C O G I T A M U S
Welcome to the nineteenth issue of Cogitamus! This issue covers news for the period of May 1, 2003 - January 1, 2004.
Susan
Leigh Anderson: Susan, along with her husband (viz., Michael Anderson,
Computer Science, University of Hartford) and Chris Armen (Computer Science,
Trinity College), was awarded a NASA collaboration grant over the summer to
do work on the
subject of 'Machine Ethics'. Their work (so far) resulted in
a paper on the subject in which they tackle the theoretical foundations of
'machine ethics' by discussing the rationale for, the feasibility of, and,
finally, the benefits of adding an ethical dimension
to at least some
machines. (See 'invited talks' section below.) Susan has also been asked to
write a forward for a second edition of the book JC
Beall: JC is an invited Arche Fellow for February 2004 at the University
of St Andrews (Dept of Logic and Metaphysics, Arche program), to work on
vagueness and modality. (Unfortunately, due to the constraints of teaching,
he will be spending very little time there.) Earlier in the year, JC was a
University of Melbourne Fellow in Humanities (Philosophy and Logic), where
he worked with Graham Priest and Greg Restall on 'quantification in
paraconsistent contexts' (funded by a grant that Priest, Restall, and Beall
received for the project). Margaret
Gilbert: Margaret
Gilbert is now spending the spring semester of 2004 as a fellow at the
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences (SCASSS) in
Uppsala, Sweden Diana
Tietjens Meyers: Oxford University Press selected Diana's book Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and
Women's Agency as one of its
initial launch books for its new Oxford Scholarship Online program. On a
different front, in its annual recognition of an outstanding published
article, the Sex and Gender Section of the American Sociological Association
awarded Ruth
Millikan: In
honor of the publication of the Italian translation of Ruth's book On
Clear and Confused Ideas, the
book was available for the first time at a meeting on the topic 'Concepts,
Language, and Cognition', held at the Philosophy Department of Pisa
University on 27th-28th Sept 2003. JC
Beall: JC had two books
appear in 2003: Possibilities and Paradox: An
Introduction to Modal and Many-Valued Logic (with Bas van Fraassen, Princeton), Oxford: Oxford University Press,
and an edited collection Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). JC's joint monograph (with Greg
Restall) Logical Pluralism
is now in press with Oxford: Oxford University Press, and should appear at
some point this year. JC Beall: JC
is most delighted by a recent paper that he did with his former student
David Ripley (now at Chapel Hill, doing a PhD -- and doing brilliantly,
according to Bill Lycan), namely 'Analetheism and Dialetheism', which will
(has?) appear (-ed?) in Analysis Jan 2004. JC also had
other papers published earlier in the year (2003), and others still in
press, as well as various book reviews. Paul
Bloomfield: Paul's paper 'Truth or Power?' appeared in The
Foundations of Ethics: Objectivity and Normativity, edited by
P. Schaber and R. Huntelmann (German Library of Sciences, Frankfurt
Germany, 2003). Paul's discussion of Butchvarov's paper 'Ethics
Dehumanized' appeared in the 2003 Spindel Conference Proceedings as a
supplemental edition of Southern Journal of Philosophy.
Finally, Paul's paper 'The Rules of Goodness' appeared in American Philosophical
Quarterly in July 2003. Tim (aka Crawford)
Elder: Tim had two
papers published, 'Kripkean
Externalism versus Conceptual Analysis', Facta Philosophica 5 (2003), pp.
75-86, and 'Alexander's Dictum and the Reality of Familiar Objects', Topoi 22 (2003), pp. 163-71. Margaret Gilbert:
Margaret's paper 'Scanlon on promissory obligation: the problem of
promisee's rights' will be published early in 2004 (if not already) in the
Journal
of Philosophy. (That
paper was written while Margaret was a fellow of the UConn Humanities
Institute 2002--03.)Margaret's 'The Structure of the Social Atom: Joint
Commitment as the Foundation of Human Social Behavior' has been published
in Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social
Reality, ed. Frederick F. Schmitt, Rowman and Littlefield
(2003), pp. 39-64. Margaret's review discussion 'Collective Wrongdoing:
Moral and Legal Responses' is about to appear in the journal Social Theory and Practice. The books discussed are law
professor Christopher Kutz's Complicity,
and Stay the Hand of Vengeance by
political scientist Gary Bass. Diana Tietjens Meyers:
Diana's paper 'Frontiers of Individuality: Embodiment
and Relationships in Cultural Context', appeared in the May 2003 issue of
History and Theory. Diana also published a translation of the paper she
presented to the Feminist Ethics
conference in Dubrovnik in Zarez (see
'invited talks' below). For those who can read Croatian, the paper is
here.
Ruth Millikan: Ruth
has been active as always. Some (a proper some) of her recent papers
include 'On reading Signs: Some Differences between Us and The Others' in
Kim Oller et al, eds, The
Evolution of Communication Systems: a Comparative
Approach Susan Leigh Anderson: Susan,
with her husband, presented 'Philosophical Issues in Contemporary Science'
at Realisa's summer conference in Nova Scotia (August 2003).
