Philosophy events

Fall 2023

September 15

Ilva Llakmani (UAlbany, Graduate Student Essay Contest Winner)
"Causally Adequate Minds: The Consistency of Descartes' Mind-Body Account and his Causal Adequacy Principle"

Time: 3:00PM
Location: HU-354
 

October 20 [co-sponsored with the UAlbany History Department & Jewish Studies Program]

Iryna Mykhailova (European Union Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, Harvard University)
"From Marburg to Harvard: Metaphysical Odyssey of Erich Frank (1883-1949)"

Time: 3:00PM
Location: HU-354

 

October 27

Jonas Vandieken (Munich/Toronto)
"The Moral Nexus, Accountability, and Deliberation"

Time: 3:00PM
Location: HU-354
 

December 1

Umrao Sethi  (Brandeis)
"Existence 'in' the Mind"

Time: 3:00PM
Location: HU-354

 

Upcoming Graduate Student Conference in Spring 2024

April 20
Conference Themes: Environmental Philosophy, Philosophy of Race, Gender, Sexuality

Keynote Presenter: Evelyn Brister (RIT)

Graduate Students are invited to submit papers related to the conference themes. Submissions are due January 31, 2024. For more details, see the Call for Papers.

 

Upcoming Department Colloquium Speakers for Spring 2024 (more details as available):

February 9
Rafeeq Hasan (Amherst)
"Frederick Douglass on Domination and Freedom"

 

March 8
Kieran Setiya (MIT)
"Proleptic Grief"

 

April 5
L.A. Paul (Yale) 
Title: TBA
 

 

Spring 2023

March 3

David Sobel (Syracuse)
"The Subjective/Objective Distinction"

Time: 3:00 PM
Location: HU-354
 

March 24

Nada Gligorov (Alden March Bioethics Institute)
"Eliminativism Redux: The Case of Pain"

Time: 3:00 PM
Location: HU-354

 

Fall 2022

September 9

Nicholas Boles (UAlbany, Graduate Student Essay Contest Winner)
“Human Duties: Who is Obligated to Fulfill Claims of Human Rights?”

Time: 3:00 PM 
Location: HU-354

 

October 21

Alison McIntyre (Wellesley)
"Reconstructing an Owner's Manual for the Passions: Bishop Butler on the Proper Uses of Anger, Resentment, and Vengefulness"

Time: 3:00 PM
Location: SS-256

 

Spring 2022

February 25

Samuel Reis-Dennis (Albany Medical College)
“Elevation and Dignity”

Time: 3:00 PM
Talk delivered on Zoom.
 

March 25

Maité Cruz (Union College)
"Shepherd’s Critique of Hume on Causation"

Time: 3:00 PM
Talk delivered on Zoom.
 

April 1

C. Thi Nguyen (Utah)
“Transparency Is Surveillance”

Time: 3:00 PM
Talk delivered on Zoom.

 

April 2-3

UAlbany Graduate Conference
 

April 29

Richard Moran (Harvard)
"Self-Consciousness and Self-Division

Time: 3:00 PM
Talk delivered on Zoom.
 

Fall 2021

September 17

Ilva Llakmani (UAlbany, Graduate Student Essay Contest Winner)
"A Promisor's Rights"

Time: 3:15 PM
Location: HU-354

 

October 8

Jenann Ismael (Columbia)
"Time and the Visual Imagination: from physics to philosophy"

Time: 3:00 PM
Talk delivered on Zoom.

 

Spring 2021


UAlbany Philosophy Association talk

February 26, 3:00 PM via Zoom
Quayshawn Spencer (Penn)
"A Metaphysical Mapping Problem for Race Theorists and Human Population Geneticists"


Workshop on Practical Reason and Morality

Friday and Saturday, March 12-13 via Zoom

  • David Owens (King's College, London)
  • Hille Paakkunainen (Syracuse)
  • Tamar Schapiro (MIT)
  • Michael Smith (Princeton)

LINK: Workshop website


Graduate Student Conference

Philosophy of Biology

Keynote speaker: Justin Garson (Hunter College, CUNY)
"What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter"

Other speakers: Tim Elmo Feiten (Cincinnati), Kenny Knowlton, Jr. (Oregon), Alistair Whittle (Bristol), Vincent Sater (Montreal), Paul Kelly (Wisconsin-Madison)

2:00-5:00 April 2, 2:00-6:00 April 3

E-MAIL [email protected] for info.

