Best Wishes to all Students, Faculty, and Alumni for a Wonderful New Year!

Welcome to the seventeenth issue of Cogitamus!  This issue covers news for the period of Oct. 1 - Dec. 31, 2002.  

Highlights:  Graduate students on the job market. Read about them below. 

Job Candidates:

• Lisa Cassidy. is finishing her dissertation on the issue of bodily responsibility (to what extent and under what conditions are people responsible for properties of their bodies) under the supervision of Diana Tietjens Meyers. Lisa has specialized in ethics and feminist philosophy,but is also competent in the areas of political philosophy, continental philosophy and the history of modern philosophy. Lisa has presented several papers at conferences, and has taught many courses on her own. To learn more about Lisa's work, you may e-mail her at: Lisa.Cassidy@uconn.edu.
• Gordon Stevenson successfully defended his dissertation "The Naturalistic Foundations of Intentional Action", supervised by Ruth Millikan, on December 20, 2001. Gordon's specialities are the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, with competencies in the history of modern philosophy, ethics, logic, and the philosophy of science. Gordon has published two papers, and also presented a paper at an international conference. He has taught 6 different courses on his own. You may contact Gordon and learn more about his work via email at: gordstev@aol.com.
• Weimin Sun is finishing his dissertation "The Interpretation of Probability", under John Troyer, Major Advisor.  For more information about Weimin, see his website: www.engr.uconn.edu/~weimin

• Margaret Gilbert has been awarded a Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities for fall semester of the academic year 2003-4. Congratulations Margaret!
• Joel Kupperman's book Ethical Knowledge, first published in 1970 by the Muirhead Library of Philosophy, has been selected for republication by Routledge.
• Diana Tietjens Meyers was appointed to the Editorial Board for a 3 volume set of books entitled Classic Essays in Feminist Ethics to be edited by Alison Jaggar and published by Routledge. In addition Diana was interviewed and videotaped by Joan Callahan for an oral history project devoted to tracing the origins and development of recent feminist philosophy in the U.S. The seven hours of unedited tapes will be archived at the University of Kentucky Library, and a one-hour DVD focusing on Diana's published work will be available for classroom use. Diana will hold the Laurie Chair of the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Rutgers University during Spring 2003.

• As an invited participant in the Spindel Conference held this year to celebrate the centenary of G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica, Paul Bloomfield gave a paper "Partially Re-Humanized Ethics" as a commentary on P. Butchvarov's paper "Ethics De-Humanized". The conference proceedings will be published as a supplementary volume of the Southern Journal of Philosophy.
• Tim Elder gave a talk at Hofstra Univ. on November 15 titled "Alexander's Dictum and the Reality of Familiar Objects".
• Margaret Gilbert gave a "work in progress" talk on October 21, 2002 to the fellows of the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut entitled "Rights Reconsidered: Notes on a Project".
• Steve McGrade (emeritus) presented a paper "Objective Right and Subjective Rights: Two Medieval Ideas in the Background of Early Modern Discussions" on December 12 at a conference on Early Modern Ideas on Individual Rights at the University of Helsinki.
• On December 28 Steve presented his paper "Fair Play and Due Process in the Extermination of Heresy" for the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, meeting with Eastern Division APA. 
•  Diana Tietjens Meyers presented "Narrative and the Moral Subject" at the meetings of the International Association of Women Philosophers in Barcelona, Spain Oct. 2002. She also provided a commentary on Helen Stacy's "International Human Rights in a Fragmenting World" at the meetings of the American Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy in Washington D.C, Nov. 2002.
• Ruth Millikan presented a paper "Styles of Rationality" at the conference "Rational Animals," sponsored by the McDonnell-Pew Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, All Souls College, Oxford, and the British Society for the Philosophy of Science in early October.  At the McDonnell/Carleton Philosophy and Neuroscience Conference (Oct. 17-20) at Carleton University in Ottawa Ruth chaired a session and gave commentaries on papers by Pierre Jacob and Peter Mandik. She gave a lecture On Crossing Purposes for faculty and students at Wesleyan University on Nov. 25.  On Dec 29 Ruth provided  commentary on Marshall Abrams "Teleosemantics and Natural Selection" at the American Philosophical Association meetings in Philadelphia. 

