UR PHILOSOPHY
GRADUATE STUDENT ACTIVITIES

Thank you for your interest in the graduate program in philosophy at the University of Rochester. On this page you will find information about the recent activities of graduate students at the department. We are a rather active and lively bunch.

The Graduate Students also have an excellent Blog – check it out!

Discussion Group  |  Presentations, Publications, etc. | Graduate  Conference | Graduate Student Teaching | Recent Alumni

 

 


 Chit Chat

 

Graduate Student Discussion Group [sometimes known as The Chit Chat Club] [Other years’ schedules]

The philosophy graduate students meet every few weeks for lively discussion of each other's work. The following are the presentations we have had so far this school year:

 

–        Allen Plug – “A Response to Wayne Riggs’ ‘Reliability and the Value of Knowledge’”

–        Andrei Buckareff” – “Skepticism and Being able to Know that you Know”

–        Allen Plug – “A Problem for Indexical Reliabilism”

–        Joshua Spencer – “A Simple Problem”

–        Joshua Spencer – “What a Coincidence”

–        Andrei Buckareff – “Belief and the Will”

–        Prof. Gabriel Uzquiano (Guest Faculty Speaker) – “A Puzzle about Mereology”

–        Pat Kenny – “Frege on Definition”

–        Andrei Buckareff – “Protecting Intentions from Mental Birth Control: The Case of Mental Action".

 

4 Some Recent Graduate Student Publications and Presentations, etc. [see students' web pages for more details]:

Buckareff, Andrei

–        Review of G.F. Schueler, Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action, Philosophical Psychology       (forthcoming 2005)

–        “Escaping Hell: Divine Motivation and the Problem of Hell,” (with Allen Plug) Religious Studies (forthcoming 2005)

–        “Causalisms Reconsidered,” (with Jing Zhu) Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (forthcoming 2004).

–        “Acceptance and Deciding to Believe,” Journal of Philosophical Research 29 (2004): 173-191.

–        “Reasons Explanations and Pure Agency,” (with Richard Feldman) Philosophical Studies 112 (2003): 135-145.

–        “Can the Agency Theory Be Salvaged?,” Philosophia Christi (Series 2) 3 (2001): 217-224.

–        “Divine Freedom and Creaturely Suffering in Process Theology: A Critical Appraisal,” Sophia 39 (2000): 56-69.

 

Cullison, Andy

 

–        “Privileged Access, Externalism, and Ways of Believing,” presented at the Department of Philosophy, University of Rochester, April 19, 2004

–        "Anti-Realism Meets Amoral Twin Earth," presented at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division, Pasadena, California, March 24-29, 2004.

–        "Kenotic Christology and Disjunctive Properties," at the Society of Christian Philosophers Eastern Regional Meeting, November 14-16, 2002, Messiah College, Grantham, PA.

–        “Omniscience as a Dispositional State” at the Western New York-Western Pennsylvania Regional Meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, April 12, 2003, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY.

–        “A Generality Problem for Evidentialism” at the Mid-South Philosophy Conference, February 21-22, 2003, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

–        “Plato and the Republic” Guest Lecturer, invited by Christopher Hager, SUNY-Geneseo, February, 17, 2003, Geneseo, NY.

–        Comments on Daniel Cheung’s “Proper Functionalism, Reliabilism and Idiosyncratic Cognition.” at the University of Rochester Graduate Epistemology Conference, November 8-9, 2002, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

 

Dougherty, Trent

 

–        “Can Intuitionism Save Anti-Realism.”  Under Review.

–        Commentary: “A Counterfactual Analysis of Divine Causation.”  American Catholic Philosophical Association.  University of Notre Dame.  October, 2005. 

–        Commentary: “Redemption, Justice and Mercy,” James Montmarquet.  Central States Philosophical Association.  University of Kentucky.  October, 2005.

–        Review: Bonjour and Sosa, Epistemic Justification.  Review of Metaphysics, forthcoming. 

–        Presentation: “Divine Hiddenness and the Nature of Belief.”  Midwestern Regional Meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers.  Lincoln Seminary, Lincoln Illinois.  2004.

–        Presentation: “A Users Guide to Design Arguments.”  Eastern Regional Meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers.  2004.

