Erasmus Lecture to Salvage Objectivity

Teri Merrick, professor of philosophy at Azusa Pacific University, lectures about “Be Objective! A Post-Christian, Modernist Imperial Command?” Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 3:30 p.m. in Hieronymus Lounge at Westmont’s Kerrwood Hall. The Erasmus Society Lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture series helps students explore a variety of disciplines through talks by leading scholars.

Merrick, who chairs the department of theology and philosophy at APU, will consider ways in which the intellectual imperative of objectivity was pushed and then abandoned by many as just another Enlightenment-era presumption. “Drawing on her scholarship on 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, Dr. Merrick will argue that a distinctively Kantian notion of objectivity is worth salvaging,” says Mark Nelson, the Kenneth and Peggy Monroe professor of philosophy at Westmont.

Merrick specializes in the philosophy of Kant and Frege and also on the philosophy of mathematics and logic. She graduated from CSU Fullerton and earned a master’s degree and doctorate from UC Irvine.

Merrick, who won earned the Dean’s Emerging Scholar Award at APU in 2006 and 2008, has published several articles, including “Teaching Philosophy: Instilling Pious Wonder or Vicious Curiosity?” in Christian Scholar’s Review.