6:30 p.m.
Welcome and Opening Remarks (Trudy Conway)
7:00 p.m.
Social
9:00-10:30
Oladele Balogun
“The Relevance of Philosophy to African Thought”
James King
“Lying Beside Truth: The Tragedy of Lying or Do You Lie to the Nazi?”
10:45-12:15
Howard Ponzer
“Hegel’s Speculative Idealism: A Return to Realism”
Rob Metcalf
“Nietzsche’s Inner Christian”
2:00-2:45
Ramona Ilea
“Philosophy’s Impact in the Public Domain: Animal Ethics and the Use of Examples”
Sunday, Cont.
3:00-5:00
Panel Discussion
Trudy Conway, Ralph Ellis, and Karen Bardsley
Monday, July 24
9:00-10:30
Jeremiah Conway
“The Humor of Philosophy”
David Chan
“Faith and Leadership”
10:45-12:15
Jeremy Wisnewski
“Marcuse, Wittgenstein, and the Critique of Social Practice”
Roger Paden
“Meanings and Worldviews: On Interpreting Wittgenstein”
2:00-2:45
Andy Fiala
“Playing with Plato’s Dove: Anarchy, Peace, and Philosophy”
3:00-5:00
Business Meeting
9:00-10:30
Janet Donohoe
“Tradition in Crisis: Benjamin, Heidegger, Husserl and the Primacy of Space”
George Teschner
“Terrorism and the Phenomenology of Understanding”
10:45-12:15
P. Eddy Wilson
“Ethical Experts and Socratic Irony”
Michael Krom
“The Relevance of Contemplation: Aristotle on the Philosopher and the Common Good”
9:00-10:30
Paul Haught
“Explicating Wonder as a Humean Environmental Virtue”
Jack Weir
“Casuistry and Intuitionism: Old and New Friends”
Wednesday, Cont.
10:45-12:15
Michael Krausz
“From Elucidation to Edification”
Noel Boulting
“On the Question ‘Is Life Worth Living?’ or Does it Depend Upon the Liver?”
2:00-3:30
Roundtable Discussion: “The Public or Political Relevance of Philosophy”
9:00-10:30
Chris Chapman
“Exploration of a Contractarian Procedure for Participatory Design”
Eric Thomas Weber
“Who Wants to Read a Handbook”
Abstracts and Biographical
Statements
for
Society for Philosophy in
the Contemporary World
2006 Annual Conference
“The Relevance of Philosophy to African Thought”
Oladele Balogun
The paper is an
attempt to underscore the indispensable relevance of philosophy to African
traditional thought system. On the one hand, the paper argues that while
traditional Africans like any people of other traditional societies, had
earlier forms and modes of both thinking and cultural beliefs which constitute
their thought systems; these thought systems are better understood through
philosophical interpretation. On the other hand, the paper explores the
essential roles of the application of philosophy to a better understanding and
appreciation of elements of traditional African thought system. The methodology
is analytic and critical. In its analytical nature, the paper argues
constructively that philosophy is relevant to African thought system. The paper
locates the relevance of philosophy to African thought system in its conceptual
and critical nature. Its conceptual capacity makes clear seemingly confusing
concepts and beliefs in the traditional thought system. Through its critical
nature, philosophy appraises the essential aspects of these traditional
thoughts, which are still useful for contemporary living while at the same time
jettisoning the anachronistic elements of the traditional culture. In its final
analysis, the paper concludes that the roles of philosophy in the contemporary
African world should be seen beyond the tenacity by which it appraises African
thought system to the extent by which it is able to contribute to the triumph
of the forces of change, progress and development in
Dr. Oladele
Abiodun Balogun is a Senior
Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy,
Panelist
Karen Bardsley
Dr. Bardsley is an Assistant Professor of Philsophy
at
“Is Life Worth Living or does it depend on the Liver?: Three Responses by William James and Ernst Bloch”
Noel Boulting
Is Utopian thinking a response to pessimism? James’s essay Is Life Worth Living? deals
with this question. James offers a number of ways for escaping pessimism: i) leaving “the bare facts by themselves” – in construing
the scientific order of nature – or permitting ii) a “religious reading to go
on” by postulating “supplementary facts which may be discovered” or iii)
“believed in”, an “invisible world” invoked by “our religious demands” as
somehow ultimate. One way of approaching
Ernst Bloch’s philosophy is to see him as dealing with James’s three ways: a)
through Existentialism; b) allowing for a sense of “a real becoming” understood
historically, created, that is, by humans to make nature “a home”; c) in terms
of a teleologism messianically
understood needed to ground the idea of Hope. But how can Bloch’s conception of
Utopia to be understood? It might be interpreted in terms of Theodor Adorno’s conception of a tacit, imageless Utopia longed for
within the human condition or it might be grasped as a messianic conception to
make sense of Bloch’s notion of ens-perfectissum,
thereby requiring a possible metaphysical explication to make sense of it.
