Hosted by the University of South Alabama
This year's theme will be "At the Crossroads of Philosophy and Psychology"
Sponsored by University of South Alabama Philosophy Department
September 19-20 2008
Keynote speaker: Joshua Knobe, University of North Carolina
Submissions are due no later than August 1. Early submissions are encouraged.
]]> Presentations should be 20 to 30 minutes in length. Presentations will be followed by commentary and audience discussion.Papers should be prepared for blind review.
The cover page should include the following:
1) author's name
2) professional or student submission (note: advanced students are
welcome to submit "upwards")
3) institutional affiliation
4) email address
5) telephone number
6) the paper's title
7) an abstract - 150 words maximum
Papers in any area of philosophy are welcome, but papers in the area of philosophy of psychology, broadly construed, will be given special consideration. Philosophy of psychology, broadly construed, includes, but is not limited to, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of moral psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, action theory, artificial intelligence, rationality, philosophical psychology, etc. We encourage papers from across all disciplines, as long as the papers are philosophical in nature.
Student papers - undergraduate or graduate - in any area of philosophy are welcome, but papers in the area of philosophy of psychology, broadly construed, will be given special consideration. Philosophy of psychology, broadly construed, includes, but is not limited to, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of moral psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, action theory, artificial intelligence, rationality, philosophical psychology, etc. We encourage papers from students across all disciplines, as long as the papers are philosophical in nature.
There will be a $15 conference fee for student submitters, payable
at the conference. A prize will be awarded to the best student paper.
There will be a $25 conference fee for professional presenters, payable at the conference.
Papers should be emailed to jss310@jaguar1.usouthal.edu no later
than August 1.
Questions can be emailed to jss310@jaguar1.usouthal.edu.
Alabama Philosophical Society Annual Meeting
September 26-27, 2008
Hilton Beachfront Garden Inn
23092 Perdido Beach Boulevard
Orange Beach, Alabama
Rooms will be held at the Hilton Beachfront Garden Inn (251-974-1600) until August 31st.
Papers in any area of philosophy are welcome. Submissions should not exceed 3,000 words and should include a 100 word abstract and be prepared for blind review. All submissions must be e-mailed by August 7th or postmarked by August 4th. Electronic submissions preferred.
Send papers in MS-Word, RTF, or PDF format as e-mail attachments to alabamaphilsoc@gmail.com.
Alternatively, mail three copies of your paper and abstract to: Dr. Ted Poston, Dept. of Philosophy, 124 HUMB, University of South Alabama, Mobile AL, 36688.
Please watch http://www.geocities.com/ALPHILSOC for updates.
For inquiries, contact Ted Poston at poston[AT]jaguar1.usouthal.edu.
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The Alabama Philosophical Society
Undergraduate Student Essay Competition
$75 Prize
Essay Prize: $75 will be awarded to the best undergraduate student paper. Papers in any area of philosophy are welcome. Student should be prepared to present the paper at the APS Meeting, September 26-27, 2008.
To Enter: Papers should be marked "Undergraduate Essay Competition" and should be no longer than 3,000 words, with the author's name and address on a separate title page. Send entries in MS-Word, RTF, or PDF format to alabamaphilsoc@gmail.com.
Alternatively, mail three copies of your paper and abstract to: Dr. Ted Poston, Dept. of Philosophy, 124 HUMB, University of South Alabama, Mobile AL, 36688. Email inquiries may be sent to alabamaphilsoc@gmail.com.
Conference information: The conference is being held at the Hilton Beachfront Garden Inn, 23092 Perdido Beach Boulevard, Orange Beach, Alabama. Rooms will be held at the hotel (251-974-1600) until August 31st, 2007.
Watch for updates on our website, http://www.geocities.com/ALPHILSOC
Philosophers notoriously question authority, perhaps even the authority of a gang to enforce its turf. We also love protesting things--especially war. But don't let our disdain for the war in Iraq fool you, we object to all kinds of things. Some of us even deny that streets exist. Others may even relegate colors to secand-class ontological citizenship, thus placing no importance on what colors it is appropriate to wear when. So, which is more likely, that an eliminativist questioned the very existence of some street demarcating one gang's turf from another gang's thus provoking retaliation or that some gang got involved in the usual inter-gangland dispute resulting in an unusual spike in violence for no reason? I think it's obvious.
