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A late‑night philosophy seminar at the University of Toronto featuring Agnes Callard and Joe Heath sparked a vibrant debate on capitalism ethics, shining a spotlight on the declining status of humanities in a Canadian education system that increasingly favours STEM and professional tracks. The event underscored the importance of humanities for critical thinking and personal growth
In the cool glow of a fluorescent‑lit lecture hall at the University of Toronto, Professor Randy Boyagoda addressed a crowd of nearly 100 students as the first Canadian event of the late‑night philosophy series Night Owls.
He began with an unceremonious admission that this gathering would not add another impressive bullet to anyone's résumé, nor would it be a stepping stone to a job or admission to law school. With a playful wink he told the audience that neither scholarships nor recommendation letters would be yielded by their presence. Instead, their attendance had simply a higher purpose: to live out the conviction that ideas matter in themselves.
Philosophers Debate Capitalism Ethics
What followed was a vibrant, unformatted dialogue lasting close to three hours, in which Agnes Callard, a renowned philosopher from the University of Chicago, and Joe Heath, a political and economic thinker from U of T's own Jackman Humanities Institute, debated the ethics and practicalities of capitalism. The conversation ebbed and flowed from analyses of cooperative versus competitive capitalism, to whimsical musings about whether modern dentistry could be regarded as a triumph of market pricing, to peer‑to‑peer comparisons of genuine socialism versus Senator Bernie Sanders' brand of progressivism.
When Heath quipped that Sanders' ideas were "just Canada," the room erupted into laughter, setting a tone that was relaxed and accessible. Between the spirited prolonged discussions, students who had arrived after the opening remarks could pause at a break area furnished with pizza slices and sparkling water to share their sentiments with one another.
Tiara Maleki Yazdi, a first‑year philosophy‑English double major, describe the experience as "a real privilege," acknowledging that while she and her friends were not immediately certain how the philosophical concepts raised by Callard and Heath could be applied to the concrete contours of everyday life, they found great value in being exposed to perspectives that differed markedly from their everyday experiences in the Canadian post‑secondary ecosystem, which increasingly prioritises STEM, trades and professional courses over the humanities. The events stayed live long after the last speaker slipped out of the room, and thematically them still resonate against the backdrop of a national funding initiative that has prioritised technical and vocational streams.
Humanities Face Enrolment Decline
In September the Ontario government earmarked $1.7 billion over four years for 70,000 new university spaces in areas such as health care, teaching and trades, after consulting local employers to ensure alignment with labour‑market demands. Alberta, finding a similar strategy attractive, announced on 11 September a plan to add 8,000 new seats in engineering, technology, nursing, paramedicine and other professional tracks by the 2029 academic period. The humanities, however, have not enjoyed comparable attention.
Statistics Canada found a 70,000‑student decline in enrolment in humanities disciplines across colleges and universities over the previous decade. This trend intensified after Ottawa's reduction in international student visas, which had previously supplied a major source of funding for Canadian higher‑education institutions.
Despite these polarising shifts, Boyagoda, a novelist and long‑time English professor prior to his appointment as director of the Jackman Humanities Institute in July, underscored the importance of practical training while highlighting that universities are not simply technical institutions. He encourages students who want to pursue STEM or professional fields to also embrace humanities subjects as either secondary majors, minors or electives, citing an upsurge in philosophy course registrations at U of T's three campuses over the past years.
Value Of Thinking Philosophy
The philosophy department chair at U of T Scarborough, Julia Nefsky, argued that "Philosophy is teaching you how to actually think," providing a "power combo" that could effectively boost the intellectual rigour of any technical or professional discipline. The Night Owls event was inaugurated by Nefsky and colleagues Daniel Silver, a sociology professor at Scarborough, and Gurpreet Rattan, chair of philosophy at U of T Mississauga.
Their inspiration travelled from the University of Chicago's own "Night Owls" late‑night philosophical rap sessions, namely Callard's long‑running shows that occasionally took a range of topics from "How do we judge the dead?
" to "Is love worth the pain? " and "The philosophy of divorce. " Callard's contribution, alongside Heath's, was a robust invitation to all, and a call for a renewed appreciation of how humanities topics could enrich our collective intellectual landscape.
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