Introduction to the annual Examen Philosophicum lecture

The article ‘Understanding Racism’ by Kwame Anthony Appiah is a revised version of The Annual Examen Philosophicum Lecture held on 29 September 2023 at the University of Oslo, with comments by Anna Smajdor and Aness Webster. Every year since 2017, the faculty members in philosophy at Oslo appoint a prominent philosopher to deliver a public lecture on a topic that shows the relevance of philosophy for today’s social challenges.¹

The lecture and the journal Inquiry share a common history. The lecture honors the course Examen Philosophicum, which has been mandatory for every undergraduate pursuing a Bachelor’s degree at the University of Oslo since its foundation in 1811 (the origin can be traced further back to the University of Copenhagen in 1675). The content has varied but philosophy has always made up its core. The modern version of the curriculum, combining logic, ethics, the philosophy of science, and the history of philosophy, was shaped in the postwar era by Arne Næss, who was a professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo between 1939 and 1970 and the founding editor of Inquiry. He had two goals in mind for the course. First, it would counteract the tendency to educate students as narrow specialists, and, second, it would contribute to a society characterized by a scientific attitude where problems are solved through rational discussion based on relevant evidence.² In an editorial statement in the first volume of Inquiry in 1958 Næss expressed the same values for the new journal. ‘The combination of philosophical perspective, analytical clarity and patient empirical research might contribute to the positive solution of (important contemporary) political, ethical, cultural and social questions’.³ This year’s lecture is therefore in the spirit both of the course and the journal.

Notes

1 Many thanks to Ann-Kristin Korneliussen for help in organizing The Annual Examen Philosophicum Lecture 2023. The lecture is supported by Stiftelsen til filosofiske studier og forskning ved Universitetet i Oslo.

2 Thor-Inge Rørvik, Historien om examen philosophicum 1675-1983, (Oslo, Forum for universitetshistorie, Universitetet i Oslo, 1999), p. 162 and p. 223.

3 «An editorial statement», Inquiry, volume 1, 1958 – Issue 1–4, pp. 1–6.