Department of Philosophy

Graduate Conferences

Each year, the graduate students of the Department of Philosophy host a graduate conference at Virginia Tech.

Fall 2008

7-8 November 2008: Twentieth Century Ethics

    The fifth annual Virginia Tech graduate philosophy conference will be held on 7-8 November on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg. The keynote speaker is Simon Blackburn (Cambridge/ UNC Chapel Hill). All talks will be presented in 3100 Torgerson Hall. You can download the program here.

    Friday 7 November

    3:30pm. "A New Type of Order: `Resuscitate-for-Donation'" Noah Levin, Bowling Green State University. Commentator: Paul Poenicke.

    4:30pm. "Deserved Pre-Punishment," Markus Labude, Yale University. Commentator: Matthew McCall.

    5:30pm. Keynote Address: "Beauty, Truth, and Goodness," Simon Blackburn, Cambridge/UNC Chapel Hill.

    7:00pm. Conference Reception, Johnson Student Center.

    Saturday 8 November

    10:00am. "Moral Discourse and Assertion: A Reply to Kalderon's Argument from Intransigence," Drew Kalberg, Northern Ilinois University. Commentator: Matthew Sayball.

    11:00am. "Deferential Friends," Daniel Koltonski, Cornell University. Commentator: Matthew Schuler.

    12:00pm. Lunch Break.

    2:00pm. "Kantian Constructivism and Self-Legislation," Nathaniel Jezzi, Cornell University. Commentator: Vincent Jackson.

    3:00pm. "The Social Contract, the Conservative Attitude, and Antibiotics Development," Elijah Weber, Colorado State University. Commentator: David McIlroy.

    4:00pm. "Evolutionary Psychology's Moral Implications," Matthew Braddock, Duke University. Commentator: James Lewis.

    5:00pm. "Reasons, Entailment Relations, and Raz," Ryan Millsap, University of Maryland. Commentator: Patrick Epley.

Fall 2007

2-3 November 2007

  • Keynote Speaker: Fred Dretske (Duke), "What We See: The Texture of Conscious Experience"
  • Chris Kahn (Florida), "Coherent Selves and Pereboom's Four-case Argument Against Compatibilism"
  • Nicholas Simmons (Kansas), "On Fodor's Philosophy of Mind: and Why He May Need to Make Another Concession"
  • Michael Ferreira (Ohio State), "Emotive Kinds and the Possibility of Emotive Content in Music"
  • Brian Fiala (Arizona), "Materialism and the Psychology of Explanation"
  • Andrew Bailey (Notre Dame), "No Pairing Problem"
  • Matthew Kopec (Wisconsin), "Reference and the Cause of Non-Existent Objects"
  • Kevin Jobe (Oklahoma State), "The Capital of Consciousness: an Epistemology of Human Nature"
  • David Bzdak (Syracuse), "On Amnesia and Knowing-How"

Fall 2006

3-4 November 2006

  • Keynote Speaker: Brian Leiter (Texas), "Why Tolerate Religion?"
  • Douglas Edwards (St. Andrews), "The Minimalist Theory of Goodness and Moral Twin Earth"
  • Joshua Heter (Western Michigan), "The Impotence of Social Conxstruction on Morality"
  • Carl Barnes (UCSB), "Negation and Expressivism"
  • Russell Powell (Duke), “The Law and Philosophy of Preventive War: An Institution-Based Approach to Collective Self-Defense”
  • Josh May (UCSB), “Altruism, Egoism, and Negative-State Content”
  • Charles Repp (Toronto), “The Normative Significance of Truth in Williams’s Reasons Internalism”

Fall 2005

28-29 October 2005

  • Keynote Speaker: Helen Longino (Stanford)
  • Elizabeth Fenton (Virginia), "Humanity and Human Rights"
  • Francis Longworth (Pittsburgh), "Causation Is Not De Facto Dependence"
  • Ed Matusek (South Florida), "The Friend-Enemy Distinction"
  • Sarah Scott (New School for Social Research), "Knowing the One"
  • Matt Stichter (Bowling Green), "No Lack of Character"
  • Ty Raterman (UNC), "Well-Being and Preferences"