News

We are thrilled to announce that renowned philosopher Dr. David J. Chalmers will be coming to Union College to deliver a major lecture at 5 PM on the evening of October 30th, 2024 (location TBA). This event emerged through a partnership between the Templeton Institute and Union’s Department of Philosophy and is generously sponsored by the Feigenbaum Forum for Innovation and Creativity. We are especially grateful to Prof. Marianna Bergamaschi Ganapini for helping us to bring such a world-renowned scholar to our campus.

David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He has given the John Locke Lectures and has been awarded the Jean Nicod Prize. He is known for formulating the "hard problem" of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the "extended mind," which posits that the tools we use can become parts of our minds. (images courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

Dr. Chalmers is an expert on issues arising from the growth and development of Artificial Intelligence. He is particularly known for his insights on virtual worlds and has recently argued that we might already be living in a virtual world (!). His lecture promises to be an exciting one, and we hope you will be able to attend.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to us with any questions. We may be reached via email at templeton@union.edu

~Prof. Andrew Burkett & Dean Ashok Ramasubramanian, Co-Directors of the Templeton Institute

2020

• The Philosophy department is very excited to welcome two new faculty, Prof Maité Cruz and Prof David Friedell!
• Congratulations to Prof Baker on his retirement after 40 years serving the Department!
• Congratulations to Prof Zaibert, who has been awarded this year's Stillman Prize for Excellence in Research!
• Congratulations to Prof Zaibert, who has been named the William D. Williams Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Humanities!
• The department congratulates Visiting Assistant Prof Sommerlatte on his PostDoc at Florida State University!
• Congratulations to Prof Bergamaschi on successfully passing her 3rd year reappointment review!

2019

• The Department wishes Assistant Prof Nowakowski well on his new career path!

2018

• Congratulations to Prof Scheiter on her tenure promotion to Associate Professor!
• Congratulations to Prof Davis on his retirement after over 30 years serving the Department!

November 5, 2020

Prof Zaibert

• Leo Zaibert, William D. Williams Professor of Philosophy, Law and Humanities and chair of the department, is the winner of the Stillman Prize for Faculty Excellence in Research.

2020

Prof Baker

• "Bioethics and Human Rights: A Historical Perspective," in Global Bioethics and Human Rights: Contemporary Perspectives, eds. Wanda Teays and Alison Dundes Renteln.
• "Human guinea-pigs: Mellanby, Pappworth and Club Regulation," in Human Guinea Pigs, by Kenneth Mellanby: A Reprint with Commentaries, 3rd edition. Lisa Rasmussen (ed.). New York: Springer.

Prof Bergamaschi

• "Confabulating Reasons,"Topoi 39.

Prof Friedell

• "Why Can't I Change Bruckner's Eighth Symphony?"Philosophical Studies 177.
• "Medicalization and Linguistic Agency," with Ashley Feinsinger, Ratio.
• "Fiction and Indeterminate Identity,” Analysis 80, 221-229.
• "Abstracta are Causal," Philosophia 48, 133-142.

Prof Scheiter

• Critical Précis of Maxime Lepoutre’s “Rage inside the machine: Defending the place of anger in democratic speech” for PEA Soup.

Prof Zaibert

• "Responses to my Critics,” Rutgers University Law Review 71.3:1021-1066.

2019

Prof Baker

• The Structure of Moral Revolutions: Studies in the Changes in the Morality of Abortion, Death, and the Bioethics Revolution. MIT Press.

Prof Bergamaschi

• "Belief’s Minimal Rationality", Philosophical Studies.

Prof Cruz

• "Hume's Dual Criteria for Memory" Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100: 336-358.

Prof Scheiter

• NPR's The Academic Minute, discussing her research, Aristotle on the Virtue of Vengeance.

Prof Zaibert

• "Evil and Punishment” in The Routledge Handbook on Evil (Thomas Nys and Stephen de Wijze, eds.), London: Routledge, 269-281.
• "La justificación del castigo, la complejidad de la vida moral y los cambios de paradigma”, Eunomía: Revista en Cultura de la Legalidad 16: 347-364.

2018

Prof Baker

• "Philosophers' Invasion of Clinical Ethics: Historical and Personal Reflections." American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 51-54.

Prof Friedell

• “A Problem for All of Creation," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76, 98-101.

Prof Zaibert

• Rethinking Punishment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • The book has been the subject of several symposia: A Book Forum organized by the Centre for Ethics of the University of Toronto, C4e: Perspectives on Ethics; another Book Forum, published by Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, Eunomia; Rutgers University organized a Symposium on the book, and devoted a volume of Rutgers University Law Review to it; an Author meets Critics session on the book was held during the Eastern division of the APA in New York City.
• Dirty Hands (ed.). The Monist , Oxford University Press.
• "La Propriete" in Dictionnaire des Valeurs, Emma Dayer-Tieffenbach and Julien Deonna (eds.), Paris: Editions d’Ithaque.

• "Punishment, Values, and Justifications" in the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics’ C4e: Perspectives on Ethics 15.

2016

Prof Zaibert

• The Theory and Practice of Ontology (ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

2020

• Congratulations to Victoria Dema and Harper Lyon, who were awarded the Harold A. Larrabee Prize, which is awarded to the student who has done the best work in philosophy during the year!
• Congratulations to Arnold Moore and James Segee-Wright, who were awarded the Milton Hymes Sternfeld (1916) Prize, for the best original essay in philosophy by a member of the senior class!
• Harper Lyon, Scott Williams, David Nagel, and James Segee-Wright presented their research in a panel on Plato on Knowledge at The 2020 Charles Proteus Steinmetz Symposium. May 22, 2020.