SPRING 2010

FACULTY

Michael Bergmann’s forthcoming book, Divine Evil?  The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (co-edited with Michael Murray and Michael Rea), will be published in 2010 by Oxford University Press.  He also has two forthcoming papers: “Commonsense Skeptical Theism” in Science, Religion, and Metaphysics: New Essays on the Philosophy of Alvin Plantinga (Oxford University Press); and “Rational Religious Belief without Arguments” in Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, eds. Louis Pojman and Michael Rea (Wadsworth Publishing).  In April he presented the Gustav Bergmann Lecture at the University of Iowa and also the keynote address for the University of Iowa Graduate Philosophical Society.  In May he presented “Commonsense Skeptical Theism” at the Alvin Plantinga Retirement Conference at the University of Notre Dame and in October he will give the keynote address at the University of Rochester Graduate Epistemology Conference. Together with Matthias Steup, he will be co-hosting the 4th Annual Midwest Epistemology Workshop at Purdue in October.

The paperback edition of "Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: Fragments and Testomonia, A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays" by Patricia Curd (Phoenix Presocratic Series University of Toronto Press, 2007) is appearing in print in July 2010.

Paul Draper presented a paper, “Eleonorean Christianity and Biblical Genocide,” at a philosophy conference at the University of Notre Dame (September 2009).  The paper is forthcoming in Divine Evil?  The Moral Character of the God of Abraham, ed. Michael Bergmann et al., Oxford University Press, 2010.  He also recently presented the following papers : “Cumulative Cases and the God Debates” at an APA Eastern Division meeting in New York (December, 2009), “Cumulative Cases for Theism” at a Society for Philosophy of Religion meeting in Los Angeles (February, 2010), “God, Naturalism, and the Burden of Proof” at a philosophy colloquium at IUPUI (March, 2010), “Bayes’ Theorem and the Core of Cornea” at an APA Pacific Division meeting in San Francisco (April, 2010), and “Prior Probability and the Justification of Disbelief in Ultimism” at a Canadian Philosophical Association meeting in Montreal (May, 2010).  He is currently working on a book on the evidential problem of evil.

Daniel Frank's recent research includes "The Politics of Fear: Idolatry and Superstition in Maimonides and Spinoza"  (in Judaic Sources and Western Thought: Jerusalem's Enduring Presence, ed.  Jonathan Jacobs.  New York: Oxford University Press [forthcoming]) and a revised edition of Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed  (Hackett, 2010), 233 pp.

Matthias Steup presented a paper entitled “The Compatibilist Case for Doxastic Voluntarism” at the Justification Revisited Conference at the University of Geneva (March 2010) and at Epistemology: The Fourth Brazil Conference at PUCRS in Porto Alegre, Brazil (June 2010). His paper “Justification, Deontology, and Voluntary Control” is forthcoming in Der Begriff des Wissens, edited by Stefan Tolksdorff.

 FALL 2009

FACULTY

Jeff Brower has an article on “Aristotelian Endurantism: A New Solution to the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics” forthcoming in Mind.

Pat Curd is currently the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellow at the National Humanities Center (academic year 2009-10), working on a project called, “Divinity, Inteliigibility, and Human Thought in Presocratic Philosophy”.  In September, she presented a paper on “The Divine and the Thinkable” at the Symposium Praesocraticum in Budapest. In December, she will be presenting a paper on “(Some) Pre-Socratics on Thought and the Intelligible Cosmos” at the Princeton Classical Philosophy Colloquium in Princeton. 

A Polish translation of Daniel Frank’s History of Jewish Philosophy (Routledge, edited with Oliver Leaman) appeared late in summer 2009.

Christopher Pincock has an article on “Carnap’s Logical Structure of the World” forthcoming in Philosophy Compass.

Charlene Haddock Seigfried lectured on “Jane Addams’ and John Dewey’s Sympathetic Intercommunication,” as the invited speaker for the 150th anniversary celebration of John Dewey at the University of Illinois Carbondale.  She also gave the annual Killeen Chair Lecture at St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wisconsin. She spoke on “Jane Addams's Struggles with the Life of Art and the Art of Life.”  She accepted an invitation to join the Board of Editorial Consultants for the History of Philosophy Quarterly for 2009-2012.

SPRING 2009

Michael Bergmann’s paper “Evidentialism and the Great Pumpkin Objection” is forthcoming in Evidentialism and its Discontents, ed. Trent Dougherty (Oxford University Press).  His book, Justification without Awareness (Oxford 2006), was the subject of an Author-Meets-Critic session at the Central APA in Chicago in February.  In January, he presented a paper (“Externalist Justification and the Role of Appearances”) to the philosophy department at the University of Notre Dame and in June he will be one of the invited speakers at the 6th Annual Episteme Conference, to be held at Northwestern University, presenting a paper entitled “Rational Disagreement after Full Disclosure”.

Rod Bertolet accepted an invitation to join the Board of Editorial Consultants for American Philosophical Quarterly (term 2009-2012).  He is also a member of the APA Central Division Program Committee for the 2011 meetings.