 

Research Symposium

April 30, 3:00-5:30

Three PhD students will give short presentations of their research.

  • Kali Milner, "Partially Pretend Things"

  • Will Kidder, “The Role of Empathy in Moral Inquiry”

  • Nicholas Jacobson, "Pereboom's Four-Case Argument"

workshop poster
Past Events

Fall 2020

Fall Colloquia were be held via Zoom.

October 2

David Braun (University at Buffalo)
"Questions and Answers"

November 6

Margaret Gilbert (University of California, Irvine)
"Collective Belief: Kinds, Contexts, and Consequences

Spring 2020

March 6

Work-in-progress talk
Nick Boles
"Justifying the Innate Right to Freedom in Kant's Metaphysics of Morals"

HU 290, 3:00 PM

April 4

Note: Because of Covid-19, the conference was canceled.

    UAlbany Philosophical Association
    12th annual graduate student conference
    Topic: Philosophy of Biology
    Keynote Speaker: Justin Garson (Hunter College)


    April 17

    Note: Because of Covid-19, the workshop was canceled.

      Workshop on Practical Reason and Morality

      • David Owens (King's College, London)
      • Hille Paakkunainen (Syracuse)
      • Tamar Schapiro (MIT)
      • Michael Smith (Princeton)

      Fall 2019

      September 6
      Gunnar Babcock
      The 2019 Philosophy Graduate Essay Prize Winner
      "Asexual Organisms, Identity and Vertical Gene Transfer"

      September 27
      Kathryn Tabb (Bard College)
      "Thinking about Genetics When We Think about Each Other"

      October 18
      Sally Scholz (Villanova University)
      "Solidarity as Sanctuary"

      November 8
      Ron McClamrock (UAlbany)
      "How big do things look?"

      November 22
      Nora Boyd (Siena College)
      "Observation and Intervention are Irrelevant to Empirical Science"
       

      Spring 2019

      February 8
      Tony Manela (Siena College)

      March 15
      One-day Workshop on Constitutivism
      Matthias Haase (Chicago)
      Michelle Kosch (Cornell)
      Sharon Street (NYU)
      David Velleman (NYU)

      Saturday, April 6
      Rage Against the Armchair
      UAlbany Philosophical Association, 11th annual graduate student conference

      April 26
      Marianna Bergamaschi Canapini (Union College)
       

      Fall 2018

      September 7
      Scott Wolcott, Graduate Essay Prize Talk
      What It Means To Be Lucky

      September 28 in FA126
      Evelyn Brister (Rochester Institute of Technology)
      Biotechnology for Conservation: Philosophy and Policy

      October 26
      Russell Powell (Boston University)
       

      Spring 2018

      March 9 in HU354
      Kareem Khalifa (Middlebury College)
      Idealizations and Understanding: Much Ado About Nothing?

      March 23
      Evelyn Brister (Rochester Institute of Technology)
      Event cancelled.

