IUP Philosophy majors and minors are invited to submit a paper on a philosophical topic of their choosing. Papers will be judged by a panel of Philosophy faculty. To enter, submit one copy of your paper to Professor Carol Caraway (either in person or in her mailbox in Sutton 452) by 3:00 p.m. on Monday, May 13, 2013. Papers must be typed, at least six double-spaced pages long, and written in standard font with standard margins. Papers must include a bibliography. Please prepare your paper for blind review by removing all identifying remarks (including your name) and providing a detachable cover sheet with your name, e-mail address, and paper title.
Further contest rules and details can be found at the Howard Z. Fitzgerald Philosophy Essay Contest webpage.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Prof. Caraway at caraway@iup.edu.
]]>In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty argues that analytic philosophy inherited a program founded on the thought that the mind “mirrors” reality, and he contends that this program is bankrupt. In this talk I show that C.S. Peirce and Wilfrid Sellars were engaged in the sort of project for which “mirroring” talk is apt, and I argue that their work affords a productive way of countering certain of Rorty’s views.
]]>Eating is one of our most basic human behaviors. But, aside from occasional questions about health, we typically do not wonder about the moral, political, and aesthetic dimensions of food. This multi-disciplinary course will seek a greater understanding of the role food and eating plays in our lives by exploring such questions as:
The course will be taaught by Professor Eric Rubenstein on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00–3:15 p.m.
No prior Philosophy courses are required.
]]>Monday October 1, 2012, noon–1:00 p.m. in the HUB Delaware Room (next to Einstein Bagel Co.)
“I grew up reading Ayn Rand, and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are . . . . [T]he reason I got involved in public service, if I had to credit one person, would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.”
—Paul Ryan, Republican vice presidential candidate
Carnap’s conception of linguistic frameworks, and his associated distinction between internal and external questions, is supposed to give rise to a view on which philosophers’ ontological questions—“Are there properties?”, e.g.—are pseudo-questions that are somehow confused or discontinuous with science. But what is the confusion that Carnap sees in ontology? According to the received view, Carnap rejects “external” existence questions because they are posed outside of any language for science, and for this reason lack cognitive meaning. I argue that, contrary to the received view, the rejection of external questions is not sufficient for Carnap’s critique of ontology. I then offer an alternative interpretation. I argue that Carnap’s critique of ontology involves a rejection of arguments that move from statements of existence to prohibitions against language forms (such as second-order variables). Carnap, I claim, rejects arguments of this form regardless whether the existential claim occurring as premise is internal or external. I then propose what I call Carnap’s “pragmatism” as an account of what is wrong with the problematic arguments. Carnap’s pragmatism holds that, in science, languages are to be used as instruments to facilitate inferential moves to and from observation reports. The incorrectness of the language’s existential theorems need not reduce its effectiveness as an instrument for manipulating observation reports in this way. This is why, given Carnap’s pragmatism, we cannot argue from an existential statement to the prohibition of a language.
]]>Philosophy’s first tragedy was the conviction and execution of Socrates by the citizens of Athens. Plato famously recounts the trial and defense in his dialogue, Apology of Socrates. But, that defense is deeply ambiguous. Though Socrates is charged with impiety by not believing in the gods and for corrupting the youth, he never explicitly rebuts the former charge or even seeks to establish that he’s not an atheist. Rather, he aims to prove his own piety by appealing to the existence of his personal daimon (“divine voice”) and to a certain prophecy of the Delphic Oracle of Apollo, who is to have said: “no one is wiser than Socrates.” These accounts serve as evidence that the activity of questioning and interrogating politicians (and anyone in the city who naively considers themselves wise) is sanctioned by divine command of a god whom the city officially recognizes.
Socrates thus implicitly accuses the Athenians themselves of wishing to interfere with his divine mission. Athens therefore, ironically, demonstrates its own impiety by depriving its youth of the genuine improvement which only philosophy can provide, namely an education in true justice. Socrates’ attempt to vindicate his own way of living has the further important consequence of illustrating an unavoidable tension between how philosophy and society understand piety.
]]>Bender presented “The Significance of Love in Plato’s Symposium,” Black presented “Power and Shame in Plato’s Gorgias,” Farella presented “The Science of Buddhist Meditation,” and Staszkiewicz presented “A Review of Plato’s Crito.” A panel of PASSHE faculty selected the best student papers presented at the conference. Congratulations to Heather Black and Anthony Farella for winning best student paper prizes!
