January 26, 2006
Rochester Blog Back Up
It looks like, after a long hiatus, due in particular to comment spam, that the Rochester blog is back up and running. Give 'em a looksee. (I know, I'm not supposed to be blogging here anymore, but this empty page is depressing. Post some stuff, people! Or shut 'er down.)
Posted by MarkSteen at 4:57 AM | Comments (1)
October 28, 2005
2006 Syracuse Graduate Conference
CALL FOR PAPERS:
March 3-4, 2006
Keynote speaker: Professor Mark Heller (Syracuse University)
Submission Deadline: January 5th, 2006
We invite papers of high quality in any area of philosophy. Please send your submission to Deke Gould at degouldATTsyrDOTTedu as an email attachment in PDF, Microsoft Word or Rich Text formats.
Please submit:
1. A paper no longer than 4,500 words
2. A cover page containing (a) author’s name (b) paper title (c) author’s contact information. (NB: If sending in PDF format, please include (a), (b), & (c) information in a separate document.)
3. An abstract of 200 words or less.
Please submit in blind review format, with all identifying information on the cover sheet; your paper should contain no self-references or other information that indicates your identity. No more than one paper will be reviewed per author. Please do not submit multiple papers.
Submission deadline: January 5th, 2006
For more information, contact Matthew Skene at mskeneATTsyrDOTTedu. A website with more information will be available here.
Posted by Jeremy at 1:47 PM
August 15, 2005
Dr. Steen
Congratulations to Mark Steen, who successfully defended his dissertation this afternoon. He's still got to do a few minor revisions on the bulk of it and one major reworking of one aspect of his last chapter, but he's as good as done at this point. For some reason I have this urge to write a review of the defense, but I'll save Mark having to relive the event.
Posted by Jeremy at 7:12 PM | Comments (3)
April 26, 2005
No Difference without a Difference Maker
is the title of Achille C. Varzi's paper which he will deliver to us on Friday, April 29. Prof. Varzi's visit is sponsored by S.U.'s Graduate Student Organization and is made possible by Judy's hard work as the External Speakers Committee (which is not a committee.)
The talk will begin at 4 pm in Killian Room, 500 Hall of Languages. Area philosophers or parts thereof are welcome to attend.
Following is the abstract.
I focus on three mereological principles: the Extensionality of Parthood (EP), the Uniqueness of Composition (UC), and the Extensionality of Composition (EC). These principles are not equivalent. Nonetheless, they are closely related (and often equated) as they all reflect the basic nominalistic dictum, no difference without a difference maker. And each one of them--individually
or collectively--has been challenged on philosophical grounds. In the first part I argue that such challenges do not quite threaten EP insofar as they are either self-defeating or unsupported. In the second part I argue that they hardly undermine the tenability of UC and EC as well.
Posted by ikurtsal at 11:06 AM | Comments (2)
March 14, 2005
Watch the Daily Show Tonight
Lindsay at Majikthise thankfully reminded me that philosopher Harry Frankfurt will be on the Daily Show tonight to talk about his classic, On Bullshit.
Posted by MarkSteen at 2:47 PM
March 11, 2005
2005 Syracuse Conference Update
Emeritus professor C.L. Hardin (our keynote speaker) has kindly made his paper, A Green Thought in a Green Shade, available for download as a PDF file on our Conference Web Page. Our conference is 8 - 9 April 2005.
Posted by kkukla at 10:50 AM
January 12, 2005
David Chalmers Starts One Up
Looks like David Chalmers has started up a blog, "Fragments of Consciousness," which you can find here.
Posted by MarkSteen at 1:05 AM
January 3, 2005
Utilitarianism 2005
The call for abstracts for the Utilitarianism 2005 conference is here:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~isus2005/
The conference is August 11-14 at Dartmouth. Note the prizes for grad student papers.
Posted by bbradley at 2:49 PM
December 5, 2004
2005 Syracuse University Philosophy Graduate Conference
We now have a web page up for our Annual Syracuse Philosophy Graduate Conference at http://web.syr.edu/~degould/philgradconf2005.html. For additional information about philosophical events (including our upcoming conference and past conferences) in the local Syracuse area (broadly construed), please see http://philosophy.syr.edu/ and then click on 'Events'.
High quality papers in any area of philosophy are welcome.
