The University of Manitoba Philosophy Blog.

University of Guelph - Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:59:00 +0000

Call for Abstracts

“Bodies in the World”
3rd Annual Philosophy Graduate Students’ Association Conference

University of Guelph

March 13, 2010

Keynote Speaker: Professor Hasana Sharp (McGill)
“‘Men have nothing less in their power than their tongues’: On spoken passions”

The Philosophy Graduate Students’ Association at the University of Guelph is now accepting paper abstracts for its third annual conference on the theme of “Bodies in the World.” We welcome paper proposals concerning the body and its interactions with its environment from perspectives of perception, mind, identity, sexuality, community and politics, time and space, and normativity and difference. The theme of the body raises questions concerning how to situate and account for the body in our theorizing about the world. How do our worldviews, perceptions of objects, scientific practices, and theories of environment arise out of our embodied experiences, and reflect back into our conceptions of the body?
Questions of the body and embodiment are crucial to philosophical, feminist, legal, psychological, literary, and religious scholarship, as well as to research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Moreover, they provide a meta-philosophical opportunity to reflect on the embodied character of our role as thinkers and academics and what that could mean for the future “embodiment of philosophy.” We encourage submissions from multidisciplinary perspectives on the ways we negotiate and theorise the relationship between body and world, widely construed.
Please send abstracts of approximately 600 words prepared for blind review to the PGSA’s conference committee via jmousie@uoguelph.ca by January 29, 2010. For more information, please contact us at the email address listed above or visit our website at .
Once an abstract is accepted we will request a final paper that must be suitable for a 20 minute presentation (approximately 2500 – 3000 words).

Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:02:00 +0000

2010 Syracuse Graduate Student Conference
April 16 & 17
Keynote Speakers: Ted Sider (NYU) & Ben Bradley (Syracuse)
Paper submission deadline: Jan 1, 2010
Send submissions to: suphilgradconf@gmail.com

Papers should be suitable for a 25-30 minute presentation (no more than 4000 words).

Submissions must be prepared for blind review and sent as either a PDF or Word file.

In the text of your email, please include your name, contact information, and short abstract (max 150 words).

We welcome submissions in all areas of philosophy.

Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:59:00 +0000

The 18th Annual Harvard-MIT
Graduate Student Philosophy Conference

Conference Date: Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Keynote Speaker: Derek Parfit, All Souls College, Oxford

Commentary provided by Harvard and MIT faculty

Submission Deadline: Sunday, January 10th, 2010

We seek submissions from graduate students in any area of philosophy.
Submissions should be suitable for a 40-minute presentation. As guidance, a 4000-word paper usually takes about 40 minutes to read.

All submissions must be accompanied by an abstract of 400-500 words (roughly one single-spaced page). No identifying information should appear in the body of the paper or the abstract. Instead, please include a cover sheet with the submitter´s name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, name of his or her institutions, and title of the paper.

Please submit papers by e-mail to harvardmit2010@gmail.com in one of the following formats: .pdf, .rtf, .doc. We can only accept one submission per applicant.

If you have any questions, please contact us at harvardmit2010@gmail.com.

NYU/Columbia Grad Conference

noreply@blogger.com (John Dyck) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:19:00 +0000

The deadline for submissions is in a month. Looks like an awesome time!

Philosophical Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Esa Diaz Leon
University of Manitoba
Department of Philosophy

Will give a talk on

“How to Be a Realist about Race”

DATE: Friday, November 27th, 2009
LOCATION: 384 University College
TIME: 2:30 p.m.

* All are welcome *

Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:25:00 +0000

The School of Thought

The University of Western Ontario

Call for Papers

Undergraduate Philosophy Conference:

The Mind/Body Problem

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Frances Egan

March 12 & 13, 2010

Submission deadline: February 10, 2010

The mind/body problem can be summarized as the problem of how physical things like brains are related to sensations, concepts, intentions, desires, memories, and other psychologically characterized phenomena. The School of Thought is encouraging undergraduate students to submit essays written on any aspect of the mind/body problem. Papers in any other area of philosophy will also be considered.

Papers should not exceed 3000 words in length. Please do not include any personal identifiers immediately before or after your paper. Name, affiliation, and contact information should be included on a separate page at the end of the document (i.e. well below the body of your essay). Please include a 150 word maximum abstract of your paper. The authors of selected papers will receive $100.00 to present their work at the conference. Frances Egan will be presenting in the afternoon of the 12^th, and student papers will be presented throughout the 13^th.

Submissions are to be sent to think@uwo.ca in Word, RTF, PDF or Plain Text format.