Noel Boulting studied under
Richard S Peters at the London Institute of Education to obtain his academic
diploma in the Philosophy of Education; under David Hamlyn
and Stuart Brown at Birkbeck College, London, to
obtain his first degree in philosophy; and under Imre
Lakatos and John Watkins at the London School of
Economics to obtain his mastership in the Philosophy of Science. He has taught
philosophy for the Extra-Mural Department, University of London; Philosophy of
Education at Trent Polytechnic and Educational Studies at Mid-Kent College of
Higher and Further Education. His philosophy club, NOBOSS, was
formed in 1977 on the basis initially of forwarding an interest in the
philosophies of A N Whitehead and C S Peirce since such interests could not be
pursued in English universities outside theology departments at that time. NOBOSS
meets at least twice a year, and professors of philosophy from
“Faith and Leadership”
David K. Chan
In this paper, I seek a philosophical account that will explain
the proper role of faith in political leadership. I will evaluate an argument from
faith-based morality, which starts with the premise that decisions made by
a person who is sustained by faith are morally better than decisions made
without faith. Is this true? And if so, does it follow that we should
prefer leaders who make faith-based political decisions?
David Chan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the
“Exploration of a Contractarian
Procedure for Participatory Design”
Christopher N. Chapman
I describe a novel attempt to apply a philosophical
procedure to a real-world task of engaging technology users in the process of
making decisions about product design.
Prior work has noted theoretical bases for devoting attention to the
ethical structures implemented in technology.
I review the needs of technology design that make user input useful but
difficult to obtain, and argue that a contractarian
procedure modeled after Rawls's original position might help overcome the
difficulties. This procedure was
attempted with actual user research participants. I detail the procedure and its results, and
then discuss theoretical and practical questions raised by the research study. Overall, the attempt yielded little
information on the product in question, perhaps due to procedural issues. Still, it showed significant indication of
utility that justifies further exploration.
I am a user research lead in the Hardware division at
Microsoft Corporation. My role is to
understand how consumers use, perceive, and understand computer hardware
products. As a member of product
development teams, I use this research to help design and build better products
for users' needs. Prior to joining
Microsoft in 2000, I was a clinical psychology resident and senior postdoctoral
fellow at the University of Washington Medical
Center. My postdoctoral work focused on
artificial intelligence and complex systems research applied to the
psychophysiology of pain. I hold an MA
and PhD in clinical psychology and an MA in philosophy.
“The Humor of Philosophy”
Jeremiah Conway
While we might not like to admit it, laughter about
philosophy is not confined to the back rows of introductory courses. Philosophy has been the butt of jokes
throughout history. Unfortunately, the
jokes about philosophy usually fly outside the range of professional earshot
and are seldom engaged. In this paper, I
examine two comic writers––Aristophanes and Woody Allen––for what they find
funny about philosophy, in particular, what each finds humorous about the
patron saint of philosophy, Socrates.
