Dr. Garret Merriam Bio:
Dr. Garret Merriam, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern Indiana. Merriam joined USI’s College of Liberal Arts in 2008. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and English from the University of California at Davis, and a Master of Arts degree and a Ph.D. from Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Merriam’s desire to teach dates to his first day of college, when he was captivated by his professor’s lecture in an introductory philosophy class. “It was both exactly what I was looking for and unlike anything I’d experienced in school before,” he said. “There hasn’t been any other career that I’ve seriously entertained since.”
Merriam began teaching as an adjunct instructor of philosophy at Houston Community College and Lone Star College (formerly Kingwood College). As a doctoral student at Rice University, he moved on to teach courses in such diverse topics as philosophy of religion, moral and legal issues, ethics, and problems of philosophy. For Merriam, philosophy was a rewarding choice; in his words, “I get to put my students in conversation with some of the greatest minds in history, to challenge them to confront the most vexing problems that we face as a species, as a culture and as individuals, and to push them to come up with their own ways of continuing that conversation and addressing those problems. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?” Dr. Merriam received the USI Foundation’s 2012-13 Outstanding Teaching by New Faculty Award.
Dr. Merriam will be taking the famous line from Dostoevsky, “If there is no God, then anything is permissible,” and turning it on its head. He will be arguing that if God and all his trappings, as traditionally conceived of by mainstream Christianity, are real, then our traditional moral values are in deep trouble. In short, if we accept that God is real, then we have to abandon our basic moral ideas. Anything would be permissible.
Questions
If you have any questions on the presentation, please contact any of the Philosophy Club officers below:
- Lauren Stevens – laurenstevens@u.boisestate.
edu or - Dave Mckerracher — davemckerracher@boisestate.
edu - Chris Bower — chrisbower@u.boisestate.edu
For more information on this event, please contact the Philosophy Department at 208-426-3304, or email philosophy@boisestate.edu