CFP – New Mexico-West Texas Philosophical Society Student Colloquium

The New Mexico West Texas Philosophical Society has produced its call for papers for the 2012 Student Colloquium. This is a great opportunity for undergraduate students and first-year graduate students. The conference will take place in Las Cruces, New Mexico. If we get some students accepted, we can apply to CAB for funding for travel. I attach the Call for Papers here: NMWT-StudentColloquium2012 (pdf).

The deadline for submissions is February 15. Please submit a paper of less than 1500 words. Pick a paper that you have written and you would like to submit, polish it, and submit it. Next semester we can work on polishing papers for this conference. It’s a great opporutnity.

Philosophy Club is Working on a Thanksgiving Food and Clothing Drive

At our last meeting, philosophy club agreed to participate with City Wide Club in a food and clothing drive for its upcoming Thanksgiving event. We need participants to volunteer to help on the day of the event (Thanksgiving morning), help staff tables around campus prior to the event to increase publicity, decorate and provide boxes to collect food and clothes, and bring dry food items and clothing for the event.

• How to volunteer for the Thanksgiving City Wide Club event? Go to this website and fill out the form.
• What kinds of food do you need? All kinds of canned goods (especially meat, beans, and vegetables), dry pasta, bags of rice, commercially prepared cakes, pies, and cookies, and ready-to-eat foods that will last.
• What kinds of clothing do you need? Winter coats, school uniforms, sheets, blankets and towels, and toys.
• Where do I bring a box for collection? Bring boxes to Dr. Nathan Smith’s office, room 900-D at Spring Branch campus (you can call at x87258 if you don’t know where it is).

This event will only work if you help us out. Please participate and get involved! Thanks.

Fall Schedule for 2011

We have completed the Fall Schedule for 2011. All meetings will take place at HCC Spring Branch Campus, in Room 609 at 4:00 PM, unless otherwise noted. Here is a rundown of events:

October 11

“Moral Individualism” with Professor Lamont Rogers

October 25

How Should We Treat Other People?

November 8 at 6:30 PM in The Eagle Room **special time and          place**

Philosophy Club Movie Night:         “The Matrix”

November 15

How Can We Know that Other Minds Exist?

December 6

President’s Presentation: “The Philosophy of Words and          Their          Effects on Health,” Nanci Levin

Organizational Meeting, Thursday September 15

Hi all!

HCC Philosophy Club will be hosting its first meeting of the semester this Thursday, September 23 at 2:00 PM in Room 611 of Spring Branch campus at HCC. Please come. There will be food. And you can help us select topics, speakers, and a schedule of events for this Fall semester. Also, we will be electing officers.

So, be there!

New Mexico-West Texas Student Colloquium: CFP

For the past two years, Tom Urban (HCC Philosophy) and John Symons (UTEP Philosophy) have co-chaired a colloquium for undergraduate and first-year graduate students. This is an opportunity for budding philosophers to feel what it’s like to participate in academic philosophy. The session runs concurrently with the annual meeting of the NMWT Philosophical Society.

This year’s conference is in El Paso, TX April 15-17, 2011. The student colloquium will take place on Saturday afternoon, the 16th. Submit a paper to nmwt.student.colloquium (at) gmail (dot) com. Papers should be submitted for blind review (no identifying material) and should be no longer than 1500 words. The deadline is March 16, 2011.

The call for papers: Student_Colloquium_2011 (pdf).

Sapere Aude – An Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy

Another opportunity to submit your work, hat tip to Philosophy CFPs. This one comes from the College of Wooster and the deadline for this year’s submissions is fast approaching. Here are the details:

Sapere Aude’, as used in Immanuel Kant’s Essay, “What is Enlightenment?” means ‘Dare to Know.’ This phrase exemplifies the mission of Sapere Aude. Our aim is to facilitate intellectual discovery by encouraging students to reason independently and to explore unfamiliar philosophical territory.

We invite undergraduate students to submit philosophical papers in all areas of philosophy. The papers should exhibit independent thought and exemplify a deep understanding of a philosophical issue.

Papers sent to Sapere Aude for consideration of inclusion must adhere to the following:

1) Each entry should be prepared for blind review and must have a title page containing the author’s name, college or university, and year. (No other identifier should be present within the paper).
2) All entries should be no longer than 20 pages and may include footnotes as a supplement to the text.
3) Paper format: one inch margins, double spaced, 12 pt. font, Times New Roman, and should adhere to an accepted style of citation.
4) All pages, except the title page, should be numbered.
5) All entries should be submitted as an electronic copy (.Doc only, please) to Sapere_aude@wooster.edu.

Please send any questions to Sapere_Aude@wooster.edu.
Deadline for Submission: January 15th, 2011

Must see Philosophy TV

If you are interested in an intelligent discussion of abortion, you simply could not hope for anything better than the following entry on Philosophy TV.

I can’t embed the video, so just go to the site, here.

Stance: International Undergraduate Journal

An opportunity for undergraduate students in philosophy to get their work published: Stance.

From Philosophy CFPs:

Stance is unique as it is produced and edited solely by undergraduates. By using external reviewers we provide feedback on every submission and often require substantive changes prior to publication. Stance mirrors the process of review and publication of professional philosophy journals.

Submission Guidelines:

Stance welcomes papers concerning any philosophical topic. Current undergraduates may submit a paper between 1500 and 3500 words in length (footnotes may extend the word limit 500 words at most). Stance asks that each undergraduate only submit one paper for the journal per year. Unnecessary technicality should be avoided. Strive to reach the widest possible audience without sacrificing clarity or rigor. Papers are evaluated on the following criteria: depth of inquiry, quality of research, creativity, lucidity, and most importantly, originality.

The Crisis of Philosophy

This is a tremendously interesting post by Jason Stanley, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, on the apparent lack of enthusiasm for philosophy among members of the humanities.

There are great comments about what people look for in philosophy, what philosophy has to offer, and the role that the “Continental-Analytic Divide” in philosophy has played in the loss of importance in philosophy.

The discussion in the comments is worth the price of admission.

On the Incompleteness of Physicalism and the Possibility of Strong Emergence

Our friend John Symons over at UTEP has posted an audio file of a program at Lehigh where he proposes an argument that metaphysical physicalism is incomplete. Check it out, here. Why should we care?

Well, a lot of people like to think that something like fundamental physics could provide a complete metaphysical picture of the universe. This is a handy philosophical shortcut because the physical sciences in fact do so much to explain the world around us. Recently, philosophers have taken the idea of physicalism as a strong objection to emergent properties. However, many of our most cherished entities–organisms, ecosystems, human beings, wills–are in some strong sense “emergent”. That is, there is something new that cannot be entirely explained by the fundamental physics. Give it a listen. It’s dense and you’ll need to remove distractions.