I'm going to file this away in my mind under the title "Interesting Corroborations" and pull it out whenever philosophers get labelled peace-lovers. By the way, I'm a peace lover. All my colors are neutral and I like no street of Chicago any better than any other. That is, unless your turf is one such street, in which case I like it the best.
]]>The gist of my talk is a point about the scholar. I maintain that the scholar (minimally) understands both sides of a certain duality. The duality is that between refutation, on the one hand, and following an argument where it leads, on the other. Although my point is more generally applicable, it applies especially well to philosophy.
Think back to the first Phi-100 course you took. Chances are you read several works on many different topics. The typical impression that results from such a class is the impression that there is no right answer. Take a look at Plato's theory of whatever. Aristotle refutes (a version of) if with his "third-man" argument. But Aristotle gets modified by so-and-so. That person in turn gets modified by... The process goes on and on. Students may get out of this, even against their prof's own wishes, the moral that all positions have holes in them and, thus, if all positions have holes then all positions are equal. What else do they get out of it? They learn several tools for refutation. They learn objections to every position they encounter. Oh, so you're a dualist? I have a problem for you. Oh, you're a physicalist, good luck explaining qualia.
Needless to say, this attitude is dangerous (remember the sophists?) and not an accurate impression of the discipline. But, and here is where I pushed the duality I noted above, the scholar does not just know all of the standard and non-standard "refutations" of all of the positions, she also has indulged in the positions. She has put on her physicalist-hat, or her dualist-hat, and seen what mileage the positions have. She has pushed these positions to the limit and seen what they can do, what they can explain. If, at the end of this process, she decides to give up on a position then that act is more significant than giving up on a position because you just learned it has a problem with causality, to take dualism for example. A scholar's rejection, as we all already know, counts for more than someone else's.
What is the proper balance? Of course one should not stand firm come what may. We can list the great philosophers who have given up on or modified their positions when it was called for. But we shouldn't be too quick either. We all know that general relativity won't be the final theory (so I've been told by experts). But we don't give up on it without a suitable replacement. We don't do it in physics, we don't do it in government, and we shouldn't do it in philosophy. The scholar is the one in a unique position to make that choice and be warranted in that choice.
In conclusion, yes, some positions can be refuted simply. Most cannot. However, most, nay, all, have some problem or other. But, not all positions are equal, and this cannot be realized unless one really gets into a position and sees what it can do. It is the scholar who is in the best position to do both.
[Anyway, that is a precis of the talk I gave. Any comments are welcome, of course. I can see something like this ending up as the introduction to an intro book, or something similar, sometime down the line.]
]]>Question: How did I miss #55? In any case, #55 is here.
]]>Deadline Dec. 15, 2007
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The deadline for submissions is November 12, 2007.
The MSU Graduate Conference has traditionally focused on ares of Social Political Philosophy and Bioethics, but strong submissions from all areas are welcomed.
Please circulate the attached CFP to your graduate students. For additional information about the conference, please visit:
http://www.msu.edu/unit/phl/gradconference/index.html
Regards,
Eric Berling
Matthew St. Lawrence
Conference Co-Chairs
contact: philconf@MSU.EDU
]]>Tag #1: WSDMLVR
Tag #2: EXTRNLST
Tag #3: DA SEIN (for all you continental folk out there)
]]>March 29-30, 2008
Keynote lecture “THE NEW ME: What Knowing Your Own Genes Will Mean.”
Ian Hacking
University Professor Emeritus
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
University of Toronto
Deadline: Jan 18, 2008
]]> The Graduate Conference at the University of Illinois is the longest running conference of its type in the country. Unique in its diversity, this conference typically features papers representing the best graduate work being done in Analytic and Continental philosophy. We welcome papers from graduate students on any topic of philosophical interest and from any philosophical perspective.Submission Deadline: January 18, 2008
Submission Guidelines: Authors should email their submissions as an attachment (.doc or .pdf) to the following address: uiucgradconf@gmail.com. Papers should not exceed 15 pages in length in standard format. Selections are determined by blind review: no identifying references should appear within the paper. Please include your name, affiliation, address, phone number, and email address either as a separate attachment or in the body of your email. Identify your email in the message line as “uiuc grad conf submission”. Papers may be mailed in duplicate to the following address:
Krista Thomason
Department of Philosophy
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
810 S. Wright/105 Gregory Hall
Urbana, IL 61801
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