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Annual Philosophy Conference

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  5. Annual Philosophy Conference

2025 Austin J. Fagothey, S.J. Philosophy Conference

Meeting at the Confluence of Environmental Ethics & Technology

February 28, 2025

Williman Room, Benson Memorial Center

For more information, please reach out to the Conference director: Kimberly Dill (Philosophy): kdill@scu.edu

The registration form for this conference can be found here.

February 28, 2025

Time Agenda
8:30 am Registration
9:00-9:50 am Meica Magnani (Northeastern): “Peaks Don’t Belong in Bags and Your Life Doesn’t Belong in a Bucket", moderated by Susan Kennedy (Philosophy)
10:00-10:50 am Brian Burkhart (The University of Oklahoma): Indigenous Approaches to Environmental Tech., moderated by Robert Shanklin (Philosophy)
10:50-11:10 am Break
11:10 am-12 pm Yasha Rohwer (Oregon Tech): “Island Rodent Eradications, Gene Drives, & Conservation Value", moderated by Christine Wieseler (Philosophy)
12:10 pm Lunch
1:40 pm Panel Discussion: Environmental Ethics, Public Philosophy, & Pedagogy, moderated by Meilin Chinn (Philosophy) & Iris Stewart-Frey (Environmental Studies & Sciences)
3:00-3:50 pm Anncy Thresher (Northeastern): Space Environmental Ethics, Space Junk, moderated by Leslie Gray (Environmental Studies & Sciences)
3:50-4:10 pm Break
4:10-5:00 pm Jeff Sebo (NYU): "AI, Animals, and Expanding the Moral Circle", moderated by Kimberly Dill
5:00 pm Conclusion

February 10, 2024

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Ellie Anderson (Pomona College) “On the Possiblity of Unrequited Love: Limerence, Infatuation, and Crushes”
10:00 Anika Simpson (Morgan State University) “Marriage Abolition and the Politics of Single Black Motherhood”
11:00 Break
11:15 Ray Briggs (Stanford University), “Should Non-Monogamy be Consensual?”
12:15 Elizabeth Brake (Rice University), “Intimate Partner Violence and the Carceral State”
1:15 Lunch
2:30 Tera Hunter (Princeton University) “What's Love Got To Do With It? Black Family, Marriage, and Slavery in the 19th Century”
3:30 Panel Discussion
4:50 Conclusion

March 4, 2023

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Jennifer Frey (University of South Carolina) “On Art and Virtue”
10:15 Break
10:30 Meghan Sullivan (University of Notre Dame), ”Applying, Interpreting, and  Developing Tradition: A 21st Century Guide”
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Stephan Angle (Wesleyan University) “Confucianism as a Way of Life In and Out of the Classroom”
2:15 Break
2:30 Keya Maitra (University of North Carolina, Asheville), “From Mindfulness to Well-Being: A Philosophical Blueprint”
3:45 Panel Discussion with Q&A

February 21-22, 2020

Friday, February 21

Time Agenda
8:00 Registration
8:30 Coffee/Tea & pastries
9:00 Kristie Dotson (Michigan State University)
10:15 Break
10:30

Perspectives Session: "Intersectionality and Politics"

Jose Jorge Mendoza (UM Lowell)
Michael Huemer (CU Boulder)
Corwin Aragon (Cal Poly Pomona)
12:15 Lunch
2:00

Roundtable Discussion: "#Activism: BlackLivesMatter, MeToo, SayHerName"

Kristie Dotson (Michigan State University)
Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois, Chicago)
Kyle Whyte (Michigan State University)
Veronica Terriquez (UC Santa Cruz)
3:45 Kyle Whyte (Michigan State University)

Saturday, February 22

Time Agenda
8:30 Coffee/Tea & pastries
9:00 Veronica Terriquez (UC Santa Cruz)
10:15 Break
10:30

"Contrasting Views: Identity, Politics, and Justice"

Corwin Aragon (Cal Poly Pomona)
Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois, Chicago)
12:15 Lunch
2:00

Roundtable: "Immigration and the Border"

Michael Huemer (CU Boulder)
Kristie Dotson (Michigan State University)
Jose Jorge Mendoza (UM Lowell)
Veronica Terriquez (UC Santa Cruz)
3:30 Break
3:45

Roundtable of all participants:

Cory Aragon
Walter Benn Michaels
Kristie Dotson
Michael Huemer
Jose Jorge Mendoza
Veronica Terriquez
Kyle Whyte