The humor is instructive, I believe, in its ability to capture the
tension between philosophy and everyday life. The paper focuses on three
aspects of this tension: first, that from the perspective of everyday life,
philosophers are lost in the clouds; second, that philosophy is practically
useless; and third, that philosophy operates in self-enforced isolation from
people’s ordinary lives. While there are
few things as annoying as ruining good jokes with analysis, the paper responds
to the question why the activity that these comedians find funny, philosophers
take seriously
Jeremiah Conway is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the
Panelist
Trudy Conway
Trudy Conway is Kline Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint
Mary's University in
“Tradition
in Crisis: Benjamin, Heidegger, Husserl
and the Primacy of Place”
Janet Donohoe
This
article addresses the way in which Husserl, Heidegger and Banjamin
understand the relationship between tradition and place as an opening for response to the
crisis of tradition. That crisis is
identified by both Benjamin and Heidegger as being intrinsic to tradition, but
also as exacerbated by the modern technological society. The crisis is subsumed by the concerns of everyday
modern existence and the need for a response to the crisis is forgotten,
deferred. Edmund Husserl also writes of
crisis in the 1930s and engages in a call to responsibility, the focus of which
is slightly different from that of either Heidegger or Benjamin. However, all three indicate that in the
modern period, tradition becomes merely about information, about statistical
facts and not about communal historical memory.
The way each philosopher thinks we can address the crisis, reveals an
emphasis on spatiality and its role in the transferring event of
tradition. This becomes fundamentally
important, then, for a theory of the role of place in tradition towards which I
will gesture at the end of the paper. It
also becomes important for thinking about the place of philosophy in the
contemporary world.
Janet Donohoe is an associate professor of philosophy at the
Panelist
Ralph
Ellis
Ralph
Ellis received his PhD in philosophy at
“Playing
with Plato's Dove: Anarchy, Peace, and Philosophy”
Andy
Fiala
My aim in
the present paper is to defend a normative conception of philosophy as peaceful
anarchic play through which we cultivate virtues such as patience, tolerance, and
love. I consider how philosophical
activity is a peaceful and anarchic pause that interrupts ordinary time. I claim that this ideal of philosophical
activity forms a tradition that rivals the modern enlightenment idea (found in
Kant, for example) that philosophy has to be progressive. The paradigm I defend can be found in Plato, Levinas, and Emerson.
I consider ideas discussed by these three thinkers in order to
articulate the details of this paradigm.
Andrew
Fiala is Associate Professor of Philosophy at
“Explicating Wonder as a Humean
Environmental Virtue”
Paul Haught
In this essay, I continue to explore the possibility for a Humean defense of environmental virtues. In particular,
this paper builds on a previous analysis of Hume’s understanding of humility.
Here I turn to a consideration of the virtue of wonder. The environmental ethical
significance of wonder is vast, not least for its contribution in making
scientific accounts of the natural environment relevant to determinations of
value. Moreover, as a virtue, wonder complements and perhaps more adequately
accounts than humility for an agent’s motivation to have concern for the
natural environment. But as a Humean analysis
reveals, an account of wonder as a form of moral
excellence may face difficulties. These stem in part from wonder’s tendency to
elevate the aesthetic value of the
world, including the potentially damning anthropocentricity of its value for
human amusement. Nonetheless, through an exegesis of Hume’s accounts of
curiosity and the love of truth, I show how a defense of the environmental
value of the virtue of wonder is possible and ultimately worth making.
Paul Haught is Assistant Professor
of Philosophy at
“Philosophy’s
Impact in the Public Domain: Animal Ethics and the Use of Examples”
Ramona
Ilea
Many
people, including intellectual historians and social commentators, believe that
contemporary philosophy does not have an impact in the public domain. Yet, some philosophical works have made a big
difference. One such example, which I
will focus on, is Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation. I argue that the impact of Animal
Liberation and other influential works is to a large extent due to the
careful use of examples and analogies.
Philosophers can learn from Singer’s careful use of examples and analogies
how to construct arguments that are both philosophically rigorous and more
effective in triggering social change.
Ramona
Ilea has just defended her dissertation, titled "Moral Philosophy and
Social Change." She will be moving
to
“Lying Beside Truth: The Tragedy of Lying,
or Do You Lie to the Nazi?”
James King
This paper presents a discussion of four theories about,
what I shall call, the tragedy of lying. I mean this in the dramatic sense of the
word: tragedy as the collision of two goods, in contrast to a travesty, i.e., a
misfortune. The colliding goods, in our
case, are truthfulness and saving another’s life. The following thinkers deal with this tragedy
by offering advice, either directly or indirectly, on the scenario of the
Nazi-Jew situation: does one lie to the Nazi when asked if one is hiding
Jews? These thinkers include two
canonical minds, St. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant, and two contemporary
thinkers, Alexander R. Pruss and Benedict M. Guervin. Following
the sections on each of the thinkers, a conclusion considers the utility of the
theories by using the criteria of “right reason.” From this one may then deduce whether one
does lie to a Nazi in two senses: whether one should and whether one actually
does.
