Walter Sinnott-Armstrong had a great spring break in England! Laura Soter and Shanna Slank joined him for a workshop in London on comity at the beginning. Then Arielle Rothenberg and Ithika Senthilnathan (Duke undergrads) joined him for a workshop in Oxford on patient preference predictors at the end. Highlights included a trip to Darwin's house and talks with two Duke alumni groups.
Ben Sarbey presented this month on “The Vulnerable Populations Objection to Medical Aid in Dying” at the International Conference on the End of Life (Salt Lake City) and at the NC Philosophical Society (Davidson, NC)
There was a strong Duke presence at the 2024 Economic Methodology: Models, Measurement, and Interventions conference at Stanford University. Jennifer Jhun was a keynote speaker and Alex Rosenberg participated in a book symposium. Tzvetan Moev and alumni Kobi Finestone presented recent papers.
Yuan Dong's paper "Restoring Trust" has been accepted to the 12th East-West Philosophers' Conference which will take place in Hawaii from May 24 to 31.
Thomas Carnes won the South Carolina Society for Philosophy prize for best graduate student paper at this year's joint conference with the North Carolina Philosophy Society, held 15-16 March at Davidson College. Thomas's prize-winning paper is titled "Political Rioting as Negative Reciprocity," and argues that we should understand political riots that respond to severe and persistent injustice as fitting acts of negative reciprocity. One upshot of this view is that such instances of rioting can remain within the bounds of legitimate political practice. Thomas also presented a separate paper at the Pacific APA on 21 March, participating in a graduate student panel devoted to "expanding the borders of the immigration debate." Thomas's paper is titled "The Ontological Ambiguity of Certain Unauthorized Immigrants," and it identifies a novel form of ontological injustice (understood as an injustice that occurs in virtue of how one is socially constructed), which Thomas labels "ontological ambiguity." The paper shows how certain unauthorized immigrants are necessarily constructed as ontologically ambiguous. Realizing this, Thomas argues, requires us to reevaluate the literature surrounding these particular unauthorized immigrants. The overall aim of showing this, though, is to implore philosophers of immigration to bring tools of social ontology to bear on questions of migration justice.
Felipe De Brigard published a paper, titled "Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment," in Cognitive Science. The paper investigates how people track evaluate causal relationships: "Using eye tracking and Gaussian process modeling, [Felipe et al.] investigated how people mentally simulated past events to judge what caused the outcomes to occur."
Katherine took Duke Philosophy to the University of Oslo, and to the building named for her great-great-great-great uncle, Eilert Sundt, a pioneer of sociology in Norway. She is hoping that by wearing the department T-shirt to this special location she might win a prize.
This month I have some advice for my future self concerning banking, but you might also find it helpful if, like myself, you hail from a country which doesn’t have many checks (or balances). If you have all your payments on direct deposit, don’t rest assured, since you may still get some of those pesky checks in the mail. Best to take those to the bank (or do the online thingy) sooner rather than later, since apparently they expire. Even the Holy Roman Empire—which, as Voltaire pointed out, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire—did not reject Czechs, but Wells Fargo will, IF they have been issued more than 6 months ago—then again only sometimes, because other times they will accept them (though apparently they aren’t supposed to?). In short, it’s the luck of the draw—but as they say, better to be safe than have an empty safe.
If you have a question for Tayfun for the next newsletter, please send it to tayfun.gur@duke.edu... though you may get some advice even if you don't.