February 9, 2019

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Gregg Horowitz (Pratt Institute), "The Aesthetics of Hoarding"
10:15 Break
10:30 Sondra Bacharach (Victoria University of Wellington), "Finding Your Voice in the Streets: Street Art and Epistemic Justice"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Shen-yi Liao (University of Puget Sound), "Bittersweet Food"
2:15 Break
2:30 Julianne Chung (University of Louisville), "Exemplars, Personal Ideals, and the Epistemic Value of Art"
3:45 Panel Discussion with Q&A

February 10, 2018

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 David Wong (Duke University), "Soup, Harmony, and Disagreement"
10:15 Break
10:30 Leah Kalmanson (Drake University), "The Value of Reading: A Study Guide to the Meaningful Universe of Song-Dynasty Confucianism"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 P.J. Ivanhoe (City University of Hong Kong), "The Values of Spontaneity"
2:15 Break
2:30 Vrinda Dalmiya (University of Hawai’i at Manoa), "Weeping Wisdoms: Deriving Moral Metaphysics from the Mahabharata’s The Book of the Women"
3:45 Panel Discussion with Q&A

January 28, 2017

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Kathryn T. Gines (Pennsylvania State University). "Simone de Beauvoir and the Race/Gender Analogy in The Second Sex Revisited"
10:15 Break
10:30 Charles W. Mills (CUNY Graduate Center), "Rawls and Racial Justice"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Linda Martin Alcoff (Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center), "American Exceptionalism as White Exceptionalism"
2:15 Robert Bernasconi (Pennsylvania State University), "Toward a Genealogy of the Concept of Racism"
3:30 Break
3:45 Panel Discussion with Q&A

January 30, 2016

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Samantha Besson (University of Fribourg), "Sharing Duties and Responsibilities for Human Rights"
10:15 Break
10:30 Gopal Sreenivasan (Duke University), "Human Rights and Public Goods: Problems from Health and Beyond"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Carol Gould (CUNY), "Reconceiving Human Dignity as Relational and Embodied"
2:15 Allen Buchanan (Duke University), "Human Rights and Moral Progress"
3:30 Break
3:45 Panel Discussion with Q&A

January 24, 2015

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Manuel Vargas (University of San Francisco), "The Circumstances of Responsibility" 
10:30 Break
10:45 Adina Roskies (Dartmouth College), "Animal Models and Freedom of the Will"
12:15 Lunch
2:00 John Doris (Washington University in St. Louis), "Talking to Ourselves"
3:30 Break
3:45 Valerie Tiberius (University of Minnesota), "Desiring, Deciding, and the Fact Value Gap"

January 11, 2014

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Charles Ess (University of Oslo), "Cultivating Selfhood and Democracy in a Mediated Age: Plato, McLuhan, and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns"
10:30 Break
10:45 Judith Simon (University of Vienna, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), "Trustworthiness and Responsibility: Socio-Epistemic Virtues in A Digital Age"
12:15 Lunch
2:00 John Sullins (Sonoma State University), "Humanity Out of the Loop: Autonomous Warfare and the Diminishing Role of Character"
3:30 Break
3:45 Evan Selinger (Rochester Institute of Technology), "The Ethical Implications of Detonating a Digital Etiquette Bomb"

March 2, 2013

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 John Ferrari (University of California, Berkeley), "Plato's Writerly Utopianism"
10:30 Break
10:45 Eric Brown (Washington University, St. Louis), "Eudaimonia in Plato's Republic"
12:15 Lunch
2:00 C.D.C. Reeve (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "Souls and Soul-Parts in Plato"
3:30 Break
3:45 Richard Kraut (Northwestern University), "Against Democracy: Plato's Argument Revived"

February 4, 2012

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration
9:00 Hubert Dreyfus (University of California, Berkeley), "Kierkegaard's Monotheism Without God"
10:30 Break
10:45 David Wood (Vanderbilt University), "Kierkegaard Vivant"
12:15 Lunch
2:00 Vanessa Rumble (Boston College), "'When the Child is to be Weaned'; Kierkegaard and the Trauma of Transcendence"
3:30 Break
3:45 Johnathan Lear (The University of Chicago), "Irony and Erotic Anxiety"

February 12, 2011

Time Agenda
8:15 Registration
9:00 Nicholas D. Smith (Lewis and Clark College), "Obey or Persuade"
10:15 Break
10:30 Mark McPherran (Simon Fraser University), "Socrates and Callicles in Hell: the Myth of the Gorgias"
11:45 Lunch
1:30 Paul B. Woodruff (The University of Texas at Austin), "Eros Philosophos"
2:45 Hugh H. Benson (The University of Oklahoma), "Learning from Others in the Socratic Dialogues"
4:00 Break
4:15 Debra Nails (Michigan State University), "More to Method than Maieusis"

