Saturday, January 4, 2014

Where I Have Been

Greetings, friends and readers.

I haven't posted in quite some time, and now seemed like a good time to announce that I have secured a full-time position at Des Moines Area Community College. I have given up on the research track, as I refuse to be one of those academics who soldiers on in adjunct and visiting positions. I put my life on hiatus for love of wisdom--I know it sounds trite but I mean every word--and I refuse to do so any longer.

That also means that I have delayed most of my research, as it was fundamental and groundbreaking research in an area lacking much scholarly activity. That means high opportunity costs, and reviewers who haven't read the relevant literature pile onto the problems I already have as a passable writer but mediocre communicator at best.

 I will still be around and invite questions and commentary, but I do not envision posting much in this blog, but who knows?

Oh, and I am writing this notice for one person in particular just to prove a point. Sorry Leon, but it's not you, though I owe you an email!

Saturday, August 3, 2013

CFP: Eidyn Early Career Forum

The Eidyn Early Career Forum

On November 27-28, 2013 the Eidyn research centre at the University of Edinburgh will host the Eidyn Early Career Forum, which brings outstanding junior philosophers from around the world to Edinburgh to present their research, meet faculty and students, and engage with members of the general public. The two-day event will feature both an advanced forum for research in philosophy and brief 'TED-style' public talks that demonstrate the continued relevance and interest of philosophy to thoughtful people everywhere. The research workshop on the first day will include presentations, commentary and open discussion. The public talks, held the evening of the second day, will be widely advertised throughout the university, the city of Edinburgh, and to schools in the region. Video podcasts of both events will be made freely available and hosted in perpetuity on the Eidyn website.

Submissions, which should include both a research paper and a proposal for a short-form public talk, are invited from early career philosophers. Research papers should be on any topic within the ambit of Eidyn (epistemology, ethics broadly construed, and philosophy of mind & cognition), and historical approaches to these subject areas are welcome. The public talk should be in the same general area as the research paper and aimed at people interested in philosophy but without any background in the subject.

One paper/proposal in each of epistemology, ethics and mind/cognition will be selected, and speakers will be invited to Edinburgh with all expenses paid.


Eligibility: Submissions are invited from anyone who is either a current PhD student or who received their PhD in or after 2008.

Submission Details: Both the research paper and the public talk proposal should be prepared for blind review with a detachable cover sheet that contains the author’s name, affiliation, contact information, and date of PhD (expected or actual). The research paper may be any length, but should be suitable for presentation in 45 minutes and accompanied by an abstract of about 200 words. The proposal for the public talk should be about 500 words. Submissions should be sent as pdf files to eidyn.early.career@gmail.com.

The Public Talk: This is conceived as a compact, riveting presentation to a large public audience. The content is yours to decide, but we assume that the best proposals will treat the task as a design problem – how do you present, in exactly 15 minutes, a philosophical issue, problem or insight that will engage and edify a diverse public audience? Think of it as Philosophy 101 meets the elevator pitch.

Deadline: September 15

Saturday, July 27, 2013

CFP: Gargnano Philosophy of Time Conference

Gargnano Philosophy of Time Conference


11–14 May 2014, Palazzo Feltrinelli, Gargnano, Lake Garda, Italy.
Organizers: Ulrich Meyer and Giuliano Torrengo

Call for Papers and Commentators
We invite submissions of high quality papers for a three-day conference to inaugurate the new Center for Philosophy of Time. Papers suitable for a thirty minute presentation should be sent by 30 November 2013 to Ulrich Meyer at umeyer@colgate.edu. If you are willing to serve as a commentator or chair, please email us by the same date with a brief description of your areas of interest. The conference programme will be assembled in December and we hope to contact participants by early January 2014. As with the regular meetings of the Philosophy of Time Society, there will be no invited speakers.
The conference registration fee of 210 Euro includes accommodation in the Palazzo Feltrinelli (3 days) and all meals. The conference will begin with a dinner on May 11th and conclude with lunch on May 14thThe registration fee will be waived for graduate students and under-employed philosophers. If you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact the organizers.
More details about the conference can be found at http://www.philtimesociety.com/gargnano-conference/.


--
Ulrich Meyer

The Nature of Time (Oxford, 2013)

Gargnano Philosophy of Time Conference

Friday, July 26, 2013

CFP: Inland Northwest Pragmatism Network

Call for Abstracts, Papers and Works-in-progress
2014 Inland Northwest Pragmatist Network Meeting
Eastern Washington University—Cheney and Spokane, WA

January 2013 saw the inaugural meeting of the Inland Northwest Pragmatist Meeting at Gonzaga University, organized by Charlie Hobbes. The INPN will next meet on Saturday, April 12, 2014 at the Riverpoint Campus of Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Washington. Co-sponsors of the event are Drs. Terrance MacMullan, Christopher Kirby, and Kevin Decker

The INPN is a workshop format in which completed papers or works-in-progress on topics in pragmatism and American philosophy are read and discussed. There is no particular theme for the meeting. Submissions from graduate students are welcome. There will also be a critical examination of a published text, most likely selections from Philip Kitcher’s Preludes to Pragmatism.

Submission Guidelines: E-mail abstracts, descriptions of works-in-progress, or completed papers to kdecker@ewu.edu by January 25, 2014. Please limit paper presentations to 12-13 double spaced pages. If you decide to include your submission as an e-mail attachment, please send it in one of the following formats: .doc, .rtf, or .pdf file.