I would like especially to thank Mark Barber, Judy Cueva-Alegria, Deke Gould, Irem Kurstal-Steen, and Brendan Murday for their help in planning our annual philosophy conference, and, of course, our entire department.
Posted by kkukla at 1:56 AM
November 13, 2004
New blog
There is a new blog (well, new to me). It's focus is teaching philosophy--Metatome:Watering the Roots of Philosophical Practice
-Chuck
Posted by cmaxfield at 2:03 PM
October 24, 2004
2005 Syracuse University Philosophy Graduate Conference
The Syracuse University Philosophy Department will be holding its annual Graduate Philosophy Conference, February 25 - 26 (Friday & Saturday). The deadline for submission is January 15, 2005, though no formal announcement via either email or snail mail has been made, so this is a bit premature. A formal announcement and details of our conference (e.g. our keynote speaker) will be made shortly and be posted here.
If you have any questions please email me, Kevin Kukla, at kkukla at syr dot edu.
Posted by kkukla at 10:39 PM | Comments (5)
September 23, 2004
Updates to Early Modern Texts
I have recently been informed by Jonathan Bennett that Early Modern Texts has an additional ten undergraduate 'translations' of works by Leibniz available for our use. We first announced the launch of the site here.
Posted by MarkSteen at 2:49 PM
September 15, 2004
GMAIL accounts, anybody?
I've got five more gmail account invites that I don't know what to do with. Any takers?
Posted by MarkSteen at 12:54 AM | Comments (12)
September 9, 2004
Speaker Schedule for 2004-5
I thought some outsiders might be interested in the following speaker schedule (blatantly just cut-and-pasted from an email by Ishani and Ben). Thanks Ishani and Ben for all the work of organizing. All days are Fridays unless otherwise noted, and we don't have all the titles available. Frances Howard-Snyder, Western Washington University, September 10 (Ethics, Metaphysics, Religion) "Cannot" Implies "Not Ought" Richard Moran, Harvard University, October 1 (Mind, Aesthetics, Epistemology, Wittgenstein) Getting Told and Being Believed Michael Morgan, Indiana University, October 6 (Note: Oct. 6 is a Wednesday) (Religion, Jewish philosophy) (Co-sponsored with Religion and Judaic Studies) Ernest Lepore, Rutgers University, October 15 (Language, Logic, Metaphysics, Mind) Context and Content Ted Cohen, University of Chicago, November 12 (Aesthetics, Humor) (Cohen is coming as part of the University's speaker series on humor, but is giving a separate talk to the philosophy department.) Susan Campbell, Dalhousie University, February 4 (Feminism, Philosophical Psychology, Aesthetics, Ethics) Jeff McMahan, Rutgers University, April 8 (Ethics, Political Philosophy) Nathan Salmon, University of California at Santa Barbara, April 15 (Metaphysics, Language)
Posted by MarkSteen at 12:24 PM
September 3, 2004
To the New Guys
For our new grad students, and two new professors, if you would like to be furnished with a login and password please email me at marksteen AT gmail DOT com. One more announcement. Tom McKay's class on plurals has changed from Tuesdays at 4:00 to Thursdays at 7:15. Also, our nice web-space benefactor, Matt Mullins of Ektopos, has added the cool Amazon feature of books by our profs, which you can find on the lower right. As we couldn't put every book down, I'll be rotating them from time to time.
Posted by MarkSteen at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)
August 20, 2004
Language/Mind
An interesting article on why some cultures are bad at math.
Posted by kkukla at 2:34 AM | Comments (6)
July 30, 2004
Syracuse Workshop on the A Priori
Well, the SWAP will occur on August 20-22, and there's a webpage on the conference available here (thanks to Brendan Murday for organizing the conference and for putting up the page). There's already a couple of the read-ahead papers posted on the webpage. Although Brian Weatherson's paper is not a read-ahead one, interested conference-goers or the jealous excluded can check out a draft version of his "From Anti-Scepticism to the Contingent A Priori". Old hands who were here when Brian was will certainly welcome him back with beer and objections.