J.M. King is an intellectual historian at the
“From
Elucidation to Edification”
Michael
Krausz
I itemize
seven paradoxes-or, I should say, clusters of paradoxes-that arise from the
idea of self-realization as embodied in the Vedic mantra, "Thou Art
That." They are: 1) the Paradox of Self Reference, 2) the Paradox of
Motivation, 3) the Paradox of Interpretability, 4) the Paradox of Framing, 5)
the Paradox of Intentionality, 6) the Paradox of Self Recognition, and 7) the
Paradox of Rationality and Truth.
Michael Krausz is the M. C. Nahm Professor of Philosophy at
“The Relevance of Contemplation: Aristotle on the Philosopher and the Common
Good”
Michael P. Krom
In this essay I seek an ancient yet timeless answer to a
perennial question: What is the role of
the philosopher in society and in what way are those who commit themselves to
philosophical endeavors relevant and perhaps even necessary for communities?
What I offer for our consideration is an Aristotelian understanding of
the nature of philosophy and its relevance to society. This conception hinges upon maintaining that
philosophy is a contemplative activity pursued for its own sake: philosophy must be shown to be good for
society, not by becoming a handmaiden to society, but on its own merit as a
theoretical pursuit of wisdom. I
conclude by briefly considering the extent to which Aristotle’s model can speak
to our own pluralistic society and to a philosophical community that does not
necessarily agree with him concerning the nature of philosophy. My hope is that by doing so I will have
contributed to the ongoing dialogue concerning the role of the philosopher in
the contemporary world.
Michael Krom is currently a PhD. Candidate in Philosophy at
“Nietzsche’s Inner Christian”
Rob Metcalf
In his book, Nietzsche
and Christianity, Karl Jaspers draws our attention to an often
under-appreciated point about Nietzsche’s philosophy: namely, that Nietzsche wishes to overcome Christianity
on the basis of a kind of intellectual discipline that is itself distinctively
Christian. At the same time, Jaspers
criticizes Nietzsche’s avowed appropriation of Christianity as being thoroughly
nihilistic—i.e., drained of
specifically Christian content. This
paper argues that, on Nietzsche’s interpretation in the Antichrist(ian), Christianity (or at
least that part of it that reflects Jesus’ teaching) is itself nihilistic in
just this way, and furthermore we can understand Nietzsche’s thinking as a
developed stage of Christianity’s nihilistic core.
Rob Metcalf grew up in the dystopian outer-suburbs of the
San Francisco Bay Area. At age eleven he
joined the Mormon Church for the promise of practicing black magic—an
ill-conceived venture that left him an embittered adolescent. Although his undergraduate experience at
Brigham Young was, on the whole, relatively sober, he did turn on to philosophy
for the sheer intellectual thrill of it.
Now an assistant professor at the
“Meanings and World Views: on
Interpreting Wittgenstein”
Roger
Paden
In Wittgenstein’s
Roger Paden received his Ph.D.
from the
“Hegel’s Speculative Idealism: A Return to Realism”
Howard Ponzer
In this paper, the author argues that Hegel’s speculative idealism
attempts to reconcile the competing philosophical positions of idealism and
realism. Through an examination of Hegel’s reading of Kant’s “Ideal of Pure
Reason” in the Critique of Pure Reason,
the author shows that one of Hegel’s main criticisms of transcendental idealism
is that the exclusion of the thing-in-itself is tantamount to the denial of any
kind of substance-based realism. In
response to the problem of the thing-in-itself, Hegel advocates a return to a quasi-Aristotelian realism,
but in such a way that preserves (hebt … auf) what
he views as Kant’s subjective idealism.
The author concludes by suggesting that Hegel conceives the
reconciliation between idealism and realism also as an historical
reconciliation between the moderns and the ancients in the figures of Kant and
Aristotle.
