The Pittsburgh Area Philosophy Colloquium

Working Groups


9:00 – 12:00


Details on working group room assignments will be available at the registration desk.

Lunch

12:00-1:00

Commons Dining Room (assemble at the registration desk at 12:00)

Keynote Address


1:00 – 2:15, Burnett 114 (Yost Auditorium)

“The Practical Significance of Collective Reasons for Individual Agents”

Abraham Roth, The Ohio State University

Dr. Roth is Professor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University. He joined the faculty there in 2006, and has also taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, UCLA. Much of his research focuses on philosophy of action, collective intentionality, and the work of David Hume. His work has appeared in Ethics, Noûs, Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, among others.

Session A

Burnett 114 (Yost Auditorium)

2:30

“Macabre Fascination as a Virtue”

Marius Pascale, Seton Hall University

Comments: Brian McLean, The Ohio State University

Chair: Robert Sharp, Muskingum University

3:30 Break

3:45

“Seeing What’s Right”

David Kaspar, St. John’s University

Comments: Kate Johnson, Bellarmine University

Chair: Robert Sharp, Muskingum University

4:45 Break

5:00

“Deontology Revived”

Nathan Wood, University of Georgia

Comments: Robert Sharp, Muskingum University

Chair: Donald Bruckner, Penn State – New Kensington

Session B

Burnett 109

2:30

“Uncertainty, Belief and Ethical Risk”

Jamie Fritz, The Ohio State University

Comments: Matthew Shields, Georgetown University

Chair: Carlin Chruscicki, Ohio University

3:30 Break


3:45

“On the Possibility of Mapping Bodily Shape in Terms of Fractal Geometry in Leibniz’s System”

Kimberly Tucker, Duquesne University

Comments: Shoshana Brassfield, Frostburg State University

Chair: Gregg Osborne, Washington and Jefferson College

4:45 Break

5:00

“A Puzzle About Inference in Spinoza”

Galen Berry, Iona College

Comments: Martin Krahn, Duquesne University

Chair: Gregg Osborne, Washington and Jefferson College

Session C

Burnett 103

2:30

“A Problem for Hypothetical Priors”

Lisa Cassell, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Comments: Will Nalls, Carnegie Mellon University

Chair: Michael P. Wolf, Washington and Jefferson College

3:30 Break


3:45

“Parsimony and Semantic Monism”

Adam Podlaskowski, Fairmont State University

Comments: Geoff Georgi, West Virginia University

Chair: Evan Woods
, The Ohio State University

4:45 Break

5:00

“How Many Orcs Did Tolkien Create? Advice for Fictional Realists”

Brendan Murday, Ithaca College

Comments: Cruz Davis, Virginia Polytechnic and State University

Chair: Andrew Winters, Slippery Rock University

For participants:

Analytic: AnalyticPapers

Continental: (coming soon)

Ethics: (EthicsGroup1) (EthicsGroup2)

History: (coming soon)

Here, you can both both pre-register for this year’s conference, and sign up to join us at the banquet on the evening of September 9th. We have PayPal links below for various registration options, and we’ll email you receipts after the conference. Continue reading →

The 2017 Pittsburgh Area Philosophy Colloquium will be held on Saturday, September 9th, 2017 at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA.  Our keynote speaker this year will be  Dr. Abraham Roth of The* Ohio State University.

Our format this year will be similar to past years. Those who wish to submit either abstracts to our working groups, or full papers for consideration in the main program may do so at https://pittphil.com/submissions

* – You have to put the ‘The’ in there. They’re really insistent about that.

The full schedule for the 2016 Pittsburgh Area Philosophy Colloquium (to be held on Saturday, September 10th) is now available.  Click below for more details.

Continue reading →

We’re pleased to announce that this year’s keynote speaker will be Dan Selcer of Duquesne University.  He has been a friend and generous contributor to the PAPC in the past, and he’s a welcome addition to the program this year.  Dan’s research covers numerous figures in early modern philosophy and science, though his interests also extend to contemporary continental thought.  A title for his talk will be made available here some time in late spring or summer.

Since we’re all very, very serious professionals here at the PAPC, we opted not to accompany this announcement with a picture or clip of Schwarzenegger as the Terminator uttering “I’ll be back.” Silly! Unprofessional!  (Also, announcing that you will be back when you are sort of back doesn’t quite express the right thing. You can see our quandary here.)

But the PAPC will return on September 10, 2016.  You will find a link to the Submissions page in the links bar at the top of the page, so feel free to head over there and send us things as soon as you like.  The deadline for submissions is June 15th, 2016.

Please also note that we have expanded the offerings this year to include a working group in “Feminism and Gender Theory.”  Much like the other groups, the title is intended to be as broad and inclusive as possible, and we will most likely assemble multiple smaller groups once all the abstracts and papers arrive.