January 23, 2010

Time Agenda
8:15 Registration
9:00 Patricia Churchland (University of California, San Diego), "Inference to the Best Decision"
10:15 Break
10:30 Tyler Burge (University of California, Los Angeles), "Some Thoughts on Perception"
11:45 Lunch
1:15 Ned Block (New York University), "Consciousness and Attention"
2:30 Break
2:45 Daniel Dennett (Tufts University), "Turing's Strange Inversion and Searle's Failure of Imagination"
4:00 Break
4:15 John Searle (University of California, Berkeley), "The Conscious Mind: Facts vs. Philosophical Tradition"

October 4, 2008

Time Agenda
8:15 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 John Carriero (University of California, Los Angeles), "Skepticism and Sensation in the Meditations: What skeptical doubt does (and does not) show about the senses"
10:15 Break
10:30 Marleen Rozemond (University of Toronto), "Descartes and the Simplicity of the Soul"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Alan Nelson (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "The Unity of Cartesian Knowledge"
2:15 Lisa Shapiro (Simon Fraser University), "How We Experience the World: Descartes and Spinoza on Passionate Perception"
3:30 Break
3:45 Daniel Garber (Princeton University), "Descartes against the Materialists"

April 28, 2007

Time Agenda
8:15 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 Daniel Dahlstrom (Boston University), "The Absence of Death"
10:15 Break
10:30 Hubert Dreyfus (University of California, Berkeley), "From Death as a Way of Life to Death and Cultural Configuration"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 John Haugeland (University of Chicago), "Why Does Heidegger Talk About Death"
2:15 Charles Guignon (University of South Florida), "Being Toward Death and the Wholeness of Life"
3:30 Break
3:45 Iain Thomson (University of New Mexico), "On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Reading Heidegger Backward: White's Time and Death"

May 13, 2006

Time Agenda
8:15 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 Shimon Malin (Colgate University), "Whitehead's Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics"
10:15 Break
10:30 Katherine Brading (University of Notre Dame), "Objects of Physics"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Richard Healey (University of Arizona), "Expanding the Circle"
2:15 Margaret Morrison (University of Toronto), "Reduction and Emergence: Physics and Metaphysics"
3:30 Break
3:45 Craig Callender (University of California, San Diego), "What Makes Time Different from Space?"

May 7, 2005

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 David Schmidtz (University of Arizona), "Separate Persons and the Limits of Justice"
10:30 Break
11:00 Gerald Gaus (Tulane University), "Thinking Outside the Box: Nozick on the Prisoner's Dilemma"
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Michael DePaul (Notre Dame University), "Nozick on Rationality"
3:00 Break
3:30 Michael Bratman (Stanford University), "Nozick on Free Will"
5:00 Conclusion

May 1, 2004

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 Alan Code (University of California, Berkeley), "Definitions and Syllogistic Argument in Aristotle"
10:15 Break
10:30 Victor Caston (University of California, Davis), "Aristotle on Perception: Receiving From Without the Matter" 
10:45 Lunch
1:00 John Cooper (Princeton University), "Aristotle on Potentiality and Activity: Metaphysics Theta 6"
2:15 Richard McKirahan (Pomona College), "Aristotle on Our Knowledge of Mathematical Objects"
3:30 Break
3:45 Richard Kraut (Northwestern University), "Doing Without Morality: Reflections on Anscombe's Aristotle"
5:00 Conclusion

April 12, 2003

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 Jerome Neu (University of California, Santa Cruz), "On Feeling Insulted"
10:15 Break
10:30 Ronald de Sousa (University of Toronto), "Emotional Consistency"
10:45 Lunch
1:00 Richard Sorabji (Oxford University), "What Emotions Really Are"
2:15 Robert Solomon (University of Texas at Austin), "What Emotions Really Aren't"
3:30 Break
3:45 Nancy Sherman (Georgetown University), "Stoicism and a Warrior's Anger"
5:00 Conclusion

May 4, 2002

Time Agenda
8:00 Registration and Coffee
9:00 Bonnie Steinbock (State University of New York, Albany), "Moral Status, Moral Value, and Human Embryos"
10:15 Break
10:30 Daniel Dombrowski (Seattle University), "The Argument from Marginal Cases"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Frances M. Kamm (New York University), "Moral Status: Rights Beyond Interests"
2:15 Mary Anne Warren (San Francisco State University), "Moral Status: A Multicriterial Account"
3:30 Break
3:45 J. Baird Callicott (University of North Texas), "The Pragmatic Power and Promise of Theoretical Environmental Philosophy: Forging a New Discourse"
5:00 Conclusion

