunice’s family and friends.

This past fall, the Philosophy Department hosted the 46th annual Belgum Lectures, featuring Regina Rini. Rini holds the Canada Research Chair in Social Reasoning and teaches in the philosophy department at York University in Toronto. Her research draws upon the  philosophical disciplines of ethics and epistemology to illuminate change in society, particularly the effects of new technology. In addition to her scholarly works, Rini writes a regular column for the Times Literary Supplement. She is currently writing a book about the role of epistemology in democratic public culture.

Regina Rini presented two lectures under the series title, “Thinking Together in Troubling Times”. Rini considered questions such as: Which ideas are worth sharing? Can we disagree without being hateful? And does anyone have the authority to say that a question is settled? These issues press especially hard in times of doubt and disorder. We can learn from earlier thinker’s reflections on their own troubling times.

The First Lecture: “Hobbes and the Egalitarian Tragedy of Sciences”

From vaccines to climate change, many people are done listening to experts. They ask: why does some intellectual elite get to tell us that to think? But expertise is unavoidable; modern science is so specialized that no single person can understand it all. This lecture argues that we can best understand the frustrating dilemma of scientific authority by looking back to a time when modern science emerged alongside modern views on political authority. Science, it turns out, is surprisingly like the “Leviathan” of Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy, a central authority empowered to coordinate individual choices. Coping with modern science denial requires acknowledging people’s reasonable resentment of that authority and offering tools for thoughtfully deciding which authorities to trust.

The Second Lecture: “Debate: The All-Consuming Crucible”

We shouldn’t always take what others say at face value. When we disagree, we should try to work out the truth. For that we have debate. But the meaning of debate is also debateable, and this lecture arranges just such a clash of minds across time and space, between the 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill and the classical Buddhist scholar Nāgārjuna. Mill thought of debate as unconstrained intellectual competition, from which only the truth might emerge unscathed. But Nāgārjuna shows the dangers of this position: the weapons of debate are sharp enough to tear down all ideas, even the true ones. Without good faith – a goal of shared discovery rather than intellectual victory – debate leads only to nihilistic skepticism. Much of the shallowness and divisiveness of modern debate, conducted largely on social media, reflects our failure to find good faith in each other.

The Philosophy Department is grateful to have had Regina Rini share her work, and is looking forward to the 47th annual Belgum Lectures next year!