–        Review: Swinburne, “Epistemic Justification.”  Philosophia Christi.  2001. 

 

 

Levy, David

 

–        "The 'Digression' in Plato's Theaetetus: A New Interpretation," 21st Annual Graduate Philosophy Conference sponsored by the Graduate Philosophy Organization of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (April 10, 1999); Presented at a Colloquium of the SUNY Geneseo Philosophy Department (October 28,1999); Presented at the meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy (SAGP) held in conjunction with the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA) (December 28, 1999).

–        "Jack Miles and the Sin of Sodom," Colloquium of the SUNY Geneseo Honors Program (February 1, 1999).

  

 

Mittag, Daniel

 

–        “Are Practical Justification and Epistemic Justification Unified?: An Assessment and a Reply to Mills." American Philosophical Association Meeting, New York, 2000.

–        "Comments on Autumn Fiester's 'Perceptual Failure and Aspect Blindness'" Eastern Pennsylvania Philosophical Association., Spring 2000.

–        “On the Causal-Doxastic Theory of the Basing Relation," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (2002): 543-560

–        “Evidentialism,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, James Fieser (ed.) URL = <http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evidenti.htm>, September 2004.

 

 

Nobis, Nathan

 

–        "Ayer and Stevenson's Epistemological Emotivism," Croatian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. IV, No. 10, April, 2004, pp. 61-81.

–        "Feminist Ethics without Feminist Ethical Theory (or, more generally, Φ Ethics Without Φ Ethical Theory)" in Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, ed. Frederick Adams, Philosophical Documentation Center Press, 2004.

–        "Carl Cohen's 'Kind' Argument For Animal Rights and Against Human Rights," Journal of Applied Philosophy, March 2004, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 43-59.

–        "Bioethics & Biology Education," American Biology Teacher (forthcoming).

–        Review of Moral Realism: A Defense by Russ Shafer-Landau (forthcoming, Teaching Philosophy).

–        Review of Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature's Favorite by Tibor Machan, with my reply to Machan's response (forthcoming, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies)

–        "Animal Dissection and Evidence-Based Life-Science & Health-Professions Education," Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 2002, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 155-159.

–        "Vegetarianism and Virtue: Does Consequentialism Demand Too Little?" Social Theory and Practice, January 2002, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 135-56.

–        '"Balancing Off" Infant Torture and Death: A Reply to Chignell," Religious Studies, Vol. 37, March (2001), pp. 103-108.

–        "Vagueness, Borderline Cases, and Moral Realism: Where's the Incompatibility?" Philosophical Writings, No. 14, Summer 2000, pp. 29-39).

–        "What would be so bad if we rejected belief in libertarian 'free will'?" forthcoming in De Philosophia.

–        "Vegetarianism and Virtue: Does Consequentialism Demand Too Little?" Social Theory and Practice.

–        Review of The Animal Rights Debate by Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, Journal of Value Inquiry.

–        "Animal Dissection and Evidence-Based Life-Science & Health-Professions Education: A Response to Jonathan Balcombe's Commentators," Journal of            Applied Animal Welfare Science.

–        "The real problem of infant and animal suffering," forthcoming in Philo.

–        "Who Needs the 'Actual Future Principle'? A reply to Harman on Abortion," Southwest Philosophy Review.

 

 

Patterson, Andrea

 

–        "What's Wrong with Sexual Harassment?" University of Rochester, 2000.

–        "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" Teaching Fellowship from the Susan B. Anthony Institute, Spring 2001.

 

 

Allen Plug

 

–        “Escaping Hell: Divine Motivation and the Problem of Hell,” (with Andrei Buckareff) Religious Studies (forthcoming 2005)

 

 Tillman, Chris

 

–        “A Millian Propositional Guise for One Puzzling English Gal,” 2005 Analysis 65(3): 251-258.

