Departmental Newsletter: March 2026
This Month in Departmental History:
March 1936: The first issue of the Journal of Symbolic Logic is published.
The idea for the journal emerged from discussions between Curt Ducasse and Charles Baylis, who joined the Duke philosophy department in 1952.
Baylis was the first managing editor of the journal and a founding member of the Association for Symbolic Logic, where he served as the secretary-treasurer (1936-42) and vice president (1942-46).
He served as chair of the Duke department from 1956-68. The preface to a 1975 essay collection in Baylis' honor describes his time as chair:
"His intelligence and reputation attracted a group of very able philosophers and his warmth and capacity for friendship kept them together throughout his stay."
Reuben Stern's paper, "The Monty Hall Problem for Causal Decision Theory," is now forthcoming in The Journal of Philosophy.
Here is the abstract: The Monty Hall problem is a problem for causal decision theorists. Or so I argue here. My case for this claim is based on a novel “exotic” variant of the original Monty Hall problem, wherein the game-show contestant has foreknowledge of what door the game-show host will open. I argue that the causal decision theorist’s treatment of this case is in tension with our knowledge that we should switch when confronted with the original Monty Hall problem.
Felipe De Brigard published a new paper, "Artificial Intelligence and the Breakdown of the Intentional Stance," in a special issue of Philosophical Psychology on Daniel Dennett's philosophical legacy.
Ásta gave a colloquium talk, titled "Critical Social Metaphysics," at the CUNY Graduate Center, where Felipe De Brigard will also present in April.
Ásta also traveled to Duke Kunshan University to give a keynote and a seminar at the annual Humanities Research Center conference. She had not been to China since 1983!
David Wong gave a guest lecture on March 5 at the Microsoft Humanist AI Conference, which was organized around the aim of grounding Microsoft AI's model development in scholarship that engages with questions of human flourishing, moral reasoning, and ethical governance. For the virtual conference, they invited philosophers across the country, who gave talks to Microsoft researchers, engineers, and leaders of Microsoft Frontier AI team. They were interested in his work in moral pluralism and its possible implications for the ethics of AI, and he is continuing some followup work with this team.
David also gave a talk at the Duke Cognitive Liberty Conference on "Epistemic Humility and Cognitive Flexibility in Confucianism and Daoism" on March 6, and his entry on "Normative Relativism" was published in the Oxford Handbook of Normative Ethics.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is achieving more (on) consciousness. He and Eric Schwitzgebel published a reply to Jonathan Birch, titled "Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI," in Ethics.
Above, Juno hydrates.
Nina Van Rooy gave a three-minute elevator-pitch presentation about her dissertation at the Duke Graduate School Board of Visitors meeting on March 20.
Maya Kronfeld did an interview on jazz, philosophy, and literature for Duke’s non-commercial, student-run radio station WXDU, with senior Lilian Fan.
Check out the audio as well as Maya's playlist.
Ask Tayfun, Or Don’t: The (Unsolicited™) Advice Column
“The difficulty is obviously connected with the fact that without a special background there is no possibility of answering the question ‘What's the point?’. . . In clasping one's hands one may make a slight sucking noise, but what is the point of that?”
Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices, and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy, p. 120
Nina asks: “What is the point of philosophy? What is the point of academic philosophy?” I don’t have an exact chemical account, but I can offer a rough picture. Like liquids reaching the boiling point, sometimes people reach the philosophy point, and the indications are often similar—effervescence (of the mind), rising heat (in discussion), steam coming out (of the ears), and so on. And like pots and kettles in the former case, people who reach the philosophy point should be handled with care, preferably with oven mitts and cooking goggles.
The point of academic philosophy is more like the point of no return, and much less likely to be useful in the kitchen. However, one similarity that remains with the boiling point among some practitioners is no doubt the feeling (real or imagined) of movement towards the heavens, and of course, the danger that what comes out of one’s mouth is only so much hot air.