Papers must be received by February 10, 2010.

Dylon McChesney, Adam Mantha

School of Thought Coordinators

Department of Philosophy

The University of Western Ontario

University of Miami Grad Epistemology Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Tillman) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:38:00 +0000

University of Miami Annual Grad Epistemology Conference final cfp. Deadline is Nov. 13.

philosophical zombies, colon, the movie

noreply@blogger.com (John Dyck) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:27:00 +0000

Or at least, the script for the movie.

Lectures on Campus

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:56:00 +0000

Hey there folks. This was forwarded to me and I thought some of y'all might be interested:

Date: Friday, November 6, 2009
Time: 12:30 PM
Location: Iceland Board Room, 3rd Floor, Elizabeth Dafoe Library

Elizabeth Dafoe Library Graduate Student Lectures 2009-2010

Brian Myhre
Anthropology

The Power of Play: A Dramaturgical Analysis of Role-play Interactions in Winnipeg's original Live-action Vampire the Masquerade Role-playing Game Community

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Philosophical Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:18:00 +0000

Michael Hickson
University of Winnipeg

Will give a talk on:

“Soloman’s Cipher: The Problem of Evil and Toleration in Bayle.”

DATE: Friday, October 30, 2009
LOCATION: 384 University College
TIME: 2:30 p.m.

* All are welcome *

CIHR Award

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:14:00 +0000

Please forward this message to all graduate students. . .

The Institute of Aging awards 5 prizes of $1,000 each competition. There are 3 competitions each year. Since this program began in 2003 there has not been a University of Manitoba recipient. We have graduated Masters and PhD students who's research is excellent and would ertainly be competitive.

Please encourage eligible students to apply.

Catherine

CIHR Age Plus Award

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Aging Age Plus Award recognizes excellence in research on aging carried out in Canada. It is awarded monthly to the author of a published, scientific article on aging. Age Plus Award is primarily aimed at graduate nd postdoctoral students and residents from all disciplines, working in the field of aging. Articles may cover any of the Institute's priority research topics <http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/26935.html> .

For further information:

1. Go to the IA website http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/8671.html

2. Click on the Students and Trainees button on the right panel. http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/30793.html

3. Listed under Prizes > Age Plus Prize http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/26987.html

21st Century Monads!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Tillman) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:30:00 +0000

Be the dream.

Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:57:00 +0000

Concordia Graduate Philosophy Students’ Association’s
7th Annual Philosophy Conference

April 17 - 18, 2010

Concordia University, Montreal, QC

Keynote Speaker: TBA

What is Philosophy Anyway?:

A Conference on the Method, Object and Purpose of Philosophical Inquiry. It is possible to raise and solve philosophical problems with no very clear idea of what philosophy is, what it is trying to do, and how it can best do it; but no great progress can be made until these questions have been asked and some answer to them given.

Philosophy, moreover, has this peculiarity . . . the theory of philosophy is itself a problem for philosophy; and not only a possible problem, but an inevitable problem, one which sooner or later it is bound to raise.

- R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Philosophical Method

[P]hilosophy is concerned with each of the sciences . . . [but therefore cannot] be ranged alongside the existing sciences, as a special department of speculative knowledge. . . . There is no field of experience which cannot, in principle, be brought under some form of scientific law, and no type of speculative knowledge about the world which it is, in principle, beyond the power of science to give. . . . We are now in a position to see that the function of philosophy is wholly critical.

- A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic

Philosophy is thought by some to be the Queen, by others the handmaiden, of the sciences. The purpose of this conference is to address the meta-philosophical question of what exactly philosophy is, how to go about it, why – and whether – it is worth pursuing, or whether such an account of the discipline is even possible. It provides an opportunity for students of philosophy preoccupied with examining the presuppositions of other disciplines to turn a critical eye toward their own, as well as an opportunity for students of other disciplines to reply to philosophers and issue their own challenges in turn.

Submissions are therefore welcome from students of all disciplines addressing the method, object and/or purpose of philosophy and its relation to the other disciplines. Paper topics include but are not limited to the relation of theory to practice, the status and/or possibility of knowledge claims in philosophy, the value of different philosophical methods (e.g. analytic, historical), etc.

Interested authors should submit an abstract electronically as a pdf or Microsoft Word 97-2003 compatible file to Daniel Blaikie, Conference Organizer, at concphil2010@gmail.com.
Abstracts should be between 300-400 words in length and read as concise introductions to the paper, providing the topic, main thesis and outline of the major arguments.
Submissions will be accepted in English and French.
Exceptional undergraduate work will be considered.
The submission deadline is Friday January 8, 2010.
Authors of successful submissions will be contacted by Friday February 5, 2010.
Conference invitees will be expected to present a paper of no more than 4500 words in length at the conference.
The GPSA Conference Committee will select five papers presented at the conference to be published in a special edition of Gnosis, Concordia’s graduate philosophy journal.