Posted by MarkSteen at 12:14 PM | Comments (1)
July 24, 2004
Seminar on Plurality
Tom McKay approved of my idea of posting his announcement about his seminar on plural quantification, along with related topics (such as non-distributive predication). Tom has a new book on this subject which you can check out by clicking on the departmental webpage on the links list, then clicking on faculty, then McKay [sorry, for some reason my linking feature isn't working now]. I think some local-ish non-Syracusan (e.g., Cornell, Rochester) folk might be interested in attending. Here's the announcement [note that Tom will not have computer access until the end of the month and so you should wait a bit to email him or post questions here for him until August] : Seminar, Fall 2004, on "Plurality" (McKay) There are lots of topics, and I want students' own interests to determine some of what we do. My fundamental project (in a book I have just finished) has been to explore the issue of expanding first-order predicate logic to allow non-distributive predication. A predicate F is distributive iff whenever some things are F, each of them is F. Consider: (1) They are students. They are young. (2) They are classmates. They are surrounding the building. The predications in (1) are distributive, but the predications in (2) are non-distributive. Non-distributive plural predication is irreducibly plural. In ordinary first-order logic, only distributive predicates are employed. The incorporation of irreducibly plural predicates is related to a wide range of issues in metaphysics, philosophy of language, foundations of mathematics, logic, and natural language semantics. Some of the issues that we might consider:
What is the nature of plurality? How should we think of the relations among sets, mereological sums, pluralities and individuals? What (if anything) are these different ontological kinds, and how are they related? Can one thing be many? (Is one deck identical to the 52 cards? Or is this not an identity relation?) Singular and plural predication; singular and plural quantification; singular and plural reference. How do those fit together? When we consider the full range of determiners in English and try to incorporate quantifiers to represent that, there are many interesting semantic issues to resolve. How does the semantics of plurality relate to the semantics of mass terms? In the foundations of mathematics, how far can plurals take us without set theory? What is the relationship of second-order logic to plurals and to the foundations of mathematics? What is the nature of ontological commitment? What does semantics commit the semanticist to? What does it say speakers are committed to? (For example, if I say that the analysis of adverbs requires an event semantics, does that mean that an ordinary user of adverbs is committed to the existence of events? This kind of issue becomes interesting when we look at the semantics of plurals.) Can we talk about everything without paradox? Are plurals a special resource to enable us to do so? A large number of issues about the relationship of semantics and pragmatics come together when we consider definite descriptions. Usually discussions focus on singular definite descriptions, but we can see what difference (if any) it makes when we insist that the account be general enough for plural and mass definite descriptions. This then also relates to the consideration of pronominal cross-reference and demonstrative reference. Some have argued that an event semantics is important for getting plurals right. It will be interesting to look at event semantics and how that relates to plurals. I will meet with each enrolled student early on in the semester to identify some areas of interest and get started on developing the student's presentation and paper on a topic of the student's choice. If people are interested in looking into this before the semester begins, my book is available on the department's website: http://philosophy.syr.edu/ (Click on my name in the list of faculty.) Also, Oystein Linnebo has posted a draft of his forthcoming Stanford Encyclopedia article, and it is a good introduction: http://folk.uio.no/oysteinl/. Scroll down to "Plural Quantification." We will not presume any greater familiarity with logic than you would acquire by being alive and awake through most of PHI 651. Please get in touch with me if you have questions. tjmckay@syr.edu
Posted by MarkSteen at 4:13 PM | Comments (4)
July 9, 2004
Early Modern Texts
This is Jonathan Bennett's Early Modern Website.
Update (by Jeremy): It's probably worth pointing out that this isn't a site about early modern philosophy. It's a collection of early modern texts prepared by Jonathan Bennett. The difference with these is that they're modernized. The ones not written in English are contemporary translations, and I think they're much better than anything you can buy. The ones originally written in English are modernized to be more easily understood by undergraduates. Some people really oppose this sort of thing, but I've found that the archaic language is the biggest obstacle to undergraduates' understanding of early modern philosophy texts, and it significantly decreases their motivation to read the texts. When I've used Bennett's translations, those problems have been greatly mitigated.
Posted by kkukla at 8:54 AM | Comments (1)
June 29, 2004
Vagueness
I have two (don't ask how) hardback copies of Rosanne Keefe & Peter Smith's Vagueness: A Reader, and wish to sell one of them at $25.00. It's in perfect condition: I never opened this copy. I think that's a fair price? I thought this medium would reach more people interesting in this topic than doing a more public auction. Please contact me, if interested.
