Fall 2006

September 14-15: Stephen Darwall (University of Michigan)

• Public Lecture: "Responsibility Within Relations"
  Thursday, September 14, 7:30 p.m., LH 001
  
  Abstract: For the last thirty or so years, an important line of thought associated with Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, and feminist ethical philosophy has criticized orthodox moral theories on the grounds that they insufficiently appreciate the way in which personal relationships involve concern for particular individuals. There is much to learn from these critcisms. But it also possible to understand moral theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism as beginning with the phenomena of particularized benevolence and respect, respectively, and then extending these, rather than as arising in abraction from these phenomena. More interestingly, the distinctive character of personal relationship may itself presuppose an infrastructure of more general, moral concern. I consider specific ways in which personal relationships depend upon a background of mutual respect.
  
  
• Departmental Colloquium: "Authority and Second-Personal Reasons for Acting"
  Friday, September 15, 3:30 p.m., PHIL 264

October 5-6: Robert Howell (Southern Methodist University)

• Public Lecture: "Anti-Depressants and Personal Identity"
  Thursday, October 5, 7:30 p.m., LH 001
  
  Abstract: It is not unusual to hear about someone taking anti-depressants and becoming a "different person" because of them. While this is in part the promise of anti-depressants-those who take them don't want to remain as they were, after all-it might also seem to be part of their threat. To alleviate the symptoms of depression by taking pills that make one into someone else seems foolish overkill. Don't we want to feel better while being ourselves? Doesn't abandoning oneself to become someone else amount to a strange sort of character suicide? In this talk I discuss the several senses of "becoming a different person" that are at issue here, and argue that once we are clear on what we mean when we voice our worries, there might be very little to worry about after all.
  
  
• Departmental Colloquium: "The Two-Dimensionalist Reductio
  Friday, October 6, 3:30 p.m., PHIL 264
  
  Abstract: In recent years two-dimensional semantics has become one of the most serious alternatives to Millianism for the proper interpretation of modal discourse. I argue that though there is probably something salvageable from two-dimensionalism as a way to explain the content of thought, as a metaphysical tool it should be abandoned. In this talk I aim to establish this point by reductio: if "metaphysical" two-dimensionalism and its concomitant modal rationalism is assumed, it can be shown to be false. Instead of modal rationalism, therefore, I suggest we adopt what I call metaphysical modal monism, a view I intend to describe briefly at the conclusion of the talk.
  
  

November 9-10: Jonathan Kvanvig (Baylor University)

• Public Lecture: "Religious Pluralism and the Buridan's Ass Paradox"
  Thursday, November 9, 7:30 p.m., LH 001


• Departmental Colloquium: "Rationality and Evidence"
  Friday, November 10, 3:30 p.m., PHIL 264

Fall 2005

September 22: Allan Hazlett

Allan Hazlett (TTU)

• Public Lecture: "Knowledge and Conversation"
  Thursday, September 22, 7:30 p.m., PHIL 160

October 20-21: Al Martinich

Al Martinich (Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas)

• Public Lecture: "Seven Solutions to the Problem of Evil in the Book of Job"
  Thursday, October 20, 7:30 p.m., Business Administration 67

• Departmental Colloquium: "Reference, Nonexistence and Fiction"
  Friday, October 21, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 264

October 27: Robert Bishop

Robert Bishop (TTU)

• Public Lecture: "I Don’t Know How to Defend Physicalism"
  Thursday, October 27, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH-001

November 10: Mathew Weiner

Mathew Weiner (TTU)

• Public Lecture: "Does Knowledge Matter?"
  Thursday, November 11, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH-001

November 17: Neal Judisch

Neal Judisch (TTU)

• Public Lecture: "Determinism and Epiphenomenalism"
  Thursday, November 17, 7:30 p.m., PHIL 160

Spring 2006

February 09: Peter Lewis

Peter Lewis (University of Miami)

• Public Lecture: "Quantum Mechanics and the Prospects for Immortality"
  Thursday, February 09, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH-001

TBA: Matthew Shockey

Matthew Shockey (Kalamazoo College)

Public Lecture: TBA
mid March, ENG/PHIL LH-001

April 6-7: Robert Kane

Robert Kane (University of Texas)

• Public Lecture: "Are All Values Relative?: Seeking Common Ethical Ground in a Pluralist Society"
  Thursday, April 06, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH-001

 

• Departmental Colloquium: "Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem"
  Friday, April 07, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 264

 

All

Spring 2005

February 7: Marcia Baron

Marcia Baron (Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University)

• Departmental Colloquium: "Excuses, Excuses"
  Monday, February 7, 4:00 p.m., PHIL 264

April 8-9: Mini-conference in Honor of Edward Averill, "Color, Color-Perception, and the Nature of Properties"

Friday, April 8

                        11:00-12:10     David Hilbert (Illinois at Chicago)

                        1:30-2:40         Jonathan Cohen (UC-San Diego)

                        2:50-4:00         Edward Averill (TTU)

                        4:10-5:20         Robert Rupert (TTU)

Saturday, April 9

                        10:00-12:00     panel discussion of color, with Hilbert, Cohen, and Averill 

All events will be held in Room 160, English and Philosophy Building at Texas Tech University, Lubbock.

