All right, everybody, we're going to begin now.

So I'd like to welcome everyone.

And thank you for being here this evening. I'm glad to say that this is the first lecture of the newly formed University of Toronto

chapter of the Thomistic Institute.

The Timistic Institute is an academic institute of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception

at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.

It exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world

by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities

in the church and in the wider public square,

using the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the universal doctor of the church, as its touchstone,

tonight's event is being co-sponsored by the McDonald-Agape Foundation, encouraging distinguished scholars for Christ.

Now it is my great honor to introduce our speaker for this evening, Dr. Sarah Byers.

Professor Byers received her PhD right here at the University

of Toronto in Philosophy and is currently an associate professor of philosophy at Boston College.

Her research interests include Augustine, Hellenistic Philosophy, the history of ethics, and

the history of metaphysics, especially ancient and medieval.

She has held research fellowships at the University of Notre Dame, the Pontifical Institute

of Medieval Studies here in Toronto, and at Villanova University.

Professor Byers is the author of the book Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in

Augustine, a Stoic Platonic synthesis, published by the University of Cambridge Press in 2013.

And she has written numerous articles and chapters for publications, including the Journal

of the History of Philosophy, the Review of Metaphysics, Blackwellwell's companion to Augustine, and the Rutledge

...