      April 27
      Charlotte Witt (University of New Hampshire)
       

      Political Philosophy

      UAlbany Philosophical Association, 11th annual graduate student conference

      Saturday, April 7
      9:30 - 5:00 (with lunch 12:15-1:15)
      HU 354

      Keynote speaker: Carol Gould (Hunter College)
      The All-Affected Principle and Labor Rights

      Crossroads Of Philosophy, Russia and the US: Fictionalism And Problems Of Sense

      Ninth University at Albany - Lomonosov Moscow State University Philosophy Video Conference

      Friday, April 13, 2018
      10:00 a.m. - 2 p.m. / 17:00 – 21:00 (Albany / Moscow)
      HU 290 (Albany)
       

      Fall 2017

      October 6
      Natasha Karablina (University at Albany)
      Winner of the Graduate Essay Prize
      Ruled by Reason: Plato on War, Justice and Justified Intervention

      November 3
      Douglas Edwards (Hamilton College)
      Truth and Social Ontology

      December 1
      Joseph Cruz (Williams College)
      Knowing How to Reason
       

      Spring 2017

      Saturday, April 8
      10th Annual UAPA Graduate Philosophy Conference
      Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics

      Friday, April 28
      Pablo Gilabert, Concordia University
      Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism
      3:30 in HU354
       

      Fall 2016

      September 16, HU 354
      Will Kidder
      "Imagining Bad: Television Antiheroes, Empathy, and the Aesthetic Value of Imaginative Resistance in Degrees"
      Graduate Essay Prize Talk

      October 28
      Krisanna Scheiter, Union College
      "Aristotle's Non-Retributive, Non-Sadistic Justification for Revenge"

      November 18
      Chad Horne, UAlbany
      "Insurance and Equality Revisited"

      December 2
      Melissa Zinkin, SUNY Binghamton
      "Moral Depth and the Systematicity of Reason in Kant"
       

      Spring 2016

      Friday, February 12
      Matthew Mosdell (UAlbany)
      "Acquiring Knowing How"

      Friday, February 26
      Avery Archer (George Washington University)
      "Do we need partial intentions?"

      Friday, April 15
      Lilian O'Brien (University College Cork)
      "Advice for Those with Cold Feet"

      Saturday, April 23
      Graduate student philosophy conference
      Keynote speaker: Joseph Levine (UMass Amherst)

      Friday, April 29
      "Roundtable on Minority Success in Philosophy"
      Sponsored by the UAlbany Minorities And Philosophy (MAP) chapter, the event will feature philosophy almuni who will share their stories of what they've gone on to do.
       

      Fall 2015

      Friday, September 25
      2:30-4:30 in BA 233
      Berislav Marušić (Brandeis University)
      "Do Reasons Expire"

      Friday, October 23
      3:00 in HU 354
      Keith Sherman, graduate essay prize winner
      "Enhancement and Other Animals"
       

      Spring 2015

      Saturday, April 18
      HU 354
      UAlbany graduate student conference
      Environmental and Animal Philosophy
      Keynote: Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University)

      April 24
      HU 354
      John Doris (Washington University)
      "Character Trouble"

      Tuesday, May 19
      Mark Sheehan (Oxford University)
      "The ethics of assent to research"

      7th Annual videoconference with Moscow State University

      Thursday, May 21
      Topic: Early Modern Philosophy
      10:00 AM - 1:00 PM, HU 290

      Third annual Capital District Feminist Studies Conference

      January 30
      9:00 AM-6:00 PM
      Assembly Hall (Campus Center)

      Link: Free registration

      UAlbany Critical Race Theory and Postcolonial Studies speaker series

      Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Political Science, UAS, and the Office for Diversity and Inclusion

      January 23
      3:00-5:30 in the Standish Room of the Science Library
      Charles Mills (Northwestern University)
      "Decolonizing Western Political Philosophy"

      January 23
      3:30-5:00 at Rockefeller College
      Charles Mills (Williams College)
      "Angela Y. Davis: Abolitionism, Democracy, Freedom"

      January 23
      3:30-5:00 at Rockefeller College
      Nimu Njoya (Williams College)
      "Autonomy after Postcolonialism: Gendered Representations of the Unbounded Self"
       

      Fall 2014

      September 12
      Humanities 354
      Jesse Prinz (CUNY Graduate Center)
      "The Moral Self"

      Thursday October 2
      Igal Kvart
      Hebrew University
      "Action-Directed Pragmatics and the Putative Pragmatic Intrusion into the Semantics of Knowledge-Ascriptions"