Don Baxter:
presented 'The criterion of identity and the Principium
Individuationis' at the 30th Annual Hume Society Conference at
the University of Las Vegas, held July 31 -- August 2 (2003).
Don also presented 'Hume's theory of space and time in its skeptical
context' in a colloquium at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (March
2003). JC Beall:
JC is giving two talks on vagueness at St Andrews
(Scotland) in February 2004: 'Vague Intensions' and 'Dialetheic Approaches
to Vagueness'. In April, JC
will be participating in an invitation-only workshop in philosophy of mathematics, held
at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). In June,
JC will be giving a paper at the Truth
and Realism conference at St Andrews (Scotland).
In July, JC will begiving a paper at a 'paradoxes event' in
Queensland (Australia), with four other speakers (Kit Fine, Hartry Field,
Graham Priest, Greg Restall). Earlier in the year, JC presented
'Double-Aspect Dialetheism' at the Formal Approaches to
Philosophy conference, University of Waterloo (Canada), in
addition to papers in Melbourne (Australia) while he was a fellow there. Paul Bloomfield: presented
'Rescuing Metaethics' at the International Conference on Truth and Judgement,
which convened at the University of Turin, Turin, Italy. Margaret Gilbert:
presented her paper 'Shared Values, Social Unity, and Liberty' to an
audience of MIT and Harvard graduate students and faculty at MIT in June
2003. Robert
Luyster: presented "Aggression as Peace, Peace as
Aggression: A Radical Approach to Peace," Kessel Peace Institute,
Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota, November 24, 2003.
Diana Tietjens Meyers:
presented 'Narrative and moral life' to a conference on Feminist
Ethics at the Inter University Center in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Diana and
Alison Jaggar were the only American philosophers at the conference; most of
the other participants were from the Balkans, and in several cases their
ethical views were profoundly affected by their experience as peace
activists or as founders of services for women and girls who had been raped
during the 1990s wars. Ruth Millikan: Ruth
presented 'Why (most) Concepts aren't Categories' at the University of
Mexico, Mexico City in May, and also in June at the Institute of Cognitive
Sciences Summer School in Montreal. 
Ethical Argument: Critical Thinking in Ethics,
which is authored by Hugh Mercer Curtler, to be published by Oxford
University Press.
Publications
Papers
(Cambridge MA: MIT Press); 'Some Reflections on the Theory -
Simulation Theory Discussion', Perspectives
on Imitation: From Mirror Neurons to Memes (Cambridge MA: MIT Press), edited by Susan Hurley and Nick Chater;
'Existence Proof for a Viable Externalism', in The Externalist Challenge: New Studies on
Cognition and Intentionality, Richard Schantz ed (Berlin and
New York: de Gruyter); 'Styles of Rationality', in Rationality in Animals, M. Nudds and S. Hurley eds.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press); 'Why (Most) Concepts are not
Categories', S. Harnad ed (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press); 'Useless Content',
in G. MacDonald and D. Papineau eds, Teleosemantics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press). 
Invited Talks (Conferences, Workshops,
etc.)
Major
Work
in
Progress
JC Beall: JC's
book Truth and Falsity (under contract
with Oxford: Oxford University Press) is to be submitted in the fall of
2004. (He is happy to be done with earlier projects, so that the monograph
can get his full attention. The trouble is that he keeps getting
distracted by vagueness -- on which the monograph is not supposed to have
anything to say!)
Connected to the Truth and Falsity monograph, JC was happy to accept an invitation to write a major (60-90 page) essay on 'logical and semantic paradoxes' for a new (and, by JC's lights, quite impressive) eleven-volume Kluwer series in the philosophy of science. JC is contributing to the volume on philosophy of logic, edited by Dale Jacquette. On another related project: JC is a fan of the very useful journal Philosophical Books (Blackwell), edited by Anthony Ellis, and so was happy to accept an invitation to write a general-readership paper 'Recent Approaches to Truth and Paradox', also due at the end of 2004.
Diana Tietjens Meyers:
Self and Agency, a collection of
Diana's (mostly) previously published papers will soon go to press. Rowman
and Littlefield expects the book to appear in 2004.
Ruth Millikan: Ruth
has a new contract with Oxford University Press to publish a collection of
her essays on language.
Margaret Gilbert:
Margaret has two book manuscripts in progress: Rights Reconsidered, and Social Ontology and Political Obligation.
DEPARTMENTAL NEWS:
The department wishes to thank Austen Clark and John Troyer
for their great work with our recent job-searches.
We should have news on new faculty soon.
JC Beall has recently joined John Troyer and Sam Wheeler in the quest to master fly-fishing. JC finally stepped into the water (New Year's Day, 2004), and was lucky to catch a nice rainbow trout. Some photos are available at the incipient "Beall Family Fishing site".
GRADUATE
STUDENTS Tim
Nulty: Tim was awarded a
competitive UConn Humanities Institute Fellowship for 03-04, during which time
he will be completing his dissertation and working on various papers.
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.