Work in Progress

• Joel Kupperman has nearly completed the first draft of a new book Ethics and Qualities of Life and is about half done with the first draft of Six Mistakes About the Good Life..

Other News

• As a person known for her professional and civic activities at the Stamford campus, Susan Anderson was asked to list her top five wishes for the holidays. Susan's list was published in "Housatonic Homes" magazine on 12/02/02. Susan also audited a creative writing course this fall and completed a philosophical short story, "Calitopia", which will appear as an appendix in her new book Equal Opportunity Individualism: An Interpretation of the American Dream.

• Diana Tietjens Meyers was interviewed by James Thomas for a television program he is producing called "Logic for Life".  One of her lectures for Phil. 104 was also videotaped for use in the program.  

• Steve McGrade (emeritus) served as an "Opponens" (examiner) on October 12 at a public examination at the University of Helsinki of a PhD thesis on "The Theory of the Emotions in the Philosophical Psychology of William of Ockham.

Alumni News

• Kevin Brody (M.A.) writes that he is teaching a philosophy class at his high school in Lebanon, CT which has proven to be so popular that he is teaching two sections  and  Inna Kupreeva (M.A) is leaving her post-doc at St. Hilda's, Oxford to join the Ancient Commentators Project at King's College London as its Chief Assistant Editor. Her new postal address as of mid-January will be: Department of Philosophy, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, Telephone: 020 7848 2231/2769/2276.  In May she gave a paper  "Scala Naturae and Mystical Ascent: Greek Sources of Arabic Cosmological Theories in Ibn-Tufail's Hayy'ibn Yaqdhan"  at the conference on "The Book of Nature" in the University of Groningen. She gave a paper "Aristotelian Dynamics in the 2nd"Century School Debates: Galen and Alexander on the Concepts of Power and Motion" at the conference "Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries" held in honour of Richard Sorabji at the Instituteof Classical Studies, Univ. of London in June.  In September she read a paper "Aristotelian Tradition in the Making: Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Quality and Peripatetic Form" at the University of Victoria in Canada. Inna's review of the collection of articles "Aspasius: the Earliest Extant Commentary on Aristotle's Ethics" (De Gruyter 1999) has appeared in the Spring volume of Ancient Philosophy. Currently Inna is working on a translation from the Greek of John Philoponus' commentary on Aristotle's "On Generation and Corruption 2.5-11" for the Duckworth Ancient Commentators series. In addition she is preparing for a graduate seminar to be given in the coming Hilary Term in Oxford, with R. Sorabji and P. Remes, on "Identity of things and persons in ancient Greek and classical Indian Philosophy". She wished that everyone from the UConn department could be present to discuss some of Don Baxter's favorite topics
• Steve Lahey (Ph.D.) reports that his book on Wyclif will be out in April at the bargain price of $65.00. Order now while supplies last!  He also wrote  entries for  the new Dictionary of the Middle Ages on philosophical genres in the medieval period and for the  Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy , 2^nd ed. on medieval logic.  He's teaching a course on Philosophy of Religion both semesters at University of Nebraskan in addition to doing  Clinical Pastoral Education at a nursing home in preparation for the Episcopal priesthood. Most of all he enjoys taking care of daughter Thea.

This newsletter was designed by the Philosophy Department's Program Assistant Shelly Burelle. Please visit our website at: "http://vm.uconn.edu/~wwwphil" where this newsletter is located for miscellaneous links, including links to abstracts, and colloquium updates.

Any questions or comments should be directed to Shelly at philos1@uconnvm.uconn.edu.