Posted by kkukla at 2:14 PM | Comments (1)
June 24, 2004
Bernard Henri-Levy
The French philosopher, Henri-Levy, authour of War, Evil, and the End of History, will be on Charlie Rose this evening.
Posted by kkukla at 2:27 PM | Comments (1)
June 7, 2004
Farewell Tom Holden
It's with sadness that we say farewell to Tom Holden, who is now leaving us to set up camp at UC Santa Barbara. Tom's been a great member of the department during his run here, and has done an excellent job teaching the various Early Modern courses. We just had a fun farewell party yesterday at Ben Bradley's house, and our respect for Tom as a philosopher has not dimished even in light of his extremely, extremely poor basketball skills. As a parting gift, since this is the most I can afford, I'd like to leave a link to Amazon UK where you can pre-order Tom's (self-explanitorily titled) book, The Architecture of Matter: Galileo to Kant. Tom's book developed out of his dissertation (advisor: Simon Blackburn) from Chapel Hill, which has received quite a bit of praise. Happy trails, Tom! We'll miss you.
Posted by MarkSteen at 2:45 PM
May 29, 2004
Help a Philosopher Fight Leukemia and Lymphoma
Itir Erhart, another Turkish philosopher (B.A., M.A.--Bogazici, ie, Bosphorous Univ., M.Phil--Cambridge, currently working on PhD for Bogazici), and friend of Irem and I, who, like Irem is also married to a stunningly handsome American man and living in the States, is training to run the Chicago Marathon in order to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphona Society. Please help this do-gooder realize her goal of raising $1,400 by giving via this link. She's only up to five miles or so at a time, so give her a boost (oh, and help fight these truly awful diseases)!
Posted by MarkSteen at 6:14 PM
May 18, 2004
Summer Philosophy Activities
We have two summer philosophy groups going on this summer, all of which should be of interest to the SU grads, and one of which might be of interest to others in the nearby area. Ishani Maitra is running a work in progress seminar which will meet every two weeks starting this Friday, where Eric Hiddleston will present his paper in progress on physical causation, which you can find here On either the 11th or 25th of June, Irem Kurtsal Steen, my favorite philosopher, will be presenting on either Russell and sense data, or on a work in progress on persistence. Somewhere a bit later I'll be presenting the third, and hopefully much shorter and tidied-up version of my 'How to be a Stuff-Process Ontologist.' I'll announce more presentations when they come up. Secondly, the meeting time for the modal logic reading/work group has been set. We'll be meeting on Thursdays at 4pm in the Dietl Room. The purpose of the modal logic group is for us grads to get more familiar with the various more popular systems of modal logic, as well as get a grasp on certain applications of same (we'll be somewhat ignoring completeness/soundness issues, which were well covered in Brown's course not too long ago). Our reading materials so far include: -Rod Girle's Modal Logics and Philosophy -The Chellas volume (sorry, forgot the title) -Mark Brown's modal logic manuscript -The Hughes and Cresswell -Varzi's online notes [any suggestions or critiques of materials welcome] Philosophy students who can commute here and would like to join us for the modal logic group are welcome. Our first readings are Girle, pp1-28, and the first chapter of the Chellas book. The first meeting is May 27th, where we'll also be formulating a syllabus of sorts for the rest of summer. If you're interested in joining, email me at marksteen@gmail.com .
Posted by MarkSteen at 12:01 PM | Comments (3)
May 9, 2004
Recent Comments
In case you haven't noticed, there's a list of recent posts in the left column (which will eventually become the right column, if we follow the advice of Matthew, our host). It's also possible to list the most recent comments. Do we want to list that in the sidebar also? It should be easy enough for me to copy my own source code for that into the template for this blog. We'd just have to decide how many to list. I suggest we start with the ten most recent comments. Right now we only have seven comments, so it won't list ten yet. Any thoughts?
Posted by Jeremy at 3:12 PM | Comments (2)
May 5, 2004
Well Here We Are
Welcome to OrangePhilosophy! This is the second incarnation of OP. We used to be located at www.orangephilosophy.blogspot.com, where you can find the older entries. The site still needs some tinkering, but I'm a bit busy now with grading for the finals. Expect some changes in the coming days, and an increase in the amount of blogging as we all finish up our finals and grading.
Posted by MarkSteen at 12:17 AM | Comments (7)