Award Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:46:00 +0000

Laurie forwarded some information from the Graduate Studies office about the CIHR CGS Master's Competition for 2010/2011.

For more information, check this out.

Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:39:00 +0000

2010 Syracuse Graduate Student Conference
April 16 & 17
Keynote Speakers: Ted Sider (NYU) & Ben Bradley (Syracuse)
Paper submission deadline: Jan 1, 2010
Send submissions to: suphilgradconf@gmail.com

Papers should be suitable for a 25-30 minute presentation (no more than 4000 words).

Submissions must be prepared for blind review and sent as either a PDF or Word file.

In the text of your email, please include your name, contact information, and short abstract (max 150 words).

We welcome submissions in all areas of philosophy.

Best regards,
James Lee & Matthew Koehler
Conference organizers

Philosophical Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:53:00 +0000

The Philosophy Club Presents:

John Dyck
(Philosophy Graduate Student)

will present a paper entitled:

"How Musicologists Ground Musical Properties"

Date: Friday, October 9th, 2009
Location: 384 University College
Time: 2:30 p.m.

So, be sure to buff y'er bassoons and clean-up y'er claviers because all are welcome!!!!!!

Refreshments to follow in 147/148 University College

Philosophical Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:56:00 +0000

Dr. Dwayne Raymond
University of Regina

Will give a talk on

“Inseparability and Polarity: Towards the Origins of Ancient Logic”
DATE: Friday, October 3rd, 2008
LOCATION: 384 University College
TIME: 2:30 p.m.

* All are welcome *

Logicism

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Tillman) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:44:00 +0000

in comic form!!

Undergrad Editors Wanted

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:28:00 +0000

For undergraduate students:

Pensées, the Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy, is looking for editors for this year´s edition.

Every year, we publish a selection of remarkable undergraduate papers (in both English and French) in a broad range of philosophical disciplines. We also conduct an interview for every issue; past interviewees include Charles Taylor and Maurice Lagueux. Through these endeavors, we strive to strengthen the Canadian philosophical community.

Editing for Pensées entails reading a number of papers and providing your opinion of their quality. No grammatical knowledge is required. If you are interested or have any questions, please contact us as at pensees.canadiennes@gmail.com as soon as possible. Include your name, university, program of study, expected year of graduation, and a list of courses you have taken in philosophy; in addition, please specify your areas of philosophical interest. Get involved in a growing national network of young philosophers!

Paper Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:52:00 +0000

Gregory Glatz,
Undergraduate Student

will present the paper entitled:

“Problems with Klein’s Infinitism.”

Date: Friday, September 25th, 2009
Location: 384 University College
Time: 2:30 p.m.

Open to all undergraduate students!

Philosophical Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:08:00 +0000

Philosophical Fridays
___________________________________________

Neil McArthur
University of Manitoba
Department of Philosophy

“Cosmopolitanism and Hume’s General Point of View”

DATE: Friday, September 18, 2009
LOCATION: 384 University College
TIME: 2:30 p.m.

* All are welcome *

Thesis defence

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:29:00 +0000

The Department of Philosophy
M.A. Thesis Defence

Adam Murray

“Actualist Modal Realism”

Monday, September 14, 2009
At 3pm
Private Dining Room
University College

All are welcome

M.A. Thesis Defence Committee:
1.Chris Tillman
2.Carl Matheson
3. Dr. Tom Kucera (External Mathematics)

Paper Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Chelsey Booth) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:11:00 +0000

The Philosophy Club Presents:

Dan Rabinoff,
Graduate Student Philosophy
will present a paper entitled:

“Spacetime the One Substance”
DATE: Friday, September 11, 2009
LOCATION: 384 University College
TIME: 2:30 pm

