Carolina Weatherall

Professor of Philosophy Scott Sehon was asked a challenging question by his grandmother upon returning home to Kansas after his first semester of college: “What is philosophy?” He was asked the same question this year by incoming students at the academic fair, and it is one of the questions he sought to answer last night in his lecture “Nihilism, Magic and the Value of Philosophy.”

In this inaugural lecture, which followed his 2022 appointment to the endowed Joseph E. Merrill Professorship, Sehon spoke about his more than three decades of research and instruction at Bowdoin. Sehon drew especially upon content in his seminar course Nihilism and Magic, in which he builds upon the theory underlying much of his work—that philosophy matters even if it may seem mystical, for such mysticism poses a powerful alternative to the rejection of meaning or morality.

“For each of us, in the ways we think of ourselves, in the ways we interact with others,… we assume answers to philosophical questions,” Sehon said. “Yes, such theories postulate mysterious magic, but the alternative is a kind of nihilism that is even worse.”

Many students who took Nihilism and Magic last fall gathered in Kresge Auditorium to hear Sehon speak, but the audience also included Brunswick community members, students from beyond the philosophy department and Sehon’s family and friends.

In the opening of his lecture, Sehon noted the difficulty of speaking to an audience with such vast disparity in prior philosophical study.

“These inaugural lectures are a very tough task,” he said. “There are experts, and there are others who admittedly are still a little fuzzy on what philosophy is.”

Bob Fu ’25 cited Nihilism and Magic as one of his favorite courses at Bowdoin. Fu said he was excited to hear Sehon’s research connected with the work of philosophers whose writing was read and discussed in the course.

“The materials here would be quite difficult to understand without taking philosophy, and I was interested to see how he made it more accessible,” Fu said.

Also in the audience was President Safa Zaki, who introduced Sehon and congratulated him on being the sixth professor to hold the Joseph E. Merrill Professorship, which is the tenth oldest endowed position at the College.

“When you hear a Merrill professor has been appointed, you know they stand out,” Zaki said. “I can tell you that Scott’s work is important for many disciplines and offers a lens through which we study politics, religion, law, [etc.].”

In speaking about his published work, Sehon illustrated the widely ranging implications of his research. His books touch upon immediate political questions, addressing notions of free will, making the philosophical case for socialism and affirming the moral soundness of abortion access.

“These questions are unavoidable,” Sehon said. “It is in fact a lot to ask for people to honestly examine arguments and presuppositions. But if there is any chance our democracy will survive, we have to hope that they will.”

By attempting to answer these philosophical questions, Sehon argued, one might grow lost in the sense of magic present in discussions about morality and rationality. He posited that magic stands counter to the meaninglessness found in philosophies of nihilism, which hold that morality and rationality cannot exist.

Sehon closed the evening with a Q&A session, where he was asked whether he believes in magic and answered with a laugh.

“Yes,” he said. “The alternative is incoherent nihilistic abyss, and that’s far, far worse.”