General Editors: Margaret Gilbert and Anne Hiskes
Editor of this edition: Margaret Gilbert
Welcome to the last issue of Cogitamus for this millenium!
It reports on the period of September 15, 1999 to December 8, 1999.
Here's wishing our faculty and
students continue flourishing in 2000 and onwards!
Our aim is to provide summary information on the ongoing professional
achievements and activities of members of our department, and to
provide notice of upcoming events.
Highlights: Graduate students on the job market and
eight NEW Books just published or shortly to be published
by department members!
Proposed items for inclusion in the next issue (expected publication
date March 1, 1999) should be given or (preferably) emailed to
AHiskes@uconnvm.uconn.edu.
PublicationsThe end of this academic year sees at least eight new books just published or shortly to be published by department members. The books are:
Austen Clark, A Theory of Sentience, Oxford, 2000
Margaret Gilbert, Sociality and Responsibility, Rowman and Littlefield, 2000
Joel Kupperman,
Value...and What Follows, Oxford, 1999
Joel Kupperman,
Learning from Asian Philosophy, Oxford, 1999
Ruth Millikan, On Clear and Confused Ideas, Cambridge, 2000
Samuel Wheeler, Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy, Stanford, 2000
The only problem with this surge of productivity is...does anyone have time to read anything??
Articles include:
Crawford (Tim) Elder's article "Ontology and Realism about Modality", appears in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1999), pp. 292-302. His paper "Familiar Objects and the Sorites of Decomposition", will appear in the American Philosophical Quarterly, in January 2000.
Robert Luyster published "'The Wife's Lament' in the Context of Scandinavian Myth and Ritual," Philological Quarterly, vol 77, no. 3 (Summer, 1998), 243-70.
Steve McGrade (emeritus) has published an article on 'The Medieval Idea of Heresy: What Are We to Make of It?' in Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson, eds., The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life: Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1999):111-39.
Ruth Garrett Millikan published "Historical Kinds and the 'Special Sciences'" in Philosophical Studies 95.1-2, August 1999, pp. 45-65 and "Response to Boy'd Commentary" Philosophical Studies 95:1-2 (1999) pp. 99-102. Several of her papers have been reprinted recently: "In Defense of proper Functions" and "An Ambiguity in the Notion Function'" in Allen, Bekoff and Lauder eds., Function Selection and Design, (SUNY Press), and "Biosemantics" in J. Crumley ed.., Problems in Mind: Readings in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (Mayfield Publishing.)
TalksJoel Kupperman presented a paper on October 6, 1999 at Vassar College entitled "Second Nature as a Topic in Ethical Philosophy".
Steve McGrade (emeritus): On October 27 Steve gave a talk on "What Aquinas Should Have Said? John Finnis's Reconstruction of Political Thomism" at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He also gave a talk on John Finnis's work to the History of Philosophy Seminar, University of Cambridge on November 15.
Ruth Garrett Millikan gave these talks: "Some Different Ways to Think" presented at the Chapel Hill Colloquium, October 9 1999.
Samuel Wheeler was the keynote speaker at a conference in Heidelberg on Wittgenstein and Metaphor, October 29-30, 1999. Sam also presented a paper on "Gun Control and Genocide" at American Criminological Society meetings, Toronto, November 17, 1999.
Shortly upcoming talks, comments, etc
Don Baxter will present a paper entitled "Loose Identity" at the Eastern APA meetings in Boston. The session will be on Wednesday December 29 from 2:30-3:30, as part of a colloquium on "Language and Reality".
Margaret Gilbert will speak on "Shared Values, Social Unity, and Liberty" to the Philosophy Department at the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom) on December 14, 1999. She comments on a paper on 'Collective Responsibility' by Seamus Miller at the meetings of the APA in Boston, December 30.
Joel Kupperman will speak on January 13, 2000 to the 8th East-West Philosophers' Conference in Honolulu, presenting an invited paper, "Losing Place: The Risks of Cosmopolitanism".
Honors Robert Luyster was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Global Economic Advancement.
TalksChris Panza presented the paper "Labor and Ideas: Conflicts in John Locke on Intellectual Property" (October 10, 1999), at a conference run by the "Group for Early Modern Studies" in Miami, Florida.
Elise Springer presented the following papers: (1) "Plato's Philosophical Attitudes in Dialogue: Irony, Skepticism, and Commitment" (October 19, 1999) at a Seminar Colloquium, Simon's Rock College, Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
(2) "Re: Action and Reaction: A Puzzle for Moral Theory". Wesleyan University Philosophy Colloquium Series (December 2 1999)
Job Candidates:
Alumni NewsProfessor of Philosophy at the University of New Haven, Joel Marks has published "Charity Group Offers Donors a Moral Choice", New Haven Register, Sept. 15, 1999 and "A Method from my Mentors to Encourage Writing and Review in Introductory Philosophy Courses", American Association of Philosophy Teachers News, Fall '99 (which reports on a new investment option being offered by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven). (Incidentally, Joel is quite a fan of Cogitamus...on this he writes "It's nice to feel I am still a part of my favorite philosophy department. I even found photographs of the brown bags on the dept. website: amazing!")
Joel writes that; "an essay that just came out in the American Association of Philosophy Teachers News (Fall 1999, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 4-5) is, in effect, a tribute to Cal Rollins. The AAPT is a wonderful organization devoted to what most of us spend most of our careers doing -- teaching philosophy. My essay is about a technique, which was generally inspired by methods employed by my teachers at UConn, but which I have adapted for use at the undergraduate level for nonmajors. And the main component is a device that, to my recollection, only Cal used, and to great effect."
Sporting events
A report from Adam Potthast: The philosophy grad student
touch-football team (called the Uninstantiated
Universals) just won its first game, 27-0 against a team called
Six White Guys and a Hindu. Our record is now 1-1.
from Richard Fyffe
Library News --
I am very pleased to announce that Philosopher's Index is now available to the UConn community through a web-based service. It is accessible at any workstation on the UConn network at any UConn campus. You may also access the database from any web-connected computer (at home or while you are travelling) if you have a UConn PPP account or a UConn proxy account. To find Philosopher's Index, go to the Libraries' web page for Philosophy at: "http://www.lib.uconn.edu/subjectareas/phil.htm" and follow the link for Philosopher's Index from there. The search screen is fairly straightforward, but I shall be preparing a short instructional guide soon. I will also arrange a short workshop on using Philosophers Index and Web of Science (a multidisciplinary database of book and article citations) sometime this semester or early in the next. (Please let me know if you have specific requests for the time or the content of a workshop.)
If you have any questions about connecting to or using Philosopher's Index (or any other library service), please let me know.
Have a wonderful holiday season.....
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.
Department of Philosophy
U-2054, 344 Mansfield Rd.
Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2054
Telephone: 860-486-4416
Fax: 860-486-0387
Email: philos1@uconnvm.uconn.edu
Website: http://vm.uconn.edu/~wwwphil
