Bert Baumgaertner made the transition from graduate student to Dr. Bert on May 1st! Bert will be joining the Philosophy Department at the University of Idaho as an Assistant Professor in the fall.
Bert Baumgaertner and Brian Coffey have each received a 2013 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award! The awards, which are co-sponsored by the Graduate Council and the Office of Graduate Studies, recognize excellence in teaching by graduate students on the UC Davis campus. For our graduate students to be recognized in this way is a great honor for us; for two to receive the award in one year is really special. Congratulations to both Bert and Brian!
Brian Coffey was honored in the spring or 2013 with a $500 Graduate Student Travel Award. Yea, Brian! The award supported Brian when he presented his paper "Why we do not need intrinsic goodness" at the 39th Annual Value Inquiry Conference in Bowling Green, KY.
Christopher Buckels was the recipient of a People's Choice Award for Best Poster, Honorable Mention, for his presentation on "Suches in Space: Trope Bundles in Plato's Timaeus" at the UCD 2013 Interdisciplinary Graduate and Professional Student Symposium. The award also carried a $50 honorarium. Congratulations, Chris!
The Philosophy Department has received an online gift of $100 from Major Jessel Baisden, an alumnus of our program. The money will be used to finance the annual Undergraduate Essay Contest. Mr. Baisden graduated from UC Davis in 2001 and was a Philosophy - LPHI major. He is President of Iris Data Services, and is owner of the Tannin Wine Bar and Kitchen, a restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri. We are grateful to Mr. Baisden for his support of the Philosophy Department!
Sarah Roe is the recipient of a $500 Consortium for Women and Research Award. The award recognizes women doing research in disciplines where women are underrepresented. The award is to be used during the 2012-2013 academic year for the presentation of original research and networking with other professional women across disciplines. We are very proud of Sarah!
In December 2012, Scotty Dixon was the recipient of a $300 APA Graduate Student Travel Award. Nice going, Scotty!
Our department was honored and delighted by the generous decision to endow a scholarship for undergraduate students by James D. and Carole Barrall. Jim received his BA in Philosophy in 1971, and was profiled in our 2012 newsletter. The scholarship will be awarded based on academic merit, financial need, and, in Jim’s words, “a history of community service or other activities that demonstrate an ongoing personal interest in bettering society and the world in general.” With matching funds from the UC Davis Foundation, the endowment of the Barrall Family Philosophy Scholarship will be approximately $50,000 and it will allow us to award a scholarship of approximately $2000 annually. We are just getting this off the ground, so the award this year will be in the more modest sum of $1,000, but eligible philosophy majors are encouraged to apply. Applications for 2013 are available in the main office of the Philosophy Department or here.
]]>Feb 4 - Ted Shear
Feb 15th - Piotr Makowski
Mar 22nd - Bernard Molyneux
April 5 - Chris Healow
April 19 - Scotty Dixon
May 31st - Michael Hunter
All will be held from 3:10 - 5:30 pm in the Philosophy Department Library.
]]>Friday, October 11, Carl Craver, Washington University, Saint Louis
Friday, November 30, Noa Latham, University of Calgary
Friday, January 18, Julia Annas, University of Arizona
Friday, January 25, Dana Goswick, Melbourne University
Friday, February 22, Kai Wehmeier, University of California, Irvine
Friday, March 1, Richard Heck, Brown University
Friday, March 8, Abrol Fairweather, San Francisco State University
Friday, March 15, Sean Walsh, UC Irvine
Friday, April 12, Wilson Mendonca, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro: CANCELLED
Friday, April 26, Angela Smith, Washington and Lee University
Friday, May 3, Ishtiyaque Haji, University of Calgary
Friday, May 10, Ernie Lepore, Rutgers University
Monday, May 20, Sam Fleischacker, University of Illinois, Chicago
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An afternoon of discussion and free pizza in the Philosophy Department, led by Professor Cody Gilmore.
When: 3:10 to 5:00 on Friday, February 8, 2013
Where: Philosophy department library, 1231 SSH (3rd and A)
Past Food For Thought events:
CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND THE PROBLEM OF INTOLERANT CULTURES
An afternoon of discussion and free pizza in the Philosophy Department, led by Professor David Copp.
There are significant moral disagreements between people of different cultures. We might think that our ethical ideas reflect nothing more than our culture. This thought can lead us to the conclusion that the moral frameworks of different cultures are “equally valid”. It can then take us to the further conclusion that we ought to be tolerant of behavior and beliefs that reflect moral cultures different from our own. The conclusion that we ought to be tolerant is much too simple. The existence of cultural disagreement cannot immunize the world from culturally sanctioned viciousness. The real issue is how to respond to moral disagreement in an intellectually informed and morally sensitive way.
When: 3:10 to 5:00 on Friday, October 19, 2012
Where: Philosophy department library, 1231 SSH (3rd and A.)
IS TRUTH RELEVANT TO SCIENCE?
led by Professor Emeritus Paul Teller
Traditionally we think of science as seeking – and finding! - the exactly correct, universal laws of nature. This lecture will trace how this terrible misconception of science arose, how it has misdescribed science from the very beginning, and how it is finally coming unraveled.
When: 3:10 to 5:00 on Friday, April 20, 2012
MINDS, BRAINS, and COMPUTERS
discussion led by Professor Bernard Molyneux
Humans are thought to be the only beings that are both highly intelligent and capable of having conscious experiences. But this belief has been challenged by movies such as The Matrix, by increasingly sophisticated computers and robots, by studies in neuroscience, and by philosophers.
When: 3:10 to 5:00 on Friday, Sept 30, 2011.
Where: Philosophy department library, Room 1231, SSH (in the Death Star at 3rd and A.)
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