Please join us in congratulating Dr. Tara Weese, who successfully defended their dissertation on Monday, October 30th. Tara is currently an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Central Connecticut State University.
Sometimes, philosophy is best done in the open air, with no PowerPoints, no handouts, and no props of any kind. Hosted by Walter and joined by Katherine, Ben, Jennifer, Kevin, Reuben, the faculty research retreat at the beach included discussions of 18th century physics; social metaphysics; regression of price on the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI); criteria for algorithmic fairness; interpersonal rational coherence; and the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence. All of this while sitting out on the dock, surrounded by water and wildlife. In addition to philosophy, there was much eating, sun, and sand (commas are important).
Katherine Brading (above) and grad alum Qiu Lin (below) published their paper, “Du Châtelet on Absolute and Relative Motion,” in C. Soto (ed.), Current Debates in Philosophy of Science, Synthese Library. You can find it here.
Yuan Dong's abstract was accepted by the AFK in Florida: The Second Annual Philosophy of Video Games Conference. She will be presenting her (at the moment, still nonexistent) paper "When Player Authorship Trumps Prescribed Agency" at Florida Atlantic University on February 9-10, 2024. Below is evidence of Yuan’s status as the Elden Lord. (Editor's Note: "Elden Lord" is a title bestowed to a subset of gamers who beat Elden Ring, a 2022 action role-playing game, by completing a specific series of quests.)
Victor Crespo Santiago's paper, "Reevaluating COMPAS: Base Rate Tracking and Racial Bias," was accepted to the Thirty-seventh Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). Victor's collaborators on this project are Ben Eva, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Vijay Keswani, and Javi Rando (ETH Zurich). They will present at the workshop titled "Algorithmic Fairness Through the Lens of Time".
Ben Sarbey presented two papers at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities annual conference: "MAiD in Canada: Assisted Dying and Vulnerable Populations" and "Consoling the Grieving: Palliative Bereavement Care and the Ethics of Support Conversations."
Renford Bambrough once lamented: “There are an infinite number of actual and possible chairs. I cannot aspire to complete the enumeration of all chairs. . .” (Universals and Family Resemblances, p. 219). Thankfully we only have to concern ourselves with the two pictured here, and my unsolicited advice is only for one of them. While Katherine reminds us that being the Chair does not preclude a stand-up personality, the documentary record shows that there are also times when she is seated—whether in compliance with the categorical imperative to “park people” there, as the sign on the wall exhorts, or simply in order to appease the insatiable and unabatable dance of mirror neurons, I cannot say. What I can say is that it would make a great deal of sense if the name ‘Lego’ was derived from the Latin verb ‘legō’, which can mean “I gather, I put together”, but apparently its origin is some unrelated Danish expression instead. I guess the lesson is to partake of a priori etymology as one does of high-fructose corn syrup—in moderation.
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.
Department of Philosophy