–        “Contextualism is False” under review

–        “Take Dthat” under review

 

–        “Contextualism is False”, Syracuse University Graduate Conference, 2004

–        Comments on Anthony Coleman’s “Contextualism and Isolation”, University of Rochester Graduate Epistemology Conference, 2004

–        “Another Paper on Content Externalism and Self-Knowledge”, Third Free University of Amsterdam Graduate Conference in Epistemology: Rational Belief and Knowledge, 2005

–        Comments on Julie Yoo’s “Objects, Kinds, and Coincidence”, Central American Philosophical Association Meeting, 2005

–        “Epistemic Two-Dimensionalism, Primary Intensions, and Compositionality”, University of Rochester, 2005

–        “Contextualism, Iterated Attitudes, and Generality”, The Creighton Club (Upstate New York Philosophical Association), 2005

–        “Contextualism, Iterated Attitudes, and Generality”, 42nd Annual Western Canadian Philosophical Association Meeting, 2005

–        Comments on Robert Hudson’s “The Empirical Basis to Skepticism”, 42nd Annual Western Canadian Philosophical Association Meeting, 2005

–        “Some Problems for Contextualism”, Eastern American Philosophical Association Meeting, 2005

–        "Counterfactuals and Context: If It Were the Case that Counterfactuals Behaved Differently in Indirect Reports, It Might Be the Case that They Are Context-Sensitive," Western American    Philosophical Association Meeting, March 2006

 

 

Graduate students have also recently presented papers and/or commented on papers at the American Philosophical Association meetings, the Harvard/MIT graduate student conference, the Society for Exact Philosophy, the Society for Christian Philosophers, the Creighton Club (the NY State Philosophical Association), the NY State Catholic Philosophical Association, the Syracuse graduate student conference, and Cornell. 

 

Graduate students at the department have served as referees for Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Psychology and Philosophical Papers.

 

And at least three students have served as reviewers of textbooks for publishers.

 


In 2001, 2002 and 2004 we hosted a graduate conference on Epistemology.  All three were deemed hugely successful.

 

 

þ   Graduate Student Teaching:

 

Many graduate students teach small, instructional-writing philosophy courses through the The College Writing Program.  Graduate students have taught these writing-intensive courses (primarily for first year students) in the following topics:

 

 

All graduate students agree that our being involved with the Writing Program is a good thing, professionally, personally, and, indeed, financially (we are paid to take a summer course (English 571, Pedagogy: The Teaching of Writing) on how to more effectively teach writing). Graduate students also teach for the U of R Philosophy Department in the summer.

Adjunct teaching opportunities are also available at many local colleges and universities, including the Eastman School of Music, SUNY Brockport, SUNY Geneseo, Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Saint John Fisher College, Nazareth College, and Roberts Wesleyan College.


WAS: UR-F

      Some Recent Alumni:

·        Prasanta Bandyopadhyay, Associate Professor, Philosophy, Montana State University.

·        Tove Finnestad, Assistant Professor, SUNY New Paltz, NY.

·        Hud Hudson, Professor of Philosophy, Western Washington University.

·        Kelly Dean Jolley, Associate Professor, Auburn University, AL.

·        Jeff Goodman, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religion, James Madison University, VA.

·        Alice Kyburg, Philosophy, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

·        JeeLoo Liu, Assistant Professor, Cal State, Fullerton, CA.

·        David Levy, Assistant Professor, SUNY College at Geneseo, Geneseo, NY.

·        Todd Long, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department at California Polytechnic State University.

·        F. Scott Mcelreath, Peace College, Raleigh, North Carolina (tenure track, beginning Fall 2001).

·        Matthew McCormick, Lecturer, California State University, Sacramento, CA.

·        Bo Mou, Associate Professor of Philosophy, San Jose State University, CA.

·        John Mouracade, Oklahoma Baptist University, Shawnee, OK. (tenure track, beginning Fall 2001; John had a 1-year job at Calvin College's philosophy department during the 2000-2001 school year).

·        John Mark Reynolds, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Founder and Director, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University, CA.

·        Sharon Ryan, Associate Professor of Philosophy, West Virginia University.

·        Stefan S. Sencerz, Professor, Philosophy, TEXAS A&M - A & H.

·        Kara Soyhun, Philosophy, Bogazici University, Turkey.

·        Greg Wheeler post-doc, CENTRIA, the Center for Research In Artiticial Intelligence, New University of Lisbon, Portugal.

·        Mark Wheeler, Associate Professor of Philosophy, San Diego State University, CA.

 

This page is maintained by Pat Kenny. Please email me at pkny@mail.rochester.edu with updates or questions.


Last updated September 22, 2005.

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