      November 7
      Humanities 354
      Catherine Wearing (Wellesley College)
      "Images in Metaphors"

      December 5
      Sydney Faught
      (winner of the Graduate Student Essay Prize)
      "'A Quite Sophisticated Apparatus:' A Rawlsian Approach to Intergenerational Justice and Environmental Sustainability"
       

      Spring 2014

      Friday, February 28
      Karen Frost-Arnold (Hobart and William Smith)
      "Social Media, Trust, and the Epistemology of Prejudice"

      Saturday, April 5
      UAlbany graduate student conference
      Moral Psychology
      Keynote: Timothy Schroeder (Ohio State)

      Annual videoconference with Moscow State University

      Thursday, May 22
      Topic: Free Will, Mental Causation, and Moral Responsibility
      9:00 AM - 2:00 PM, HU 290
       

      Fall 2013

      September 20
      Ruth Boeker
      "Locke on Persons and Personal Identity"

      October 4
      Sydney Faught
      (winner of the Graduate Student Essay Prize)
      "The Right to Love [Drugs]"

      October 25
      Vanessa DeHarven (UMass Amherst)
      "A More Sensible Reading of Plato on Knowledge in Republic V"
       

      Spring 2013

      January 25
      Janelle DeWitt (King's College)
      "Respect: The Emotional Side of Reason"

      February 15
      Bonnie Steinbock (UAlbany) and Paul Menzel (Pacific Lutheran University)
      "Advance Directives, Dementia, and Physician-Assisted Death"

      March 1
      Bruno Whittle (Yale University)
      Humanities 123
      "Incompleteness and the Limits of Mathematical Knowledge"

      Graduate Philosophy Conference on Bioethics

      Friday, April 12
      Pre-Conference Talk:
      "Wrongful Life and Procreative Decisions"
      Bonnie Steinbock (UAlbany)
      5 PM in HU-290

      Saturday, April 13
      Keynote Address:
      "Reflections on Procreative Ethics."
      David DeGrazia (George Washington University)
      2:30 PM in the Standish Room of the Science Library

      Annual videoconference with Moscow State University

      Tuesday, May 21
      Topic: Aesthetics
      9:00 AM - 2:00 PM, HU 290
      full schedule
       

      Fall 2012

      September 14
      3:00 PM, Assembly Hall, Campus Center
      James Nickel, University of Miami
      "Personal Desert and Human Rights"

      October 5
      Nir Eyal
      Harvard Medical School (Division of Medical Ethics)
      "Against Fair Chances"

      Thursday, October 11
      lunchtime talk: 12:00 noon, HU 290
      Simon Noriega-Olmos
      University of Sao Paolo (Brazil)
      "The Ontology of Plato's Cratylus (439D-440C)"

      November 2
      Greg Frost-Arnold
      Hobart and William Smith Colleges
      "When, How, and Why Did People Begin Classifying Themselves as 'Analytic Philosophers'?"

      November 30
      graduate prize essay talk
      Nicholas Partyka
      The University at Albany
      "Two Problems of Externalities"
       

      Spring 2012

      February 10
      Ernesto Garcia, UMass Amherst
      Kant on Treating People as Ends-in-Themselves

      March 30
      Laurence Goldstein (University of Kent)
      Clambering out of the Soritical Bog

      Saturday, April 14
      UAlbany graduate student conference

      Sharon Street
      keynote address

      April 20
      Allan Hazlett (Edinburgh) and Simon Feldman (Connecticut College)
      In Defense of Ambivalence

      May 11 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
      Annual spring video conference with Moscow State University
      Kantian philosophy
       

      Fall 2011

      September 9
      Hanifi Ozcan, Dokuz Eylul University
      Abu Mansur Al-Maturidi's Religious Pluralism

      September 23
      Rachel Cohon, The University at Albany
      Virtue as a Means to Happiness in Hume's Second Enquiry

      October 21
      Graduate Prize Essay Talk
      Ed Dubois
      Situationism, Virtue Ethics, and Moral Exemplars

