Prospective agency is our ability to form commitments and coordinate actions with ourselves and others through time. Philosophers have reflected on prospective agency as it manifests in contexts of relative affluence: mostly predictable environments where agents enjoy some economic stability and functioning institutions. Of course, that kind of context is not representative of most people’s realities. How would our understanding of prospective agency change once we consider environments of poverty, characterized by scarcity and structural unpredictability? In this talk I will use new work in the sociology and psychology of poverty to reinterpret the key philosophical notion of intention. While intention has often been seen as intimately linked to plans, I will argue that this link is contingent and that intention can take multiple forms that differ significantly from standard plans in response to the structure of the agent’s practical environment. 

What criteria should we use to justify ethical imperatives?  As the philosopher Alain Locke once said about imperatives, ‘after all, we live by them.”  If ‘anti-realism’ (sometimes described as non-realism or irrealism) about ethical and moral values is true and thereby relativism (or at least moral error theory) is warranted, then what criteria do we use to justify imperatives?

 I begin in a void: a conceptual space without concepts and argue that we have strong reasons to justify the defeat of the most morally egregious form of misery – necro-being – given that (a) there are no necessarily true ethical or moral values, (b) that this is a non-moral universe and (c) as J.L. Mackie puts it in Inventing Right and Wrong, there is no objective queer universe of moral properties.  I argue that we can warrant the imperative to defeat necro-being without relying on logical positivism, i.e., the use of AI decision theory algorisms, natural science or logic reasoning models to explain social reality and warrant imperatives.

In this talk, I explore ways that the aesthetic character of places (inviting, strange, threatening, familiar, comforting, creepy, seedy, sinister, somber, serene, etc.) can impact moral, prudential, and political norms that operate in those spaces. This will in turn lead to questions about how we should approach our power to shape the aesthetic character of places.

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The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence Network Talks (PAINT) is hosting a two-day in-person workshop at University of Toronto on September 25th and 26th, 2026. The theme of the workshop is Philosophy of AI and Science. Topics covered will include philosophical aspect of artificial intelligence, philosophy of science, epistemology of science, philosophy of mind, metascience.

A light breakfast , coffee, and lunch will be provided on both days.

Spotlighting Alexandre Kojeve's distinct contributions to legal scholarship, while also showcasing his broader influence across a range of disciplines - including philosophy, political theory, sociology, law, and transnational studies - these two books include original contributions from eminent editors, translators, and biographers of Kojeve, as well as from historians of legal and political thought, specialists on global trade and private international law, statelessness, and public international law.

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