A hearty welcome to our newest cohort of graduate students:
Julia Banks received a BS in Neuroscience and a BA in Philosophy from Lafayette College and is interested in moral psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.
Michael Bergdolt comes to us with a BS in Physics and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has strong interests in formal epistemology and philosophy of science.
Audrey Ledbetter has both a BA and MA in Philosophy from Tufts University and is interested in ethics, personal identity, and feminist philosophy.
Ayana Shirai graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Philosophy and a BS in Economics and is interested in meta-ethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of mind.
Welcome, all! We are thrilled to have you.
In late May, Elaine Chen and Emily Kluge gave talks at a graduate student workshop at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Elaine presented “Breaking free of the birdcage: rethinking feminist agency amidst oppressive constraints.” Emily presented “Incomplete Bodies in Early Confucianism and the Zhuangzi.” They also talked to undergraduate students about the application and study experiences at graduate programs in the United States (with an advertisement for Duke Philosophy, of course).
Emily Kluge also reviewed Benoît Vermander's recent book, "The Encounter of Chinese and Western Philosophies: A Critique." Her review was published in Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy. You can find her review here, or on the bulletin board of grad student publications in the department!
This summer, on May 28, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong welcomed his first grandchild: Juno Sage Sinnott-Armstrong. Walter says, "Nothing else can match the joy of spending time with her. Still, I did find time to start a business to build a Patient Preference Predictor and apply for a grant to fund it. Wish me luck. I also published a couple of new articles on moral AI and wrote a little op-ed on democracy."
Walter (pictured right) has also joined Kamala Harris' transition team as her newly appointed "Contrastivism Czar."
Whatever that means... Congratulations, Walter!
Lindsay Huth (the newly appointed assistant editor of this storied news outlet!) presented a paper ("An Aristotelian Objection to the Evolved Moral Faculty") at Social Ontology in July 2024.
Yuan Dong had a very busy summer! She was one of the grad student helpers of the International Society of Social Ontology conference that our very own Ásta and Kevin Richardson hosted in July. She gave a presentation titled "Against Supervenience in Social Knowledge." She also had a happy William & Mary reunion with Aaron Griffith and Jake Beardsley. Earlier in the summer, she presented an adaptation of her first dissertation chapter, "Xin (Trust) in the Xunzi" at the week-long East-West Philosophers' Conference in Hawaii. And later, in August, Yuan attended a workshop on philosophy of statistics at the University of Minnesota to present her paper, "The Statistical and Philosophical Challenges of Agent-Based Modelling." (Despite her insistence, meaning twice, that the workshop take a group photo during their visit to the Guthrie Theater, and despite the organizers' praise of her excellent, posterity-minded idea, the photo never happened. Hence the lack of a photo of this truly enjoyable workshop.)
In addition to co-hosting Social Ontology 2024 at Duke with Kevin Richardson (which was, as we have seen from the previous entries, a great success!), Ásta also gave keynotes at Philosophy in an Inclusive Key at Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute and The North American Society for Social Philosophy's 41st International Social Philosophy Conference at Creighton University. That's what Ásta wants you to know...
...what she doesn't want you to know is that in 1984, when she was playing left back, Ásta met Arsenal legend Brian Talbot. I can't read Icelandic, but given the context, I can only assume the article says that Talbot asked Ásta to train him after seeing her play. She declined, of course, because her heart was set on a career in philosophy. Dejected, having decided he could only continue in the Premier League with Ásta's coaching, Talbot left Arsenal at the end of the season. "Internationally renowned philosopher" and "coveted coach to famous footballers" -- these are just a few of the categories Ásta lives by.
Kexuan Liu presented their project, "Birthing into the Margin: Standpoint Epistemology, 'World'-Traveling, and Epistemic Dis/advantage," at the 41st International Social Philosophy Conference in Omaha this July. The project explores how the fluidity of social identities shapes one epistemically, focusing on instances where one births or transitions into more marginalized identities that are new to oneself (e.g., diasporic, trans, and disabled experiences). Kexuan also presented "A Non-Ideal Theory of Memory: Mis/remembering, Epistemologies of Ignorance, and Minoritarian Resistance," at the 2024 Social Ontology Conference at Duke, also held in July. Extended abstracts of both projects can be found here.
Alex Rosenberg has published a new paper, “Does Homo sapiens need a recipe for survival? Do we have one?" His paper, on the impact of climate change and feasible solutions to it, is published in Social Philosophy and Policy.
Nina Van Rooy gave talks on her paper "Do Large Language Models have Theory of Mind?" at the SPP (Society for Philosophy and Psychology) at Purdue University and the ESPP (European SPP) in Grenoble. She also presented a poster with Kaylee Miceli and Kevin O'Neill, IMC lab members, at the Cognitive Science Society meeting in Rotterdam. The poster was titled "Causation on a Continuum: No Normality Effects on Causal Judgments."
Professor Henry Pickford (Geman Studies and Philosophy) is on leave this semester (Fall 2024) with a senior fellowship at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies in Vienna. While there, he'll be researching the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno and Bildung.
This summer, Caleb Hazelwood gave talks at the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (at the University of South Carolina), Philosophy and Biology Shop Talks (at "Luna's Trail" in Westfield, North Carolina), and Philosophy of Biology at the Mountains (at the University of Utah). His paper, "Beanbag Holobionts," has been accepted for presentation at the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (in New Orleans this November) and will be published in Philosophy of Science with the conference proceedings.
On a personal note, the graduate students are celebrating (at least) two engagements that happened this summer: Adrienne Duke and her partner Mark Hrdy, as well as Caleb Hazelwood and his partner Jenna Duerr.
Over the summer, Michael Veldman successfully defended his dissertation, “Force, Cause, and Explanation: Euler and the Metaphysics of Science.” Congratulations, Dr. Veldman!
His advisors were Katherine Brading and Andrew Janiak. Also on his committee were Jennifer Jhun and Jeff McDonough. (Identify them in this picture if you dare.) Michael has left us for a postdoc with the Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy project, under the supervision of Corey Dyck at Western University.
Duke had a strong presence at the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) conference over the summer, with standing room only – despite the lack of air-conditioning and 90-degree heat – for a symposium of talks by Michael Veldman, Andrew Janiak, and alum Qiu Lin on Du Châtelet.
Later, there was a session dedicated to Katherine Brading and Marius Stan’s recent book, Philosophical Mechanics in the Age of Reason.
HOPOS also offered an opportunity to celebrate Michael’s successful dissertation defense, and to don Duke Centennial T-shirts as Katherine, Andrew, and Michael enjoyed Viennese victuals and libations on the last night of the conference.
This month I have some unsolicited advice for Kexuan regarding the benefits and limitations of platitudes. Aristotle tells us that one swallow does not make a spring, but a big gulp can be enough for the fall. The flourishing life may be “complete”, but we all know the flourishing term paper is “incomplete”. When words confuse me so, I like to turn to the late Daniel Dennett, that true connoisseur of philosophical humour, who once wrote: “Printed labels in Turkish mean nothing to you unless you understand Turkish.” (Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, p. 104). Sometimes they mean nothing to you even when you do understand Turkish, e.g. when you’ve been out of the country for several months and there’s 80% annual inflation. I guess my point is… that worrying over the permanence of the printed word can hamper one’s appreciation of the evanescent joys of PhD life?
Department of Philosophy