Two faculty members from the Philosophy Department, Hans Pedersen and Brad Rives, also presented papers. Pedersen presented “Heidegger’s Critique of Causal Understanding of Human Action,” and Rives presented ”Three Views about Predicates and Properties.”
]]>Abstract: Marx speaks, especially in Capital, of the capitalist as “capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will,” a person who acts in a manner that is to a great extent determined by economic laws that guide the movement of the capital she possesses. He also speaks, in Capital and elsewhere, of the actions of the proletariat understood in terms of what it is as a class and what, by virtue of that nature, it will be compelled to do. Numerous authors have taken this strand in Marx's thought to indicate that he thinks human actions are one-sidedly determined by economic laws that operate beyond their control. Indeed, it has become something like conventional wisdom that Marx subscribes to a crude economic determinism that would make human freedom unintelligible, and thereby rule out or at least render incoherent and unintelligible any genuinely moral content in his later work. I argue that this is incorrect. While he analyzes the ways in which capitalism limits human action, Marx also recognizes that human beings under capitalism have a range of freedom within which they act, and which can be expanded through that action. It is precisely this historically limited yet growing capacity of human beings to intervene consciously into their historical situation that forms a key aspect of his moral philosophy. While economic factors, on Marx's view, play an important role in determining human history, it would be wrong to construe this observation as one that rules out human freedom.
]]>Abstract: One of the more radical views to emerge from the study of Environmental Ethics is the claim that come kinds of value are not anthropocentric. It is quite common to see this claim asserted as a justification for protecting particularly remote or barren pieces of wilderness. These places are said to have a kind of intrinsic value that is particularly resistant to being recognized by human beings. Here, our normal methods of discovering value seem inadequate to the task of recognizing these values. However, this is not to say that there is no way for a human being to become aware of their existence. It is sometimes claimed that only a conversion experience can put one in contact with these forms of intrinsic value. But this raises a question. Assuming that these forms of intrinsic value exist, what political system is best able to protect them? I will argue that theories which ground political authority in a social contract risk being unable to account for these intrinsic values in the right way. In addition to this problem, democratic systems are prone to develop self-defeating strategies in attempting to protect these values. I then go on to argue that the form of government presented in Republic contains the elements necessary to properly treat this form of value. I conclude that a form of political authority grounded in expertise, rather than consent, represents the most promising method of accounting for, and ultimately protecting, the intrinsic value of these spaces.
]]>This volume brings together fifteen philosophers from four different countries at different stages of their lives in philosophy. Some work on issues in language, some on issues of mind, some on the history of philosophy. What is common is the respect, admiration, and appreciation of Jay F. Rosenberg, the person and philosopher.
This collection of articles began as a Festschrift in celebration of Rosenberg’s philosophical work upon the occasion of his retirement from full-time teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007. Jay was thrilled to learn of its projected contents, but unfortunately this was just before his death from cancer on February 21, 2008.
The book is divided into four broad sections: first on Rosenberg’s interpretation and use of Kant’s famous transcendental deduction, and then on various issues pertaining to Language and Mind, Mind and Knowledge, and Ontology in which the contributors critically engage with the views of Rosenberg and (in many cases) Sellars.
]]>Students are invited to submit a paper on a philosophical topic of their choosing. To enter, please submit one copy of your paper to Dr. Sarah Star (either in person or in her mailbox) by noon on Monday, April 25, 2011.
Papers must be typed, at least six double-spaced pages in length, and written in standard font with standard margins. Please prepare your paper for blind review by removing all identifying remarks (including your name). Please include a detachable cover sheet with your name, e-mail address, and the paper’s title.
The discussion is concerned with the degree to which a wrongdoer may be morally responsible, in the sense of being open to moral blame, for an action when she was unaware of the moral status of her behavior. I will argue that while ignorance of the consequences of one’s behavior often does undermine blameworthiness, mere normative ignorance typically does not. So, for example, while I may not be blameworthy for having unjustifiably injured you if I was unaware that my action would have that result, I would be blameworthy if I was simply unaware that unjustifiably injuring you is impermissible. First, I develop this claim in the context of rebutting a skeptical challenge to moral responsibility based on the supposition that normative ignorance excuses wrongdoers. Second, I consider several different examples of unwitting wrongdoing and formulate an account of the knowledge condition that applies to blameworthiness.