April 14, 2001

Time Agenda
8:00 Registration and Coffee
9:00 Stephen Darwall (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), "Cultivating Accountability"
9:40 David Wong (Duke University), "Cultivating Moral Judgment"
10:20 Break
10:40 Rosalind Hursthouse (The Open University), "Title To Be Announced"
11:20 Marilyn Friedman (Washington University), "Diversity and Moral Character: Cultivation or Suffocation?"
12:00 Lunch
1:40 Nancy Sherman (Georgetown University), "Of Manners and Morals"
2:20 Joel Kupperman (University of Connecticut), "The Ethics of Style"
3:00 Break
3:20 General Discussion

February 25-26, 2000

Friday, February 25

Time Agenda
2:00 Registration
3:00 John Richardson (New York University), "Nietzsche's Value-Critique of Darwinism"
4:15 Break
4:30 Maudemarie Clark (Colgate University), "The Role of Nietzsche's 'New Philosophers' in his Revaluation of Values"

Saturday, February 26

Time Agenda
8:30 Coffee
9:00 Peter Berkowitz (George Mason School of Law), "Nietzsche's Critique of Democracy"
10:15 Break
10:30 Kathleen Higgins (University of Texas at Austin), "Rebaptizing Our Evil"
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Bernd Magnus (University of California, Riverside), "Coins and Coral Reefs" Some Remarks on Nietzsche's Philosophy of Language"
2:15 Break
2:30 Robert Pippin (University of Chicago), "Gay Science and Corporeal Knowledge"
3:45 Break
4:00 Robert Solomon (University of Texas at Austin), "Nietzsche's Revaluation: A Re-evaluation"

April 16-17, 1999

Friday, April 16

Time Agenda
1:00 Registration
2:00 Jerome Schneewind (Johns Hopkins University), "Kant on the Will"
3:30 Break
3:45 Barbara Herman (University of California, Los Angeles), "Transforming Incentives: The Practical Role of Moral Feeling"

Saturday, April 17

Time Agenda
8:30 Coffee
9:00 Paul Guyer (University of Pennsylvania), "Kant on Moral Worth, Merit and Virtue"
10:30 Break
10:45 Onora O'Neill (Cambridge University), "Kant on the Social Contract Tradition"
12:15 Lunch
1:45 Henry Allison (Boston University) "Aesthetic Disinterest, Moral Interest, and the Purity of Taste"
3:15 Break
3:30 Thomas E. Hill Jr. (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "Wrongdoing, Desert, and Punishment"

February 27-28, 1998

Friday, February 27

Time Agenda
1:00 Registration
2:00 Cripsin Wright (University of St. Andrews), "Truth: One Thing or Many?"
3:30 Break
3:45 Susan Haack (University of Miami), "Confessions of an Old-Fashioned Prig"

Saturday, February 28

Time Agenda
10:00 Coffee
10:30 Tyler Burge (University of California, Los Angeles), "Truth, Charity, and Anti-Individualism"
12:00 Lunch
2:00 Christopher Peacocke (University of Oxford), "Integrating Metaphysics with Epistemology" 
3:30 Break
3:45 John Searle (University of California, Berkeley), "In Defense of the Correspondence Theory of Truth



February 28 - March 1, 1997

Friday, February 28

   
Time Agenda
1:00 Registration
2:00 John Martin Fischer (University of California, Riverside) and Mark Ravizza (Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley), "Taking Responsibility"
3:30 Break
3:45 Susan Wolf (Johns Hopkins University), "The Moral or Moral Luck"

Saturday, March 1

Time Agenda
8:30 Coffee
9:00 Gary Watson (University of California, Irvine), "Assertion and Responsibility" 
10:30 Break
10:45 Thomas Scanlon (Harvard University), "Questions of Responsibility"
11:45 Lunch
2:30 Eleonore Stump (Saint Louis University), "Persons: Identification and Freedom"
3:15 Break
3:30 Harry Frankfurt (Princeton University), "Concluding Commentary"

October 20-21, 1995

Friday, October 20

Time Agenda
12:00 Registration
1:00 Bernard Williams (University of California, Berkeley/Oxford University), "Justice as Fairness: Ethical Not Political"
2:15 Break
2:30 Michael Sandel (Harvard University), "The Limits of Liberal Public Reason"
3:45 Break
4:00

Jürgen Habermas (University of Frankfurt/Northwestern University), "The Public Use of Reason"