Further details about local arrangements will be available on the Facebook page for INPN, or can be obtained by emailing tmacmullan@ewu.edu.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Workshop: Idealism and Pragmatism

*Workshop theme:* Idealism and Pragmatism: A History
*Date:* 25th-26th October 2013

The objective of this workshop is to look in detail at how the classical
American pragmatists saw themselves in relation to idealism. We will also
trace the continuing development of this connection through into the
twentieth century, as reflected in the work of figures such as Sellars,
Apel, Habermas, Putnam, Rorty and Brandom.

Registration to attend the workshop is not required. There will be a buffet
lunch and refreshments provided on both days for £9.50 per person per day.
However, you are welcome to bring your own lunch and drink if you prefer.

To register for lunch and the workshop dinner at a local restaurant on the
Friday night (£13 a head) please visit our webpage:
http://idealismandpragmatism.org/workshop-2013. The deadline to register
for lunch and/or dinner is 14th October.

We also have a number of postgraduate travel grants available. Details of
these can be found on the webpage. To apply, please download and complete
the form and return to the network administrator Kim Redgrave <
k.redgrave@sheffield.ac.uk>.

This will be the first workshop of the 'Idealism and Pragmatism:
Convergence or Contestation?' network. Details about the network, it's
activities and research can be found on our website
http://idealismandpragmatism.org/<http://idealismandpragmatism.org/workshop-2013>


Kim Redgrave
Network Facilitator
Idealism and Pragmatism Network
Department of Philosophy
University of Sheffield
45 Victoria Street, Sheffield
S3 7QB
United Kingdom
http://idealismandpragmatism.org/
Facebook Page<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Idealism-and-Pragmatism-Network-Convergence-or-Contestation/192710450853162?ref=ts&fref=ts>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/IdealismPragmat>

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

CFP: John Dewey Society on revisiting Experience and Education

Call for Papers by the John Dewey Society

Revisiting Experience and Education

The John Dewey Society calls for paper proposals for the Past Presidents’ Panel at its annual meeting, to be held in conjunction with the American Educational Research Association meeting in Philadelphia, April 3-7, 2014.

The Society invites submissions for a special panel of papers revisiting Dewey’s Experience and Education. In that work Dewey develops a set of criteria for educative experience. His presentation of his two criteria, Interaction and Continuity, draw upon and further develop some of the most enduring ideas in his philosophy. 

Dewey wrote Experience and Education primarily as a response to the excesses of progressive education. He protested that progressive educators had merely reacted negatively to traditional education; they had failed to develop an adequate theory of experience. In Experience and Education he drew upon the theory of experience central to his late masterworks Experience and Nature and Art as Experience as an instrument for further progress in educational innovation. 

The spread of experiential learning methods and computer-based learning – and the corresponding need of critical examination of these trends – are among the many reasons for revisiting Experience and Education and Dewey’s criteria for educative experience today. 

In the wake of Experience and Education new forms of experiential education appeared – outdoor and adventure education, workplace education, arts-based education, and service learning among them. Experiential educators have also generated pedagogical methods used in conventional topics in schools and colleges. It is hardly an exaggeration to claim that citation of Experience and Education is obligatory in discussions of experiential education.

Limitations of the kinds of experiences one can have in school are made crystal clear by the potentialities of virtual environments. Digital computers have now spread on a global scale. In developed industrial-post-industrial societies just about every school and college classroom has a computer with a broadband Internet connection. Computers and the Internet open up new avenues for educational experience by greatly enlarging access to information and human association. Reliance on computer-based learning, however, may also reduce opportunities for contact with live teachers, fellow learners, and members of the local community, as well as vital experiences in the natural world. 

Proposals may discuss or critique Experience and Education itself, or consider that book in relation to other works in the Dewey corpus, in relation to the broader field of philosophy, or in relation to any aspect of contemporary educational theory or practice. 

Submit all proposals (prepared per instructions below) for individual papers via email with an attachment as a Word document. All proposals should be received on or before Monday, November 15, 2013, via email to Leonard Waks (ljwaks@yahoo.com), President-Elect, John Dewey Society and Professor Emeritus, Department of Educational Leadership, Temple University, Philadelphia PA. 

Proposals accepted for presentation in this panel of the John Dewey Society will be notified by January 25, 2013.

Proposal guidelines

Part 1 (submit in the body of your email message):
(1.) Title of your paper 
(2.) Your name, title, institutional affiliation (if any) 
(3.) Your address, phone, email. 
(4.) An abstract of up to 100 words. 
Part 2 (in a Word document with all identifying information removed for “blind” review):
(1.) Title of your paper 
(2.) A brief descriptive summary of your paper (maximum length 750 words), explaining your paper and its significance. List several references to place your contribution in the broader scholarly conversation!

About The John Dewey Society

Founded in 1935, the purpose of the Society is to foster intelligent inquiry into problems pertaining to the place and function of education in social change, and to share, discuss, and disseminate the results of such inquiry.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Workshop: Emotion and Social Cognition

Registration is now open for the Emotion & Social Cognition Workshop,
13th September 2013, at the University of Manchester.


Speakers:

Brian Parkinson, Psychology, Oxford University
Stephen Butterfill, Philosophy, University of Warwick
Erin Heerey, Psychology, Bangor University
Will McNeill, Philosophy, The University of York
Julien Deonna, Philosophy, University of Geneva

Registration is free, with coffee and lunch provided, although there is a charge for the workshop dinner. There are only 30 places available for the workshop, so please register early to avoid disappointment.

For more programme information, and to register, please go to:

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/philosophy/research/projects/kofe/events/sce/