 

April 25-26: Alfred Mele

Alfred Mele (William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University)

• Public Lecture: "Free Will: The Current State of the Debate"
  Monday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH-001

• Departmental Colloquium: "Free Action, Moral Responsibility, and Alternative Possibilities"
  Tuesday, April 26, 3:30 p.m., PHIL 160

 

 

Fall 2004

October 8: Zachary Ernst

Zachary Ernst (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University)

• Departmental Colloquium: "Playing Games in Ethics"
  Friday, October 8, 4:00 p.m., PHIL 264

 

October 25 and 26: Alex Neill

Alex Neill (Senior Lecturer, University of Southampton)

• Public lecture: "Philosophers on the Art of Tragedy"
  Monday, October 25, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001
• Departmental Colloquium: "Schopenhauer on the Aesthetic Method of Consideration"
  Tuesday, October 26, 4:00 p.m., PHIL 264

November 1: Jesse Prinz

Jesse Prinz (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

• Departmental Colloquium: "Has Neuroscience Solved the Mind-Body Problem?"
  Monday, November 1, 3:30 p.m., PHIL 264
• Public lecture: "Dining with Cannibals: Moral Convictions and the Challenge of Relativism"
  Monday, November 1, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001

November 18: Sara Chant

Sara Chant (Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Texas Tech University)

• Departmental Colloquium: "When We Act Together"
  Thursday, November 18, 5:00 p.m., PHIL 160

Academic year 2003-04

September 18: Jonathan Weinberg

Jonathan Weinberg (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University)

• Public lecture: "The A Priori, Externalism, and the Purposes of Justification"
  Thursday, September 18, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001

 

October 14: James Hardy

James Hardy (Visiting Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Texas Tech University)

• Public lecture: "Chasing Infinity"
  Tuesday, October 14, 2003, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001

October 28 and 30: James Hamilton

James Hamilton (Professor of Philosophy, Kansas State University)

• Public lecture: "Understanding Plays"
  Tuesday, October 28, 2003, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001
• Departmental Colloquium: "Performers' Intentions"
  Thursday, October 30, 2003, 5:00 p.m., PHIL 160

March 4 and 5: Claudia Card

Claudia Card (Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

• Public lecture: "Is Penalty Enhancement for Hate Crimes a Good Idea?"
  Thursday, March 4, 2004, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001
• Departmental Colloquium: "Torture in Ordinary Circumstances"
  Friday, March 5, 2004, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 160

March 31 and April 1: Nicholas Smith

Nicholas Smith (James F. Miller Professor of Humanities, Lewis and Clark College)

• Public lecture: &quotSocrates in the Agora: A Talk about Talking"
  Wednesday, March 31, 2004, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001
• Departmental Colloquium: &quotPersuade or Obey"
  Thursday, April 1, 2004, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 160

April 16: Carl Gillett

Carl Gillett (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Illinois Wesleyan University and Post-Doctoral Fellow, The Center for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame)

• Departmental Colloquium: "A Third Way for Functionalists: The Nature of Mentality and the Perils of Ramseyfication"
  Friday, April 16, 2004, 2:00 p.m., PHIL 160

July 28 and 29: Danny Scoccia

Danny Scoccia (Associate Professor of Philosophy, New Mexico State University)

• Public lecture: &quotSlippery Slope Objections to Legalizing Voluntary Euthanasia"
  Wednesday, July 28, at 2:30 in PHIL 160
• Departmental Colloquium: "Toleration, Skepticism, and the Religious Fanatic"
  Thursday, July 29, at 2:30 in PHIL 160

 

Spring and Summer, 2003

February 18-19: David Chalmers

David Chalmers (Professor of Philosophy, Research Professor of Cognitive Science, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona)

• Public lecture: "The Matrix as Metaphysics"
  Tuesday, February 18, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001

 

• Philosophy Department colloquium: "Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap"
  Wednesday, February 19, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 160 (Note: This is a room change)

February 27: Luc Faucher

Luc Faucher (Assistant Professor, Universit�(c) du Qu�(c)bec à Montr�(c)al)

• "Developmental System Theory and Mental Disorders"
  Thursday, February 27, 2003, 5:15 p.m. Philosophy 264

March 6-7: Mariam Thalos

Mariam Thalos (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah)

• Public lecture: "From Human Nature to Moral Philosophy"
  Thursday, March 6, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001
• Philosophy Department colloquium: "The Natural History of Knowledge"
  Friday, March 7, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 163.

March 25-26: Robert Cummins

Robert Cummins (Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Davis)

• Public lecture: "Evolution and Cognition: The Puzzling Mix of Learning, Selection and Development"
  Tuesday, March 25, 7:30 p.m., ENG/PHIL LH001
• Philosophy Department colloquium: "Representation and Indication"
  Wednesday, March 26, 3:00 p.m., PHIL 160

April 3-4: Alastair Norcross

Alastair Norcross (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rice University)

• Public lecture: "Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases"
  Thursday, April 3, 7:30 p.m., in ENG/PHIL LH001
• Philosophy Department colloquium: "Harming in Context"
  Friday, April 4, 3:00 p.m., in ENG/PHIL 163

April 10: Paul Studtmann

Paul Studtmann (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Canterbury)

• Philosophy Department colloquium: "Time, Tolstoy and the Logic of Freedom"
  Thursday, April 10, at 5:15 p.m., LH001, the English Department auditorium.

July 25: Colin Allen

Colin Allen (Professor of Philosophy, Texas A&M University)

• Colloquium: " What Can Artificial Moral Agents Teach Us about Morality?"
  Friday, July 25, 4:00 p.m., PHIL 160