      Nov. 11
      Japa Pallikkathayil, New York University
      The Truth About Deception
       

      Spring 2011

      Jan. 28:
      Douglas Patterson, Kansas State University
      Theory and Concept in Tarski's Philosophy of Language

      Feb. 11:
      Nomy Arpaly, Brown University
      Deliberation and Responding to Reasons
      note: this talk will be held in HU 354

      Feb. 25:
      Uriah Kriegel, University of Arizona
      The Experiential Origins of Intentionality

      April 9:
      Fourth Annual Graduate Student Philosophy Conference
      Topic: Metaphysics
      Keynote Speaker: Ted Sider, New York University
      The Metaphysics of Fundamentality

      April 29:
      Marta Soniewicka, Fulbright fellow with the Department of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights at Boston University
      Genetic Testing and Screening to Prevent Future Harms

      May 19:
      Videoconference with the Philosophy Faculty of Moscow State University
      This year's topic is the history of philosophy
      9 AM - 1 PM
       

      Fall 2010

      Oct. 1:
      Matthew Evans, New York University
      "Making the Best of Plato's Protagoras"

      Oct. 14:
      brown bag lunch workshop -- 1:15 PM, HU 130
      Helga Varden, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
      The Priority of Rightful Care to Virtuous Care: A Kantian Critique of the Care Tradition

      Oct. 15:
      Shelley Weinberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
      The Metaphysical Fact of Consciousness in Locke's Theory of Personal Identity

      Nov. 19:
      Graduate Prize Essay talk -- 4:00 PM
      Kimberly van Orman, The University at Albany
      The Laplacian Worldview and the Explanatory Gap
       

      Spring 2010

      Mar 5:
      Stephen Darwall, Yale University
      The Right and the Good in Hobbes' Moral Philosophy

      Apr 17: Graduate student conference
      Keynote: Jeff McMahan, Rutgers University
       

      Fall 2009

      Sep. 11:
      Graduate Student Essay Prize Talk
      David Pinkowski
      "Practically Equal: How Indifference Leads to Equality"

      Oct. 2:
      Christopher Hill, Brown University

      Oct. 30:
      K. Brad Wray, SUNY Oswego
      Epistemic Privilege and the Success of Science

      Nov. 20:
      Matti Eklund, Cornell University
      Objectionable Concepts, Moral Semantics, and Moral Realism
       

      Spring 2009

      March 28
      Thomas Pogge, Yale University
      keynote for the 2009 UAlbany Grad Student Conference

      April 24
      Joe Moore, Amherst College
      Musical Works: a Metaphysical Mash-up

      May 1
      Claudia Card, University of Wisconsin-Madison
      11:00am-12:30pm: Special Seminar, Sexual Violence At War and At Home
      3:30pm-5:30pm: Departmental Colloquium, Discrimination Against Men
      Open to all.

      Both events with Professor Card are funded in part by the University Commission on Diversity and Affirmative Action and the Department of Women's Studies.
       

      Fall 2008

      October 24
      2007 Graduate Student Prize Essay
      Pete Murray, University at Albany
      Liberalism and the Common Good

      November 7
      Casey Perin, UMass Amherst
       

      Spring 2008

      Tuesday, January 22
      Jason D'Cruz, Brown University
      Real Fictional Emotions

      Monday, January 28
      Elizabeth Fenton, University of Virginia
      Towards a Capabilities Theory of Human Rights

      Monday, February 4
      Alan Rubel, University of Wisconsin, Madison
      The Particularized Judgment Account of Privacy

      Friday, February 8
      Agnieszka Jaworska, Stanford University
      Vanishing Persons and the Authority of the Former Self: Dilemmas in Alzheimer's Disease

      Friday, February 29
      Timothy Schroeder, Ohio State University
      Explaining Virtue

      Saturday, April 11
      Philosophy Graduate Student Conference

      Friday, April 18
      Leif Wenar, Sheffield University (visiting at Princeton)
      Property Rights and the Resource Curse
       