Howard Ponzer
received his PhD from the
“Terrorism and the Phenomenology of Understanding”
George Teschner
The paper examines Jean Baudrillard’s
interpretation of the phenomenon of international terrorism and its
relationship to globalization. The paper suggests a way of understanding
terrorism based upon Hans Gadamer’s analysis of the
German word ‘Bildung’, that is variously translated
by such words as “culture”, “formation, “ learning”,
“education”, and “ refinement”. Gadamer’s
distinction between the humanities, Geisteswissenschaften,
and the natural and social sciences, reveals two fundamentally different
epistemological orientations. The
relevance of the humanities, and philosophy in
particular, to politics among sovereign nations, is revealed against the
background of Baudrillard’s analysis of terrorism and
Gadamer’s contrast between understanding in the
humanities and in the sciences. Philosophical understanding is essentially
hermeneutic and self-reflective, and comprehends the phenomenon of terrorism
symbolically, in contrast to the objectifying, fact-oriented positivistic
sciences. Therein lies the relevance of philosophy and
its central role in understanding and responding to contemporary forms of
terrorism.
George Teschner teaches a wide
range of Philosophy courses at
"Who
Wants to Read a Handbook?"
Eric
Thomas Weber
Universities
often provide their students with handbooks that simply list facts, procedures,
and requirements for
completing degrees at their institutions.
This is the kind of handbook that no one wants to read. It is one we must on occasion consult. There is a long tradition in philosophy of
writing handbooks that has all but disappeared today. Such works might not be considered scholarly,
but this view is mistaken. University
education is expensive, intimidating, and complicated. Studying methods of curriculum development and goal setting can
be deeply philosophical and research oriented.
And, a brief survey of the handbooks available to students outside of
what their universities provide offers little of depth. Philosophers can fill this gap. This presentation aims to discuss some of the
ways in which I propose handbooks be written for persons entering colleges and
universities. They must be inviting, philosophical,
and constructive. My goal here is to
invite as much feedback as I can muster on the subject, such that I may one day
offer a helpful resource to new university students seeking some advice on how
to get the most out of their experience in college.
Eric
Thomas Weber is a PhD candidate at Southern Illinois University Carbondale,
defending his dissertation prospectus in September. His focus is social and political philosophy
with emphasis on democracy, education, and human rights. His aim is to defend his dissertation next
May.
“Casuistry and Intuitionism: Old and New Friends”
Jack Weir
In this paper, I outline and reject canonical
interpretations of the history of moral casuistry. Taking issue with widely accepted accounts, I
propose and defend two theses: (a) Old Casuistry and Old Intuitionism were
philosophical friends; and (b) Old Casuistry survived along with Old
Intuitionism until the end of the 1800s.
In addition, I argue that, culminating in contemporary pluralistic casuistry, three new traits distinguish New Casuistry and
New Intuitionism from their parents: (a) a pluralism of prima facie duties; (b)
an epistemology of noninferential intuitive judgments
of the good, the right, and the actual; and (c) a pluralistic explanation of disagreement
among attentive minds.
Jack Weir is Professor of Philosophy at
“Ethical Experts and Socratic Irony”
P. Eddy Wilson
In their discussion of ethical expertise
Hubert Dreyfus and Stewart Dreyfus suggest that philosophical reflection may be
most helpful to moral agents in the early stages of their development. As they mature and move toward expertise
moral agents seems to have far less use for reflective thought. According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus experts rely
upon intuition to react to ethical crises.
They concede that even expert moral actors must come to terms with
ethical dilemmas. I suggest that
Socratic irony is instrumentally valuable for the resolution of ethical
dilemmas at all stages of development.
If I am correct, then it would be misleading to think that mature moral
actors can eventually rely upon intuitions alone rather than the rational
judgments.
P. Eddy Wilson
was an
“Marcuse, Wittgenstein, and the Critique of Social
Practice”
Jeremy Wisnewski
In this paper I defend a particular conception of the point
of philosophy. I do this by examining Marcuse’s criticism of early analytic
philosophy in general, and of Wittgenstein in
particular. I argue that Marcuse gets Wittgenstein wrong, but suggest that he
gets the point of philosophy right. I do this by attempting to show how Wittgenstein
has much to add to a critical social theory.
Fish. In addition to philosophy, J.
Jeremy Wisnewski enjoys dada humor. Kangaroo. He is
currently finishing a sentence at