]]>Divinity was the destination of many Greek philosophers. Their route: pure reason. Thinking consistently, and thus of the eternal, they understood the divine to be likewise. Indeed, they understood god to be identical with their authentic self. Heraclitus also saw an identity between god and self, but he understood both very differently. Starting from his meditation on the temporal cosmos, this talk shows him challenging consistency, providing instead a logic of chiasmus. This impure reason proves to be his becoming god, as well as his own route to it.
]]>All are invited to this event. Come find out why Philosophy majors get good jobs and do so well on the GRE and the LSAT!
The Young Alumni Achievement Award was created to recognize recent IUP graduates identified as being outstanding in their fields, and to present such alumni to current IUP students as examples of exceptional achievement.
Fitzgerald, this year’s recipient for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, serves as director of Development for the College of Liberal Arts at the California State University in Long Beach, where he leads all development activities for the college. During his first year in the position, he raised $3.4 million through his fundraising efforts.
]]>Abstract: A number of philosophers are rather sanguine about the truth of the principle that “ought” implies “can.” Many philosophers hold that an agent cannot be morally obligated to do something that she is unable to do. The speaker offers reasons for denying this principle, and for thinking that this popular approach to the relationship between obligation and ability is mistaken.
]]>The conference will take place June 30–July 3, 2010, at Strahov Monastery in Prague, Czech Republic.
]]>The speaker aims to develop sustainability ethics as a new field of applied ethics and provide a substantial input to the analysis and solution to the issue of sustainability. He argues that the issue of sustainability has an inherent ethical dimension, and demonstrates that the ethical issue is a rather complex and new one which requires a new type of sustainability ethics to adequately approach it.
]]>Abstract
In numerous philosophical accounts of what it means to be a free person, theorists have insisted that standing in certain social relations are required, specifically ones involving recognition and non-domination. Millions of people around the globe, however, live in places and under conditions where the terms of such recognition is up for grabs, since the language of their own self-conception differs, often radically, from the language and culture of their surroundings. In this paper I argue that in cases where people find themselves completely dislocated from the social and cultural homes that had provided them with the language in which to formulate and express their values, it is clear that social recognition may be causally but not conceptually required for agency to be (re-)established. This is shown by noting that often victims of human trafficking or smuggling find themselves in foreign settings where it is quite up for grabs where and how they will attempt to reconstruct a life narrative which they can generally embrace. Therefore, seeing social recognition as conceptually required for autonomous agency or freedom would ignore the variability in the ways that such recognition must be expressed.
]]>Synopsis
There has arisen, over the past several decades, the tendency to interpret Heidegger’s Being and Time as an appropriation and transformation of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. One particularly influential instance of this interpretive strategy is to maintain that Division I of Being and Time is Heidegger’s appropriation of Aristotle’s concepts of productive activity (poīesis) and the corresponding virtue of craft knowledge (tēchne), while Division II of Being and Time is the appropriation and Heideggerian account of action in the proper sense (prāxis) and the corresponding virtue of practical wisdom (phrōnesis).
Steven Crowell has recently provided a strong challenge to this reading of Being and Time. The broad contours of Crowell’s criticism run as follows. The virtue of phrōnesis can be thought of as excellence in practical reasoning (or deliberation). The interpretive tendency to make a strong connection between phrōnesis and Heidegger’s account of conscience in Being and Time does not work because in his account of conscience, Heidegger is not trying to provide a description of the structure of practical reasoning or a normative analysis of what constitutes excellence in practical reasoning.
I agree with Crowell that there is something lacking in previous Aristotelian interpretations of Division II of Being and Time. Crowell’s criticisms of the previous Aristotelian interpretations of Division II of Being and Time, rather than conclusively refuting the Aristotelian interpretation, serve to highlight the lack of a clear and detailed demonstration of exactly how phrōnesis is transformed into the conception of conscience found in Being and Time. It is the aim of this paper to provide such a demonstration.
]]>Synopsis
Although most concept theorists have given up on the empiricist claim that all of the concepts inhabiting the adult mind are ultimately grounded in perception, or built up out of perceptual representations, many nevertheless hold that at least some concepts are constitutively connected to perception. Such concepts have come to be called "recognitional concepts" and they have the following characteristic property: thinkers are disposed to form perceptual beliefs invovling them merely on the basis of undergoing certain perceptual experiences. I argue that a prominent strategy for defending the existence of constitutive connections among concepts, which appeals to thinkers’ semantic-cum-conceptual intuitions, cannot be used to defend the existence of constitutive connections between concepts and perceptual beliefs. I then outline and defend an alternative argument for the existence of recognitional concepts, which appeals to certain psychological laws.