Saturday, October 21

Time Agenda
8:30 Registration, coffee, and doughnuts
9:00 Thomas Nagel (New York University), "The Idea of Fairness"
10:15 Break
10:30 Amy Gutmann (Princeton University), "Rawlsian Justice and Deliberative Democracy"
11:45 Lunch
2:30 Ronald Dworkin (New York University/Oxford University), "Liberal Justice and Liberal Ethics"
3:45 Break
4:00

John Rawls (Harvard University), "Relations Between A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism and earlier and Later Pieces"

February 26-27, 1993

Featured Speakers:

Annette Baier, University of Pittsburgh
Simon Blackburn, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Christine Korsgaard, Harvard University
David Pears, Oxford University and UCLA
Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Barry Stroud, University of California, Berkeley

April 28-29, 1992

Friday, February 28

Time Agenda
2:00 John Searle (University of California, Berkeley), "Is there a Problem About Realism?"
3:30 Coffee break
3:45

Donald Davidson (University of California, Berkeley), "Indeterminacy and the Reality of Mental States"
5:15 Reception and Dinner

Saturday, February 29

Time Agenda
8:30 Continental breakfast
9:00 William P. Alston (Syracuse University), "Realism and the Task of Epistemology"
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Gilbert Harman (Princeton University), "Reasons for Belief"
12:15 Lunch
2:00 Roderick Chisholm (Brown University), "Why Antirealism?"
2:20 Break
2:45 Richard Rorty (University of Virginia), Commentary on the Conference Papers
5:15 Social Hour, Dinner, and Discussion

April 19-20, 1991

Friday, April 19

Time Agenda
2:15 Reception
2:45 Joshua Golding (Bellarmine College), "On the Rationality of Being Religion"
4:00 Coffee Break
4:15 John Zeis (Canisius College), "Manifestation Beliefs, Proper Basicality, and Natural Theology"
5:30 Reception and Dinner
7:30

William Alston (Syracuse University), "The Autonomy of Religious Belief"

Respondent: Joseph Runzo (Chapman College)

Saturday, April 20

Time Agenda
8:45 Continental breakfast
9:15 Linda Zagzebski (Loyola Marymount University), "Epistemic Virtue"
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 Stephen Grover (Oxford Universirty), "Religious Experiences: Skepticism, Gullibility, or Credulity"
12:00 Lunch
2:00

Alvin  Plantinga (University of Notre Dame), "An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism"

Respondent: Richard Otte (University of California, Santa Cruz)
3:30 Coffee break
3:45

Michael Brown (Creighton University), "Idolatry, Skepticism, and the Extent of Doxastic Reliability 

Respondent: Stephen Maitzen (Cornell University)
5:15 Social hour, dinner, and discussion

April 20-21, 1990

Featured speakers:

Alan Donagan, California Institute of Technology
John Perry, Stanford University

April 7-8, 1989

Friday Afternoon, Session I:

Time Agenda
2:00 Lynne Arnault (Le Moyne College), "Talking 'Bout a Revolution: Feminism, Historicism, and the Anomalies of Liberal Moral Theory"
3:00 Robert Louden (University of Southern Maine), "Through Thick and Thin: Moral Knowledge in Skeptical Times"
4:00 Coffee Break
4:15 Invited Paper: Bernard Williams (University of California, Berkeley), "Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame"
5:45 Reception and Dinner

Friday Evening, Session II:

Time Agenda
7:30 Rosalind Hursthouse (The Open University), "Arational Actions and the Perfect Agent"
8:30 Gerald Paske (Wichita State University), "Rationality, Reasonableness, and Morality"

Saturday Morning, Session III:

Time Agenda
8:45 Continental Breakfast
9:15 Kevin Lavelle (University of New Mexico), "Davidson, Irrationality, and Weakness of Will"
10:15 John Robertson (Syracuse University), "Hume and the Limitations of Reason"
11:15 Coffee Break
11:30 Neera Badhwar (University of Oklahoma), "The Rejection of Ethical Rationalism"
12:30 Lunch

Saturday Afternoon, Session IV:

Time Agenda
2:00 Invited Paper: Robert Audi (University of Nebraska), "Externalism and Internalism in Moral Epistemology"
3:30 Coffee Break
3:45 Paul Hurley (Pomona College), "Where the Traditional Accounts of Practical Reason Go Wrong"
5:30 Social Hour and Dinner

April 22-23, 1988

Featured Speakers:

Albert Jonsen, University of Washington
Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College
Lori Andrews, American Bar Foundation