About The Annual Examen Philosophicum Lecture
Every year, an influential philosopher and skilled communicator is invited to give a lecture on a current exphil theme.
Exphil is often associated with the history of philosophy, but is fundamentally about continuing an ongoing critical conversation. Since 2017, the Department of Philosophy, History of Ideas and Art and Classical Languages has organized the annual exphil lecture.
The lecture will show the subject's relevance and give the students an insight into the philosophical research front. To the extent that space permits, the lecture will also be open to other interested parties, and everyone can follow the lecture directly on the internet.
Through this close contact with the research front, students and society at large will see that the boundaries of knowledge are expanded by women and men who think differently and who challenge established truths.
Summaries and recordings of previous lectures
2025: Lea Ypi: Are Revolutions Justified?
On October 30, 2025, Lea Ypi gave the annual Examen philosophicum lecture at the University of Oslo.
Lea Ypi (b. 1979) is professor of political theory at the London School of Economics (LSE). She is a leading scholar in democratic theory, with a particular focus on issues related to justice, migration, and territorial rights.
Can the goals of revolution justify the means, or are societal upheavals of this kind always wrong? Ypi explores these questions in the lecture.
Authors who think about the justifiability of revolution are often divided between those who criticize it on grounds of institutional legalism, and those who endorse it on grounds of idealist moralism. Legalists think that since the means of revolution are wrong, revolution can never be right. Moralists think that since the ends of revolution are right, revolution can never be wrong.
In this lecture, Lea Ypi revisits their arguments and offers an alternative that tries to cut across the divide. She examines revolution not in relation to the justice of individuals but grounded in a philosophical theory of history that focuses on collective progress.
Comments were given on the lecture from an invited panel consisting of:
- Reidar Maliks is professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo (UiO).
- Arne Johan Vetlesen is professor of philosophy at the UiO.
2024: Agnes Callard: «What is Free Speech?»
On September 5, 2024, Agnes Callard gave the annual Examen philosophicum lecture at the University of Oslo.
Callard is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Callard primarily works on ancient philosophy and ethics, and actively engages in public philosophy.
In this lecture, associate Callard explores a Socratic answer to the question: "What is Free Speech?", which rejects many of the standard liberal models of free speech – free speech as open debate; free speech as the marketplace of ideas; free speech as openness to persuasion – on the grounds that they fail to guard against the politicisation of speech.
Callard explains what politicisation is; why it is coercive, i.e., unfree; and how Socrates' approach to conversation offers a way of avoiding it.
2023: Kwame Anthony Appiah: «Understanding Racism»
On September 9, 2023, Kwame Anthony Appiah gave the annual Examen philosophicum lecture at the University of Oslo.
Appiah is a British-Ghanaian philosopher and professor of philosophy and law at New York University.
In this lecture, Appiah attempts to explain the various ways we use the term "racism." He addresses notions of race and distinguishes between individual racist beliefs and other attitudes.
He also discusses the role social institutions play in maintaining systematic racial injustice.
Appiah argues that these issues must be seen as produced and sustained by racist ideology if they are to be addressed comprehensively.
The lecture is published by Inquiry. Read the full article "Understanding Racism" (tandfondline.com), with introduction and commentary by Aness Webster and Anna Smajdor.
2022: Quassim Cassam: Extremism - A Philosophical Analysis
On 28 September 2022, Quassim Cassam gave this year's big Exphil lecture at UiO.
Quassim Cassam is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy.
Quassim Cassam identifies three types of extremism – ideological; methods; and mindset extremism – and will use them to discuss the following fundamental topics and issues:
- What is extremism?
- What are the methods adopted by extremists?
- Is there an extremist ‘mindset’ and if so, what is it?
- Can some forms of extremism be accepted?
The speaker for the lecture was Kari Sletnes, senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Oslo.
Comments were given on the lecture from an invited panel consisting of:
- Sebastian Watzl, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo
- Cathrine Thorleifsson, associate professor at the Department of Social Anthropology and Center for Extremism Research, University of Oslo
2021: Stephen Gardiner: Climate Crisis & Institutional Denialism
We have reached the crunch time for the climate. In the Exphil lecture on September 27, 2021, which was held digitally (Zoom), the American philosopher Stephen Gardiner outlined the difficult situation and proposed a solution. As he sees it, climate change is a deep ethical challenge, and new institutions are needed to respond to this.
Gardiner calls the ethical challenge 'a perfect moral storm', and argues that current climate strategies, including the Paris Agreement, are unfortunately insufficient to meet this storm. One of the reasons why current climate strategies do not work is the shortcomings of the existing institutions. But this basic fact is surprisingly ignored in most discussions about solutions.
Commentator for the lecture was Alejandra Mancilla, professor of philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas (IFIKK), at the University of Oslo. Her main research interests are in political philosophy and environmental philosophy.
2019: Sally Haslanger. But what can we do? Ideology, power and agency
Professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sally Haslanger gave the Exphil lecture on 7 October 2019 in auditorium 1, Georg Sverdrup's house. Haslanger is particularly known for work within metaphysics, epistemology and feminist theory. As a researcher, she has a wide scope, and has published works on Aristotle's concept of substance and on the social construction of race and gender.
In this lecture, Haslanger showed how we all perpetuate social injustice through various practices, but also how we can resist such tendencies and work towards justice.
Participants in the lecture:
- Introduction: vice-rector Gro Bjørnerud Mo
- Speaker: Associate Professor Ingvild Torsen
- Comments: Associate Professor Alejandra Mancilla and Professor Herman Cappelen
2018: Åsa Wikforss. Knowledge in the post-truth era
The lecture was given in Norwegian.
2017: Peter Singer. Forty Years On: Are All Animals Equal?
On Friday 27 October 2017, moral philosopher Peter Singer held the first major annual Exphil lecture at the University of Oslo.
Australian Peter Singer holds the Ira W. DeCamp Professorship in Bioethics at Princeton University, and holds an honorary professorship at the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He is a specialist in applied ethics and is one of the most widely read philosophers of our time.
Singer's book Animal Liberation (1975) criticizes speciesism and argues for veganism and against animal testing with a utilitarian starting point. The book has had a strong and long-lasting influence on champions of the moral status of other species.
Singer's work has also made important contributions to the Effective Altruism movement. His view of the concept of person, which he connects to the ability to have preferences, has led him into controversial positions within a number of bioethical topics.