      Fall 2007

      September 28
      2007 Graduate Student Prize Essay
      John Milanese, University at Albany
      Taking the Jury Theorem to Trial

      November 16
      Alvin Goldman, Rutgers University
      Externalism, Internalism, and the Architecture of Justification
       

      Spring 2007

      Friday, January 12
      Nathan Powers (Princeton University)
      Ancient versions of the argument from design

      Tuesday, January 16
      Mariska Leunissen (University of Leiden, Netherlands)
      Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle's Cosmology

      Friday, January 19
      Keith McPartland (Cornell University)
      Aristotle's Theory of Relations

      Monday, January 22
      Andreas Anagnostopoulos (University of California, Berkeley)
      Aristotle's Parmenidean Dilemma

      Wednesday, January 24, 4:00, SS 117
      Shlomi Segall (Harvard University)
      Is Health Care (Still) Special?

      Monday, January 29, 3:30, SS 117
      John K. Davis (University of Tennessee)
      Selecting Potential Children and Unconditional Parental Love

      Friday, February 2, 3:30, SS 117
      Maureen Kelley (University of Alabama, Birmingham)
      Moral Compromise and Transitional Justice

      Wednesday, February 7, 3:30, SS 117
      James Tabery (University of Pittsburgh)
      A 'Genetic Predisposition' to Violence?: Rethinking the Ethical and Legal Implications of Genetic Research on Antisocial Behavior

      Wednesday, February 14, 4:00, SS 117
      Scott James (University of Kentucky)
      The Caveman's Conscience: Evolution and Moral Realism

      Friday, February 16, 3:30, SS 117
      Lisa Fuller (University of Sheffield)
      Pogge on International Non-Governmental Organizations: A Critique
       

      Fall 2006

      September 15
      2006 Graduate Student Prize Essay
      Kevin Olbrys, University at Albany
      Aristotle on Moral Motivation and Weakness of the Will

      September 29
      Jerrold Levinson, University of Maryland
      Beauty is not One: The Many Species of Beauty

      November 3
      Livia Mara Guimaraes, NYU & Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
      Skeptical Tranquility and Hume's Manner of Death
       

      Spring 2006

      Monday, Jan.23
      Kristen Hessler, Iowa State
      Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights

      Friday, Jan.27
      Adrienne Martin, National Institutes of Health
      Hope Must be a Minefield: A Theory of Hope in Practice
      Location: Campus Center Assembly Hall

      Monday, Jan.30
      J. Jeremy Wisnewski, East Carolina University
      What We Owe the Dead

      Friday, Feb.10
      Derrick Darby, Georgetown, Texas A&M
      Making the Souls of Black Folk

      Friday, Apr.21
      Alex London, Carnegie Mellon University
      Reasonable Risks in Clinical Research: The Integrative Approach

      Friday, May 5
      Lisa Warenski, Union College
      on naturalized epistemology

      The Future of Bioethics in a Divided Democracy
      July 13-14, 2006
      The Alden March Bioethics Institute (AMBI) is holding a Special Summer Conference of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities.
       

      Fall 2005

      September 16
      Roy Sorensen, Dartmouth College
      A Seance with an Immortal

      November 18
      Roger White, New York University
      Explanation and Underdetermination

      December 9
      Christopher Mirus, UAlbany
      Aristotle on Beauty and Goodness in Nature
       

      Spring 2005

      March 4
      J. C. Beall, University of Connecticut
      True, False, and Other

      March 11
      Jon Mandle, University at Albany
      Rawls on Domestic and Global Justice

      April 22
      Jeff McMahan, Rutgers University
      Just Cause for War

      April 29
      Michel Seymour, University of Montreal
      Allen Buchanan's Remedial Right to Secede

      May 4 at 4:00 PM
      2005 Graduate Student Prize Essay
      Peter Murray, University at Albany
      The Ontological Status of Mathematical Objects in Plato's Republic