]]>Papers will be judged by a panel of Philosophy faculty members. Submit one copy of your paper to Prof. Mary MacLeod (in person or in her mailbox).
Papers must be typed, at least eight double-spaced pages in length, and written in standard font with standard margins. Please prepare your paper for blind review: remove all identifying remarks and include a detachable cover sheet with your name, e-mail address, and the paper's title.
The speaker aims to develop sustainability ethics as a new field of applied ethics and provide a substantial input to the analysis and solution to the issue of sustainability. He argues that the issue of sustainability has an inherent ethical dimension, and demonstrates that the ethical issue is a rather complex and new one which requires a new type of sustainability ethics to adequately approach it.
]]>Dr. Pedersen’s research interests include Heidegger, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Continental Philosophy, and Philosophy of Action. Courses that Dr. Pedersen teaches include Informal Logic: Methods of Critical Thinking, Introduction to Philosophy, and Ethics.
]]>The Seminar is directed by John Heil and will be held at Washington University in St. Louis.
]]>Synopsis
Quine famously argued against the existence of an “analytic/synthetic” distinction, which is (roughly) the distinction between statements that we can know simply by understanding their meaning, and statements that we can know only because we know something about the world. To deny this distinction is to deny that there’s a principled distinction between specifications of the meanings of expressions, and specifications of what speakers believe about the referents of expressions. In this paper, I take a look at what I take to be one of the most important arguments in favor of positing the existence of an analytic/synthetic distinction, namely, that it’s the best explanation of our semantic/conceptual intuitions. Contemporary Quineans in philosophy and cognitive science argue that there are alternative explanations of these intuitions that do not involve positing any analyticities. I consider the most recent Quinean attempt to explain away such intuitions, put forward by Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence, and argue that it fails. I suggest that part of the reason for this is that they fail to recognize an important implication of the explanatory case of analyticity, namely, that analyticity must be divorced from truth.
]]>Instructions:
Prior to the deadline above, submit one copy of your paper to Prof. Brad Rives (in person or in his mailbox). Papers must be typed, at least eight double-spaced pages in length, and written in standard font with standard margins. Please prepare your paper for blind review: remove all identifying remarks and include a detachable cover sheet with your name, e-mail address, and the paper’s title.
All IUP Philosophy majors and minors are invited to submit a paper on any philosophical topic. Papers will be judged by a panel of Philosophy faculty members.
Location: HUB Susquehanna Room
The purpose of this talk is twofold. First, it will provide something of an introduction to the philosophical ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Dr. Fox will not presuppose any familiarity with Wittgenstein’s work. Second, Dr. Fox will relate Wittgenstein's ideas on the notion of self-expression: what kinds of limitations are there on what we would call “self- expression” (be it of a spoken, written, or traditionally “artistic” type)? The results are perhaps not what we would naively expect, and they have implications for how we characterize our relationships to others.
]]>Come celebrate the twenty-first anniversary of the PASSHE Interdisciplinary Association for Philosophy and Religious Studies at our annual conference to be held at IUP on April 11 – 12, 2008. PASSHE IAPRS presents papers in all areas of philosophy and religious studies by undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members (both current and emeritus).
]]>Indiana University of Pennsylvania, April 11-12, 2008
Come celebrate the twenty-first anniversary of the PASSHE Interdisciplinary Association for Philosophy and Religious Studies at our annual conference to be held at IUP on April 11-12, 2008. PASSHE IAPRS seeks papers in all areas of philosophy and religious studies by undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members (both current and emeritus).
Deadline is March 1, 2008 March 6, 2008.
E-mail submission is preferred. Attach the paper/abstract (preferably as a Word document) to an e-mail message indicating the items listed above for the cover sheet (students) or abstract (faculty). Send the message to caraway@iup.edu.
For hard-copy submission, send three copies of the paper, separate cover sheet (students only), and abstract (faculty and students) to
Professor Carol Caraway
Department of Philosophy
Sutton Hall, Room 452
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Indiana, PA 15705