Daniel Frank was elected to the Board of Directors, Association for Jewish Studies (term 2009-2012).

Donald Mitchell organized and hosted an exchange program for religious studies professors from five Southeast Asian universities with funding from the United States Department of States.  The group spoke at Purdue University, Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Chicago and Georgetown University.  A return exchange by American professors of religious studies is planned for December of this year.

Patrick Kain’s article “Kant's Defense of Human Moral Status” recently appeared in Journal of the History of Philosophy.  He was also pleased to host a Fulbright Scholar, Mr. Juan Iosa from Cordoba, Argentina, from February through May.  Mr. Iosa is Professor of Jurisprudence at the Law School of Siglo XXI University,  Cordoba, a scholar at CONICET (Argentinian National Council for  Scientific and Technological Research),  and is completing his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Conflict between Authority and  Autonomy” at the National University of Cordoba, under the supervision of Dr. Ricardo Caracciolo.

Charlene Haddock Seigfried was presented with the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy’s highest award, the Herbert Schneider Award for 2009, given for her “distinguished contribution to the understanding and development of American Philosophy”. She was an invited speaker at the Workshop on Pragmatism and the Ethics of Belief, at the Nordic Pragmatism Network in Finland, where her paper was “Distinguishing Myth from Reality:  Are James’ and Dewey’s Pragmatic Tools Sufficient?”  She also has a chapter, “Thinking Desire: Taking Perspectives Seriously,” in Reconstructing Democracy, Recontextualizing Dewey and another on “Jane Addams’s Principled Compromises,” in Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Theory and Practice.

FALL 2009

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Erik Baldwin has a paper on “Religious Dogma Without Religious Fundamentalism” forthcoming in The Journal of Social Science.  In October, he presented this paper at the 12th Annual Building Bridges Conference, as well as a paper on “On the Possibility of Antithetical Reasonable Disagreement” at the Alabama Philosophical Society Annual Conference.

John Houston presented a paper on "Aristotle on Friendship and Human Flourishing" at the 47th annual meeting of the Alabama Philosophical Society in October.  He also had a paper on Kierkegaard, "Breaking the Silence of Johannes De Silentio", read in absentia at the 34th annual European Studies Conference in Nebraska and an invited lect ure at Ball State University: on "Aristotle on Friendship, Justice and the Human Good".

Mickey Lorkowski has a review of Timothy Yoder's Hume on God forthcoming in the Religious Studies Review.

Sophia Stone presented a paper, "Connecting Plato to Attic Comedy: Humor in Protagoras and Apology", at the 27th annual joint meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy (S.A.G.P.) with the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy (SSIPS) at Fordham University in October.

SPRING 2009

Erik Baldwin’s chapter, “Hiro Nakamura and Bushido: Is Hiro a Samurai?”, recently appeared in Heroes and Philosophy and his paper, “On the Prospects of an Islamic Externalist Account of Warrant”, is forthcoming in Some Perspectives From Islamic Philosophy and Theology Today.  He also has reviews of Richard Swinburne’s Was Jesus God? forthcoming in The Religious Studies Review and of J.L. Schellenberg’s The Wisdom to Doubt forthcoming in Kinesis.  Next year Baldwin will be a visiting graduate student at the Center for Philosophy of Religion, Notre Dame University.

Somaieh Emamjomeh presented a paper "Demonic Silence" at the Annual Midsouth Philosophy Conference in February.

Erik Hanson and Erik Baldwin’s article, “Grounding a Transcendent Ethic of Love:  Kierkegaard and Daoism,” has been accepted for publication in Kinesis.

Erik Hanson delivered a paper, “Is Kierkegaard’s Comparison of Kant to Sancho Panza a Critque of the Law of Autonomy?”, at the Pacfic APA and has a paper on Soren Kierkegaard and Thomas Merton forthcoming in Kierkegaard Research: Sources Reception and Resources.

Brian Kanouse has an article, "The Post-Structural Effect on the Life-World: Re-thinking Critical Subjectivity and Ethics through Existential Performance and the Constitutive Power of Performativity" forthcoming in Existentialism and Phenomenology in the Twentieth Century, (ed) A.- T. Tymieniecka.

Mickey Lorkowski’s article “The Miracle of Moses” recently appeared in The Heythrop Journal.  He presented a paper, “Modal and Ontological Intuitions,” at the 16th Annual Graduate Student Conference at Kent State University in March (the paper will be published online at http://philosophy.kent.edu/journal/).  He also has a review of The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosopy forthcoming in The Religious Studies Review.

David Midtvedt received an Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching from the School of Languages and Cultures in April.

Corey Miller’s article “A Critique of Marx’s Philosophy of Religion from Religious Epistemology” was recently accepted at the International Philosophical Quarterly and his review of David Novak’s Natural Law in Judaism is forthcoming in Philosophia Christi.

Sophia Stone’s chapter "Why is Stephen Colbert Funny?" recently appeared in Stephen Colbert and Philosophy (Open Court Books).