All are welcome!
Refreshments to follow in 147/148 University College

Greetings and Call for Papers

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:42:00 +0000

Greetings philosophers!
For any newcomers to U of M philosophy, welcome!
I'd like to announce that on Friday, September 11 there will be a student talk by one of our master's students, Daniel Rabinoff (me). The following week there will be a talk by one of our undergrads, Greg Glatz (day T.B.A).
This fall we're going to try to have a student talk every week, instead of just on the weeks with no guest speaker. And for the first time we'll be encouraging undergrads to give talks (thanks to Greg for stepping up to the plate).
Grad students, you know what's involved in a talk. I encourage you to give one! If you have an old paper lying around that you think is presentable, or you have a new-fangled idea you'd like to bounce off the department, turn it into a presentation.
Undergrads, if you'd like to present some ideas, if you think you've written or thought of something cool lately (for class or otherwise) I encourage you to present as well. We're not a scary bunch, really. If the task of presenting to veteran philosophers seems daunting, you have the option of limiting your audience to only other undergrads (or perhaps only students). If you'd like someone to look over your paper before you present it, we can find a graduate student who will be happy to do that (if none are found, I would be happy to).
If you'd like to book a day for a talk please e-mail (or talk to) one of the philosophy club executives:
Dan Rabinoff - d.rabinoff@gmail.com
Wess Mcpherson - ummcph06@cc.umanitoba.ca

Following the upcoming talk on the 11th there will be an informal meet&greet in the student offices. Everyone's welcome to come.

Also, just a reminder, toad night is every wednesday at the Toad in the Hole pub. People usually arrive around 10:30. Come have a philosophical good-time with beer. Come and find out what your profs REALLY think about things!(not all profs will be there, but some profs will)

For all of the above, tell your friends if they're philosophically inclined and interested.
Dan

On What Grounds What (a glance at a paper)

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:32:00 +0000

Since I'm away and missing this weeks reading group I thought I'd post some comments on the readings here to fish for replies.

The reading is here: http://rsss.anu.edu.au/~schaffer/papers/Ground.pdf

In the paper, Schaffer argues that metaphysics should be concerned with the grounding relation and what things are fundamental. He contrasts this with a view he attributes to Quine, according to which what metaphysics should be concerned with is what things exist.
Very roughly, he seems to have these points in favor of his view:
- Quine's agenda is part of his agenda, so anyone who loves thinking about what exists need not stop doing that on his account.
- His view lends some insight into a plausible way to implement a philosophical methodology much like Quine's methodology.
- There are simple arguments for the existence of lots of abstracta. His view admits of their existence (thus maintaining lots of common sense truths) yet gracefully bears their ontological cost (they exist, but that isn't a cost because they may not be fundamental).
- Grounding is an intuitive primitive relation that we need for metaphysics anyway (to support this he mentions that supervenience cannot bear the weight we put on it, but grounding can do all it does and more).
- Many important existence debates can be better frames as grounding debates.

I thought this paper was excellent and thought provoking. Here's a few points to hopefully start things off.

1) What does this view exclude from metaphysical inquiry?
For that matter, what does quine's view exclude from metaphysical inquiry? Arguably, the answer to both is nothing. Schaffer gives a rough method for posing any interesting question as an existence question, so presumably no question is out of the game for Quine. Since Schaffer must also answer all existence questions no question is out of the game for him either. So what's supposed to be the difference? Is it methodological? Well, he certainly gives reason enough to reject Quine's method, but he seems to want to say more than that. He's rejecting Quine's characterization of the fundamental question of metaphysics. But again, both questions demand the same information. Is it a recommended strategy or style he's suggesting to philosophers? If so, his point may be important, but merely pragmatic. After all, any style or strategy that yields knowledge will do the trick for us philosophers. It could be an important pragmatic point he's making, but at first blush I see two other options:
a) He's making an object level grounding claim: Facts about grounding themselves ground facts about existence. It's a short step from here to say that it's more important to look at facts about grounding then facts about existence, since grounding facts are more fundamental.
b) Schaffer is lending too much importance to grounding, and Quine is lending too much importance to existence. Metaphysics is concerned with everything that exists and all interesting relations they stand in. Grounding is an important one, but one of many. They're views when analyzed are mere recommendations on where we should put our focus.
2) Is this unfair to Meinong?
I'm no Meinongian, but if we're defining a framework in which to do metaphysics all the major players should at least be represented. Meinong can make a distinction Schaffer doesn't allow, in addition to a "non-existence waste bin" he can have a "there are none of waste bin". Quine had the same problem. I don't think Meinong should be outcast as "not doing metaphysics anymore" or anything like that.
3) Does it make all our metaphysical distinctions?
If this point is right, then point (1) is wrong and vice versa, but what the heck, I'm just talking here. It seems that if two distinct types of entities occupy the same place in the grounding game (two types of entities that both ground the same things, and are grounded by the same things), Schaffer is committed to that distinction being uninteresting, or not in the scope of metaphysical inquiry. Here's a couple pairs that could plausibly be like that (and may still be metaphysically interesting):
a) Space - Time
b) Math - Logic
c) Fiction - Myth

I think I'll leave off here.
Dan